The statement given together with the question paper really stirs up a lot to think about.

Living in a multicultural and multi-ethnic society and environment has its own challenges. Often this is a factor that shifts and shapes the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Before going any further into this discussion, let us first set a definition on what is so called multiculture. The conventional definition as provided by oxforddicitionaries.com states that it is Relating to or containing several cultural or ethnic groups within a society. Another definition that we need to focus is by Banks & Banks (2010), in which the defined culture itself as a groups program for survival in and adaptation to its environment. In addition he also added that the essence of culture is how the people of the culture interprets, use and perceive them. Therefore, we could simple conclude that multicultural can be defined as multiple people with different set of norms or programs in a single situation. In Malaysia, we are very well known in having multicultural and ethnics of people living together in harmony. This is well supported by Najeemah (2012), by stating that Malaysia is a good multicultural countries around the world. She also mentioned that In fact Malaysia represents the true meaning of a diverse society in many ways such as; race, language and religion. Furthermore, she added that by population numbers, the Malaysian society consists of Malays 50.4%, Chinese 23.7%, Indigenous 11%, Indians 7.1% and others 7.8%. Relating to our discussion, having a country with multiracial society does mean that the teaching and learning in the classroom also differs than any other single culture or ethnic classroom. Although Malaysia is the only country in the world to have three different forms of school, National Schools, National Chinese Schools and National Tamil Schools, this doesnt mean that it is restricted to certain race only. On another note, Vision Schools (Sekolah Wawasan), were made in 2004 that increases interaction between races. This is again supported by Najeemah (2012), Vision schools are primary schools with the concept of children learning together within an area without regard for race or religion. Under this concept, two or three primary schools of different streams are placed in the same area. The first argument that we need to consider in our discussion is the differences in culture. According to DuPraw and Axner (1997), there are Six fundamental patterns of cultural differences -- ways in which cultures, as a whole, tend to vary from one another Those six patterns are different communications styles, different attitudes toward conflict, different approaches to completing task, different decision-making styles, different attitudes toward disclosure, and different approaches to knowing. Therefore we could conclude that the students under a teachers care are different, and the treatment and methods use also needs to differ accordingly. As mentioned communication is something that differs according to the culture. Communication is generally perceived as the language use. In teaching and learning

process, language is crucial because it could be a deciding factor for the students success in understanding a teaching and learning process. An example is if a student has a very strong accent and dialect influence, the student will have problem in understanding the teacher, as the teacher will use standard language. This view is supported Noriati, Boon, Sharifah and Zuraidah (2014), states that students that only manages to only mastered one language has a high tendency of getting left behind in studies. On the other hand, on the contrary to the students that mastered two or more languages, for example English and Bahasa Melayu, they will have a much better time in understanding teaching and learning that is taking place in the classroom. Noriati et al., (2014), supports this motion by indicating such students with that are polyglot masters a multiple languages has better chance in study and are more likely to succeed given proper training and education given. Language, as the general public knows, is a tool of unification. Therefore, in my opinion language, in this case the national language should be mastered by students disregarding their race in order as the excerpt of the discussion suggest to create united citizens. This motion is backed against Najeemah (2012) statement, in which she states At the same times, all the students from different ethnic background are obliged to learn Bahasa Malaysia the official and national language of the country in order to be able of communication with other ethnicities and also to comprehend the notion of national unity. This concludes that communication, in this case language is a factor that clearly implicates the teaching and learning process occurring in our local classrooms. Next, another key element we need to include in our discussion to argue about is ethnicity. Ethnicity is easily defined as traits background or something to associate about. As we know, when multicultural society exists, this also automatically means it also has various ethnicity and that is the case for our local classroom as well. Like the previous argument before, there are two sides to this argument too. This argument has a strong relation to the environment surrounding the student. The first is that if the school, or the location where the student lives is secluded from other ethnics, the only way that they might know about other ethnics are merely from texts, or video shown by the teacher. Such lack of physical or real life interaction with other ethnics will make the students lack of knowledge towards other races cultural and ethnicity. This view is supported by Noriati et al, (2014) that she also believed such behaviour will cause the students to have difficulties to mend with other ethnics and race later on in life. The second part is that differs from the first case is the student with interaction in a proper environment with students from different races and ethnicity. An example of this, if students with difference race and ethnicity like the Malays, Chinese, Indian and the Indigenous people

