Intercultural EFL teaching : an account of EFL teachers' perceptions and practices in multicultural classrooms in Santiago, Chile.

Multiculturalism is a school reality that has long been neglected in Chile. Since little is known about the way teachers are coping with this, this study intended to give insights into the intercultural practices and perceptions that EFL teachers have and are currently implementing to foster language learning in their classrooms. To that end, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to collect and analyze the data. Thus, 75 EFL teachers took an online questionnaire and the data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA and post-hoc tests. At the same time, three of the teachers who also took the questionnaire agreed to have their lessons observed and participated in individual interview sessions. The transcripts of the interviews were coded and analyzed through MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2018. The results from both the observation and the questionnaire were then compared and complemented with the findings from the interviews. Taken altogether, the results demonstrated that EFL teachers’ perceptions and observed practices differed greatly as teachers reported to perform most of the intercultural strategies proposed, but in practice implemented very few of them. In addition, teachers demonstrated to have positive attitudes towards the cultural diversity in their classrooms but lacked the ability to select and implement strategies that would help develop ICC among students. Based on these findings, it was therefore concluded that the EFL teachers who participated in the study were still far from becoming interculturally competent language educators.Multiculturalism is a school reality that has long been neglected in Chile. Since little is known about the way teachers are coping with this, this study intended to give insights into the intercultural practices and perceptions that EFL teachers have and are currently implementing to foster language learning in their classrooms. To that end, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to collect and analyze the data. Thus, 75 EFL teachers took an online questionnaire and the data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA and post-hoc tests. At the same time, three of the teachers who also took the questionnaire agreed to have their lessons observed and participated in individual interview sessions. The transcripts of the interviews were coded and analyzed through MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2018. The results from both the observation and the questionnaire were then compared and complemented with the findings from the interviews. Taken altogether, the results demonstrated that EFL teachers’ perceptions and observed practices differed greatly as teachers reported to perform most of the intercultural strategies proposed, but in practice implemented very few of them. In addition, teachers demonstrated to have positive attitudes towards the cultural diversity in their classrooms but lacked the ability to select and implement strategies that would help develop ICC among students. Based on these findings, it was therefore concluded that the EFL teachers who participated in the study were still far from becoming interculturally competent language educators.Multiculturalism is a school reality that has long been neglected in Chile. Since little is known about the way teachers are coping with this, this study intended to give insights into the intercultural practices and perceptions that EFL teachers have and are currently implementing to foster language learning in their classrooms. To that end, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to collect and analyze the data. Thus, 75 EFL teachers took an online questionnaire and the data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA and post-hoc tests. At the same time, three of the teachers who also took the questionnaire agreed to have their lessons observed and participated in individual interview sessions. The transcripts of the interviews were coded and analyzed through MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2018. The results from both the observation and the questionnaire were then compared and complemented with the findings from the interviews. Taken altogether, the results demonstrated that EFL teachers’ perceptions and observed practices differed greatly as teachers reported to perform most of the intercultural strategies proposed, but in practice implemented very few of them. In addition, teachers demonstrated to have positive attitudes towards the cultural diversity in their classrooms but lacked the ability to select and implement strategies that would help develop ICC among students. Based on these findings, it was therefore concluded that the EFL teachers who participated in the study were still far from becoming interculturally competent language educators.