Sociocultural Communication Essay

Witsel (2003) from the Southern Cross University advanced that teaching at tertiary or any level was rather uncomfortable even when the socioeconomic and cultural background of students are compatible with that of their teachers. Consequently, teachers have the added responsibility of motivating, assessing, negotiating, admonishing as well as teaching. The expert contends that these tasks force teachers to go beyond the call of duty by placing themselves in active relationships with students and the professional responsibilities they execute on a daily basis. Therefore, it becomes complicated when students appear in a classroom with various linguistic backgrounds, learning styles and expectations based on their socioeconomic and cultural development (Witsel, 2003).

If teachers could understand the demands of functioning in the multicultural classroom, the daily process involved in instruction delivery would be facilitated. Most importantly, educators

Still others were based on metalinguistic communication meaning that every culture has its own rules regarding acceptable and unacceptable behavior. This phenomenon is evident in every multicultural classroom and greatly affects instructional outcomes. While mathematics is considered a subject with a universal language embracing numbers and logic, students have to produce this ability based on a tongue in which they can articulate fluently (Winsor, 2007).

Experts have contended that a sense of self is altered when students whose second language is the one in which instruction is being communicated. Further it has been argued that the native language people use greatly influence the perspectives of their world (Kay & Kempton, 1984). If this is true, it explains the complexity teachers of any discipline encounter while functioning in a multicultural classroom with speakers of differing languages and