were to be placed in our national school (SK) or even Vision Schools, interaction will take place. This will make them more sensitive towards how their friends from another culture thinks and acts without even knowing, for example non-Muslim students will not eat or drink in front of Muslim students during fasting month. Such of the case mentioned can be related to Nooriati (2014), as she agrees that acceptance and respect were build up as a result of interaction during formal and informal learning. In my opinion, no child or student should not be experiencing the first case, but instead going through the second. This is because as mentioned before, the goal of creating a friendly learning and teaching culture is to create united citizen, therefore ethnicity or race should not be the key to stop students from learning together regardless their identity or even the teachers ethnicity. This thought is supported by nder, Kaplan, and Beoluk (2011), Although it is extremely important that children learn about their culture, it is also important for them to learn that not everyone is the same. This is especially important for children who live in a community that is not racially, ethnically or culturally diverse. So the implication that this implies is that teaching and learning in the classroom due to this arguments, need to directly and indirectly introduce about a culture and also being sensitive and aware of differences in the classroom. Another argument to be put in front of this discussion is social class. Social class is defined as people having the same social, economic, or educational status. This of course refers to the social class of the family of the student. Social class also plays and important role in giving an impact towards teaching and learning process that occurs in the classroom. According to Noriati et al, (2014), there are 3 basic social classes namely low, middle and high class. As the name suggests, the issue arises when low social class students will have problems in terms of getting the tools needed for learning and even a conducive environment to study. This happens due to a theory called cultural deprivation theory or in other words cultural deprivation model. According to Irizarry (2009), this theory states that family from low class social class tends to not give emphasise on education. It is also caused by the parents efforts to work overtime and neglects the students academic achievement in schools. This according to Noriati et al, (2014), will lead to demotivation and dropouts from school. However, it is a different story for the other side of the class. The social classes of middle and high brings better prospect for the student with such families. This is because, as oppose to what the low social class family is, financing is not a problem, thus getting supplies for education and even private tuition is possible. According to Noriati et al, (2014) this will double their chance in a wide variety of education compared to lower social classes. This situation causes teaching and learning in the normal classroom to be affected too. It would seemed easier if change of policy can be easily done, but in reality that is not the case at all. According to Hochschild (2003), any serious policy change is enormously complicated,

particularly in the diffuse and decentralized world of public schooling. That shows policy changes may not be the best solution to be made. However, Hoschild (2003) also mentioned of the ways that this could be overcome is by what she considered is the solution are by having a good quality preschool, individual reading instruction, small classes in the early grades, assignment to classes with peers who take learning seriously and behave in ways that enable them to learn, and consistently challenging academic course. She also stress that those steps will not only helped the low social class background students, but will also effect students with middle social class. Furthermore, she also emphasize that Most importantly, qualified, knowledgeable teachers make a difference, as described above. According to what is discussed above, a simple conclusion is, in creating a friendly learning and teaching culture that will lead to a united citizen, teaching and learning in classroom needs to reduce any huge and clear signs of cultural deprivation model by empowering teacher and activities that both classes can do and understand. Another point of discussion that we could discuss is the settlements of the students. In other words, where the student does lives. Settlement is defined as a place, typically one which has previously been uninhabited, where people establish a community. We can class the settlements into to category. The first is urban areas or town and the suburbs. In such areas, urban and suburbs for instance, they are more exposed to multicultural and ethnics around them. The same goes for social class like we have mentioned before. This is because in such areas, the social class also varies as there are urban poor people, private sector workers, government sector workers and business families. Such variety exposes them towards variety of culture due to the surrounding factor. In addition, according to Noriati et al, (2014), the norms of the students in regards towards education, spending ability, behaviour and view towards responsibility differs accordingly. The affecting factors are parents inspiration, their occupation, last but not least their view on education itself. In addition, Litheko (2012) mentioned that Parents who take a keen interest and put aside time to discuss school matters with their children also play a crucial role in the attitude of the child towards their education. Situation are a little bit different for the students in the second type of settlement, the rural and remote areas. This is because like previously mentioned too, these people will keep the same point of view and mindsets. Also, such remote and rural areas, does not have such diversity in their cultural and ethnicity. All of that results into their view in education is not ambitious and big. However, a small win is that according to Noriati et al, (2014), the student in rural and remote areas are less likely to create havoc based on their behaviour. To make a short conclusion of this point of discussion, to create a friendly learning and teaching culture in order to make a future united citizens, the teaching and learning process must be carried

