Teacher’s perceptions of multilingual education and teaching in a multilingual classroom - the case of the Republic of Macedonia

Sažetak: Macedonia is a multilingual, multiethnic, and multicultural country where the language teach-ers face challenges in their classrooms. South East European University (SEEU) is located in Tetovo, Macedonia and it was established in 2001. It has a branch campus in Skopje. SEEU has five faculties: Contemporary Sciences and Technologies, Law, Public Administration, Business Economics and faculty of Languages, Cultures and Communications. The students enrolled at the SEEU have different ethnicities Albanians, Macedonians, Turkish, Roma, etc. The study programs are offered in three languages: Albanian, Macedonian and English and all students enrolled at SEEU can choose their language of study. The aim of the paper is to find out teachers’ perceptions about multicultural education and what teaching techniques they employ in their instruction. Current literature deals with second language teaching and focuses on either the recommendation of different methods of teaching a second language or describing the experiences of second language learners. Nevertheless, few studies in Macedonia try to investigate the phenomenon of teaching students in a multi-lingual environment and investigate teachers’ perceptions of teaching in a multilingual class-room. The research context is the SEEU and the study uses two methods: Teacher Questionnaire and Classroom Observations. The findings from the data suggest that teachers find teaching in a multicultural classroom challenging and enjoyable.