| Abstract | Globalisation entails the movement of people across national borders, with many
international and exchange students studying at universities outside their home countries. As
a result, classrooms increasingly bring together students from diverse ethnic and linguistic
backgrounds. Such multicultural classrooms present opportunities for interaction across
languages and for learning about other cultures. However, the author observed that in many
South Korean university classes, interaction between local and foreign students is limited.
During tutorial discussions, students tend to form co-ethnic groups, communicating in
Korean, or, for foreign and exchange students, in English. This study employs qualitative
methods using self-administered open-ended questionnaires distributed via Google Forms.
The participants are undergraduate students in social science and business majors enrolled in
four undergraduate courses during the spring and fall semesters of 2025. Shortlisted cases
were subsequently interviewed in-depth. Drawing on Howard Giles’ Communication
Accommodation Theory (CAT), the study examines how students attempt to initiate contact
and converge during classroom activities, yet often fail to sustain such efforts. As a result,
they retreat to their comfort zones and remain within homogeneous language groups.
Consequently, language barriers translate into social distance, leading to segregation in what
are nominally multicultural classrooms. The findings contribute to a better understanding of
communication among students from different linguistic backgrounds and further develop the
discourse on communication accommodation within the context of multicultural higher
education. |
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