out with more emphasis given towards reading. That was supported by Litheko (2012) But it has to be pointed out that children exposed to a culture of reading will normally perform better than those that do not have the privilege. That statement in my opinion shows that by reading, students in remote and rural area will know more about the world outside of their settlement. Thus, bringing us to improve teaching and learning session with more information to be fed to students via reading. In my opening statement until now, we have focus most of the discussion on the students. However, teaching and learning does not happens if there are no one to teach. So, in order to make this discussion balanced, teachers also should be a topic of argument. The first point of argument that I would like to present forward is acceptance and fair treatment. According to Noriati et al, (2014), teachers should give fair treatment to students according to their personal needs. I agree with this statement because a teacher, after knowing the student cultural, ethnicity, and social class backgrounds, should not treat students based on those traits, but instead treat them equally. Another issue that teacher should avoid is doing generalisation using the students family background information. An example of this, a teacher knowing the family parents are both medical doctors, thus he or she generalise that the student must be good at biology or science. Another example to ponder is some very classical that we can see about a decade ago in our schools, is where the teacher know the family of the student is from a farmer or a hard labour, will suggest the student to take up different streams of education. Meaning the teacher will ask the student to avoid taking science stream or engineering due to fear that such student will not be able to carry forward that course. Therefore, such generalisation is inappropriate and this is supported by Najeemah (2012), in which she clearly states, It has been cases that the academic achievements of the students have been tied to a stereotypical interpretation of their races and this matter has to be carefully monitored in multiethnic schools to prevent any kind of tension or discrimination. A simple conclusion of this argument would be that teacher should never made a generalisation towards the student based on some very on-the-surface assumptions. The next point of discussion should be learning strategies. Learning strategies as define by Weinstein and Mayer (1986) as behaviours and thoughts that a learner engages in during learning which are intended to influence the learners encoding process. It is well known that there are various learning strategies are made available for teachers to choose from. However, the best teaching and learning strategies that teachers should apply, in accordance to our multicultural society is cooperative learning. Cooperative learning is defined as small heterogeneously mixed working groups of learners learning

collaborative/social skills while working toward a common academic goal or task. An

additional definition is by Allison and Rehm (2007), which is cooperative learning is an instructional approach that benefits all students, and, in particular, students from diverse backgrounds. The question is, why is it important for the teacher to use it in teaching and

learning? First of all, as mentioned in the early parts of this discussion, that in order to create a united citizens, in my opinion I believe that understanding needs to be created in the early stage by mixing in classroom during teaching and learning lesson. My statement is not a sweeping statement, but it is supported by other sources. According to Najeemah (2012), commenting on cooperative teaching as a way to overcome deficiencies faced by schools (vision schools) with multicultural students states, This style of teaching will give the students this opportunity to learn the subjects from different points of view (in this case different ethnic pints of view) and it will enable them to have a better comprehension of issues regarding to social and ethnical issues. I would like to also stress, a part of this discussion was ultimately to hopefully create a united citizen in the future too and this teaching and learning strategy is suitable. That is due to Allison and Rehm (2007) that mentioned cooperative learning provides a perfect opportunity for them to interact and collaborate with friends and other young people who are likely to become friends. This shows that with cooperative learning, the students will learn how to be friends and united from a young age. Such friendships, most of the time will be carried forward towards their life later as a responsible adult. If there is still doubt, some example will be put forward on how it will be applied in the classroom situation. Take the "Think/Pair/Share" method in which students are first asked to think individually about a topic. Later, in pairs, preferably different culture or ethnic, they share their thoughts together. Later they are required to share that idea with the entire class. Concluding this point of argument, it is crucial for us to know that this teaching and learning method, we can safely said, based on the arguments presented that such thing will imply a new wave on the way multicultural teaching and learning takes place, both for teacher and students. It is also important that teacher, chooses this method to be used as it is most effective in accordance to our local classroom. Moving along these lines of the focus shifting towards teachers, it is also in the power of the teacher to select appropriate resources. Some may overlook how much this could be an influence. This is because resources that is used by a teacher may only use the majority ethnic as a subject of a text. This might cause the students from the minority ethnicity to lose interest in the subject and feel demotivated. This is supported, in accordance to Noriati et al, (2014) students of minority ethnic may felt left out due towards texts or materials used are more majority oriented materials without mentioning those of theirs. To make this more into perspective, let us narrow it into literature. In literature it is easy to used and also the story could bring different messages and some is probably uniting messages. According to Brown

