THE CHALLENGE OF TEACHING ESP TO MULTICULTURAL GROUPS OF ENGINEERING STUDENTS
THE CHALLENGE OF TEACHING ESP TO MULTICULTURAL GROUPS OF ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Summary/Abstract: Every study group can be considered a cultural community with distinctive features, putting together its components specificity. The discipline, the approach to learning/teaching, the students and the teacher are all part of the multicultural classroom, a stimulating environment, as it combines the various experiences and perspectives of the actors, thus improving the instruction process qualitatively. However, variety frequently means complexity, and sometimes this can be conducive to increasing the challenge that the teacher of a multicultural group has to face. We maintain that such a challenge is worth taking, as, if the teacher’s approach to achieving this goal is well balanced, taking into consideration the context particular features, there are real advantages that may turn such an endeavour into a rewarding one for all the participants. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to analyze the author’s educational context - teaching ESP to multicultural groups of engineering students whose tuition language is English, with a view to grasping the students’ dissimilar perspectives, their individual differences/needs and to implementing the data collected into pedagogically appropriate decisions meant to create the right balance between individualism and diversity within the classroom. A questionnaire administered to the learners in order to obtain both quantitative but mainly qualitative data is presented and triangulated with case studies, teacher - students discussions and classroom observation, as the starting point in devising optimal ways of answering the challenge by remolding the teaching approach in order to accommodate ‘bringing together’ tasks meant to provide better ‘getting to know each other’ chances.

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