showing your cultural competence as a foreign tutor
Learning environments are becoming more and more multicultural as society progresses. This is why it's becoming crucial for tutors to show cultural competence in their practice. These practices ensure that students are not put off by educational material because it doesn't fit their cultural background or because it conflicts with their worldview.
Being a culturally competent tutor is one of the most important ways to ensure that students from various cultural backgrounds understand your lessons. Be aware of your own implicit biases and the systemic issues that contribute to a lack of opportunity so that you can move towards creating an inclusive environment.
If you want to improve your cultural competence and help students throughout your tutoring career, here's what we recommend you do:
1. Consider Your Behaviour
To be culturally competent as a tutor, it's vital to understand how unconscious biases influence your behaviour. Awareness of your unconscious biases is the first step to ensuring that you can differentiate between stereotypes and individual cases. This is how you can be sure that you do not falsely believe there is a correlation between race and cultural traits. Be self-conscious of the stereotypes you were raised with and how they might affect your teaching.
2. Practice Intercultural Communication
Communicating seamlessly with students of different ethnic groups will help you create an environment free of cultural barriers and assumptions. Intercultural communication is the act of being able to communicate effectively with people from different cultures and backgrounds, and it's something that every tutor should strive to do when it comes to cultural competence.
3. Accept This Teaching Style with Open Arms
Pushing students out of their comfort zones is a great way to improve their skills, but you may make them unnecessarily uncomfortable without realising it. The way you present material can be offensive if it does not include all cultural backgrounds. You should ensure that you are inclusive of all cultures, races, genders, and sexuality.
4. Treat Your Students as Individuals
You should be able to consider all of your students as individuals who deserve your respect no matter what race or background they come from. As individuals, it's essential to recognise that one can grow up in multiple cultures. Therefore, you should be able to consider a person's cultural background without putting them in a box or limiting their potential.
5. Respect Your Students
If you want to be culturally competent as a tutor, you should be able to respect your students and their beliefs without question. This means that you must have an open mind and be able to take the time to learn about the different cultural backgrounds represented in your class and your practice. In addition, you should be open to the possibility that your own experience could be limiting your perspective.
Conclusion
Teaching abroad can be an enriching experience, but you will need to take a few extra steps to ensure that you represent your home country with the utmost respect. Whether you bring up delicate topics in your lessons or if you are working in an environment that is unfamiliar to you, it's essential to work with your students in a culturally competent way. Respect young minds; you'll be better equipped to shape them and our future.
If you believe you have what it takes to shape young minds and prepare them for their futures, apply for a tutoring job in Melbourne, Australia. Practice your cultural competence, and provide a safe learning environment for all students from all walks of life. So sign up for our platform today and be the teacher you're meant to be!
