Establishing a positive classroom climate

Nowadays it's very common to find different nationalities in a classroom, no matter which grade. It's very important that children feel comfortable, that will help them to integrate in the community and make friends. If we want our students to be successful in their academic goals, we need to provide all the tools and resources they need to feel this way.

Teachers who manage this type of multicultural classrooms, have to pay special attention to the integration of these students in the community.

They also have to be aware of bullying. Some cultural groups are more susceptible to be bullied since they don't want to report the cases and be accepted by their peers.

It's very important to build a strong relationship between teacher and students. That is essential for having a good communication in case the student has a problem and feel comfortable enough to tell it to the teacher. Some children are afraid of telling their problems because other students can label him/her as a informer, that's why is very important that your students feel that they can trust you.

Building this type of relationship could be as easy as asking the student how everything is going, if they feel as part of the group, in case they need extra help with any activity you will be available, etc. You always have to let them know that you are a reliable and supportive person at school.

Some of the strategies I would like to follow to facilitate the integration and the participation of every single student in the classroom are:

• At the beginning of the year I will encourage students to introduce themselves. I would ask them for nationality, previous years and some details about their families, like how many brothers and sister or which language is usually spoken at home.

• After have some information about all the students, I will arrange the classroom by groups of 4-6 students from different nationalities or cultural backgrounds to encourage diversity and respect. I think that could prevent bullying since all the students will have the same "opportunities" to be bullied because of cultural reasons.

• As I'll planning to teach Biology, I can introduce some bullying cases that happened with some famous researchers. 

• I will ask students to bring some pictures of important places in their country related with the nature. They also need to write a brief description about the place. This will be use to decorate the classroom's walls.

This multicultural environment could be more susceptible of bullying. That's why it's very important to teach that diversity is something good. There are some interesting anti bullying programs. The school where I'm working uses "Second step" with low rates of bullying cases.

It's also important to teach respect between peers and teachers and talk about some problems happened in class.