Teaching and Learning in a University English-mediated Course in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings

Abstract

This study explores the experiences of a teacher and students in an English-mediated course, GlobalSociety and Language at a Korean university in multicultural and multilingual settings. The main participants arethe instructor and 25 students from various cultures who attended the course. The data collection is derivedfrom three different sources: the student needs survey, the teacher journal, and the students’ learning stories. Qualitative content analysis was used to interpret the data through which the themes and coding categoriesemerged in the analytic induction processes. The major findings indicate that despite big differences in Englishproficiency levels and needs of the students, the cultural diversity in the course enabled both the instructor andthe students to increase multicultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence through buildingrapport in the process of participating in various interactive classroom activities and thus to enhance contentknowledge. Several important issues are discussed to help us understand English as a lingua franca in a Koreanuniversity course.