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be applicable to or understandable by learners from different cultural, economic or social backgrounds. The learners must be divided into small groups that span gender, ability, culture and temperament with each learner being given equal responsibility for the overall task. It is then necessary to oversee the distribution of tasks to ensure that all the learners will benefit from their contribution. It is important for the groups to understand that they will all be held accountable for the final result or outcome of the task and in order for this to remain in focus it would be beneficial to set an overall assessment at the completion of the task. This will ensure that while each learner tackles their specific responsibility, they will work together to ensure they all understand every aspect of each other's role. In this vein it is necessary to encourage the learners to seek help, constructive criticism and advice from their peers rather than from the teacher. This will teach them social interaction, understanding, conflict, and leadership and decision making skills. The facilitator should be available to guide the students through these challenges without too much influence over the groups so that the learners benefit from overcoming the problems themselves.

Once the initial task has been completed, and prior to assessment, it would be beneficial to implement peer tutoring sessions. This would involve each learner in the group tutoring fellow group members in the knowledge they have gained through their research on their specific task within the assignment. This would be a valuable exercise as it would help to motivate the learners to fully understand what they are learning in order to gain the self importance, and thus self-esteem, in successfully tutoring their peers with their newfound expertise. It would also encourage and facilitate knowledge and understanding of different perspectives of each of the topics, based on the background experience of the expert', while they teach what they have learned. A reward for the group with the most knowledge of the subject would add motivation to the willingness to learn the subject matter from their peers in order to excel in their final assessment which would be individually taken.

Cooperative learning and peer tutoring are valuable methods to implement within a multicultural teaching situation. They offer the learners a more diverse view on the subject matter as well as a greater motivation to learn it. In certain situations it enables few resources to be used efficiently so that the learners do not suffer from the lack thereof. These methods teach cooperation, understanding and teamwork, and enable the learners to develop self esteem within their peer group. Cognitive learning is encouraged by the fact that the teacher is there to guide and facilitate rather than to lead and control the learning process. It would be beneficial to implement cooperative learning and peer tutoring into the educational experience of all learners in all our multicultural schools.

Learn more about this author, Jane Hendry.
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