Multiculturalism and the Effective Acquisition of Vocabulary

Abstract

Multiculturalism has been gaining increasingly more popularity in all spheres of studies including applied linguistics and cultural studies. This research was done to find out whether multiculturalism, which means the coexistence of diverse cultural values and backgrounds that learners have in the same learning setting, has any contributions (positive or negative) to the acquisition of vocabulary. An experiment was designed and executed with the participation of four groups namely: Multicultural, Bicultural, Monocultural Turkish, and Monocultural Georgian groups. The research has proved that even though there are some risks and drawbacks, multicultural groups have developed their vocabulary more than any other groups.