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As a language teacher I find myself in different teaching situations depending on the nationalities of my students. Sometimes I teach a group of students who all have the same native language which is different from teaching a multilingual group. I’ll compare the two situations from different angles. Linguistic difficulties Monolingual Group: You can predict and focus on specific linguistic difficulties, e.g. grammar, vocabulary, individual sound problems. Multilingual Group: You have to meet a variety of very different linguistic needs. For example, pronunciation problems are often specific to different nationalities. Language of Instructions Monolingual Group: It might be the case that the teacher has the same native language as the students, or at least knows a bit of it. Here the teacher will be able to use translation as an option. Most modern language teaching methods don’t encourage the use of translation in class. Multilingual Group: Even if teachers are familiar with the native language of some of the learners, they need to be able to convey information to the whole class and can use the language that they teach, the foreign language from a stand point of students. Cultural exchange Monolingual Group: If the teachers are not from the same culture as the learners -then they can exploit this as a source of cultural exchange Multilingual Group: Often the learners come form a wide range of countries and cultures, and there is a high level of interest in this which opens up good opportunities for cultural exchange. Motivation Monolingual Group: Within the classroom the motivation to use the foreign language may be lower. Multilingual Group: The learners need to cope using the foreign language in the classroom and, if in the target language community, to manage outside the classroom using the language that they learn