(2014), Powerful literature can transport students into a world where they can feel the joys and struggles of others and where they can inhabit the cultural landscape the characters live in. This indicates that literature can lift barriers of live and socioeconomic barriers and social statuses. Now we know, for the purpose of discussing this point, we use literature as one of the branches of subject taught in school. Therefore in selecting resources for this subject, according to Brown (2014), the literature must have cultural integrity and avoidance of exoticsm. Making it simple, these two means that the character of the literature piece chose must not contain any racial stereotype. Brown (2014), also reaffirms this by stating Our sharing of multicultural literature can open new vistas for students, making way for new explorations not possible within the time constraints of the school calendar. The question how does this implicates teaching and learning? The answer is teaching and learning will be much more rewarding in sense of characters that are interesting, with messages of multicultural society conveyed subconsciously. It also means that teachers will be much more sensitive towards the resource they pick. I believe, the power that teachers were given to select the appropriate resource would cause better understanding indirectly during lessons conducted by teachers. The third part of this discussion, in my preference, as we had touch both and teacher and students, we should also not forget about the schools or the environment where teaching and learning takes place. Some might see that the role of school administrators have no relation towards the unity and the multicultural relations. However, on the contrary, according to Najeemah (2012), They play an important role not only ensuring students can get the best academic achievements but also ensuring students from different ethnic groups can socially interact well. Furthermore, according to Noriati et al, (2014), a good manager creates a good team, and that anology is also used for the administrators. This said, it means a wellmanaged school will not only create a suitable environment, but also could trigger a workforce between Parents Teacher Association, the school and the community. Concluding this, though it may seem vague, however I believe a conducive environment will trigger more interaction between races in school. This implicates towards teaching and learning by making everyone to work together and teachers to be much more aware of what they can do so that the students can benefit from the environment that motivates them. Another point to ponder about how does school involves in this discussion is by the schools locality. This point might be similar to some points brought on the previous parts touching about the students. The schools locality is also important because according to Noriati et al, (2014), the schools locality affects the culture of the school. She also mentioned that urba n schools get better access to more than one ethnicity in the school. This provides good interaction between the students. However, the same cannot be said for the rural areas

school. Lack of ethnicity in the school is one thing, but the other worrying issue is lack of teachers, and teachers most probably will ask for transfer back to their original urban place. In my opinion, such an issue can be tackle by having transfer student programmes from urban to rural and vice versa. Teachers also should be given better initiative to avoid them moving out from rural area schools. Concluding this discussion, there are 3 main parts of discussion that we have gone through. First students are the most important part. Students need to be more aware and need to be able to push themselves to improve their communication and even help themselves and inform their parents about the importance of education. The second part focuses on the teacher. Teachers are the conductors of the students. Therefore, teachers need to be more proactive towards the changes in the classroom and the multicultural differences that is present. This will make lessons much more effective. Lastly schools, with great administrator can be the force moving all the other party to collaborate and create a conducive environment for the students. Therefore with all those 3 component, we knew that multicultural does have a great implication towards teaching and learning in the classroom.

Bibliography
Allison, B. N., & Rehm, M. L. (2007). Effective Teaching Strategies for Middle School Learners in Multicultural, Multilingual Classrooms. Middle School Journal, v39 n2, 12-18. Barbara B. Brown, P. (2014). A Guide to Selecting Multicultural Literature. Retrieved from Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/resources/selection_guide/ Hochschild, J. L. (2003). Social Class in Public Schools . Journal of Social Issues, 821-840. Irizarry, J. (2009, December 23). Classroom Learning. Retrieved from Cultural Deficit Model: http://www.education.com/reference/article/cultural-deficit-model/ James A. Banks, C. A. ( 2009). Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives. John Wiley & Sons. Johanna Klassen, P. L. (2008, Mac ). Subject Teachers Teaching Learning Strategies:. Retrieved from Subject Teachers Teaching Learning Strategies:Two Case Studies: http://www.ugc.edu.hk/tlqpr01/site/abstracts/057_klassen.htm LITHEKO, D. S. (2012). The Difference in Performance Between Schools. Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education, 1-17. Marcelle E. DuPraw, M. A. (1997 ). Working on Common Cross-cultural Communication Challenges. Retrieved from Toward a More Perfect Union in an Age of Diversity: http://www.pbs.org/ampu/crosscult.html Noriati A. Rashid, B. P. (2014). Budaya dan Pembelajaran. Shah Alam: Oxford Fajar Bakti. Onder, I., Kaplan, A. O., & Besoluk, S. (2011). A Sample Science Education Activity in Multicultural Environm. Online Submission, US-China Education Review v8, 110-117. Yusof, N. M. (2012). Study of social interaction among students of Vision Schools in Malaysia. . Asian Ethnicity. Vol. 13 Issue 1, 47-73.