MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION THROUGH LANGUAGE LEARNING: PROMOTING TOLERANCE AND INCLUSION IN EFL CLASSROOMS

Abstract

Indonesia has many ethnics, religions, and languages, so the students in one class are not the same. The language subject can be used to teach them to respect each other. This article discusses multicultural education through language learning to promote tolerance and inclusion. The method used is literature review from international journals about multicultural education and intercultural competence. The result shows that language learning can promote tolerance if the material contains various cultures, the students are asked to discuss and to see from the perspective of the other people, and the teacher gives a chance for all the students to speak. But if the culture is only presented like the information about the food and the festival, the students will not learn to respect the difference. Therefore the teacher must design the material and the activity carefully.