English Teachers’ Intercultural Awareness towards Culturally Diverse Students on Language Teaching

This study investigates the level of English teachers’ intercultural awareness towards culturally diverse students in Gorontalo Province, Indonesia. A total of 40 English teachers from junior and senior high schools participated in this study, specifically those teaching in schools with multicultural student populations. Data were collected through an online questionnaire distributed over a two-week period. The classification framework of intercultural awareness proposed by Baker (2011) was employed to guide the quantitative analysis, while the construct of intercultural knowledge and comprehension, derived from Deardorff’s (2006) model of intercultural competence, was used to measure awareness. The results showed that 75% of the respondents were categorized at the Intercultural level, 25% were at the Advanced level, and no teachers were classified at the Basic level. Teachers’ intercultural awareness was assessed across three dimensions: Cultural Self-Awareness (CSA), Cultural-Specific Information (CSI), and Sociolinguistic Awareness (SLA). The findings revealed that teachers demonstrate stronger awareness in sociolinguistic and general cultural aspects, but relatively less understanding of students' specific cultural backgrounds. Demographic variables such as age, gender, educational background, teaching experience, place of origin, school location, school type, and multicultural classroom size were analyzed. The findings indicated that teaching experience and classroom size demonstrated the most substantial influence on overall CSA, CSI, and SLA scores. Conversely, Gender had a less pronounced effect on these components. Keywords: Intercultural Awareness, Intercultural Competence, Cultural Diversity, Multicultural Classrooms, English Language Teaching