ABSTRACT
Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is gaining recognition as a crucial pedagogical approach that responds to the diverse needs of students across multicultural classrooms. In the Philippines, public schools are made up of a wide range of cultural backgrounds, making this approach very significant. Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT), as defined by Bonner et al. (2017), is a teaching approach that prioritizes students' cultural backgrounds and experiences to enhance their learning. This study seeks to explore how pre-service teachers perceive CRT, their level of preparedness, and the challenges they anticipate, as well as the strategies they find effective during their practicum in addressing cultural diversity in their future classrooms. A mixed-method approach was employed, and survey questionnaires and interview questionnaires were used for data gathering. Participants are selected based on the qualification that they are pre-service teachers specializing in language education at universities in Metro Manila. Findings from this study aim to enhance English Language Teaching (ELT) by highlighting competencies and challenges related to CRT implementation in the Philippine public schools.
Keywords: Culturally Responsive Teaching, Culture, Diversity, Multi-culture, Pre- Service Teachers, English Language Teaching, Philippines