Do Students Communicate? Making Sense of Malaysian Undergraduates’ Classroom Experience

Meaningful interactions can help establish good rapport among individuals. However, in reality, not much is known about whether students in particular, communicate with each other in class or outside of class. There is thus a need to explore student interaction to understand their communication experiences. This paper presents the Malaysian undergraduate students’ narratives of their intercultural interactions in a classroom situation. As part of a larger study, data were gathered and analysed based on the focus group interviews and classroom observations with students from multicultural backgrounds in the northeast of Malaysia. The findings revealed that the intercultural interaction occurred but minimally. They conversed politely with diverse strategies. Also, the English language used varied based on their backgrounds and proficiency level. Such interactions assisted them to be acquainted with each other in the classroom environment and to be aware of their potentials and differences particularly in the understanding of cultural practices. The paper concludes with some implications that include highlighting the importance of language as an essential component that is often neglected and the need to make classroom a relevant and non-hostile realm for meaningful interactions to occur and to embrace polite and respectful language among individuals