teaching english to multi-lingual language learners

the purpose of this paper was to examine the level of difficulty of teaching english to multi-lingual learners. the present study is a case study done in some iranian language centres in malaysia. for this reason, some diverse students with different language background and culture, from different countries were selected. in the present qualitative study, the teacher has been evaluating herself her knowledge, skills, and the method of teaching to the subjects. in other words, while teaching, she was an observer, too. and after each class, she wrote a report included results of her observation related to her self-perceived strengths and the challenges she encountered in the class with different subjects while teaching general english.the constant comparative method (ccm) was used to analyze the data obtained from observations. the findings of this study revealed that sometimes the only way for teaching was translation; it has been used traditionally and is considered as a linguistically relevant component. it has been a very valuable tool because it helps students to acquire practical language skills and improve these skills. translation has unique characteristics compared with other kinds of language practices; it involves receptive and reproductive linguistic activity at the same time (nikolayev, 2000). on some occasions the majority of students can deduce the meaning of the word from the context, but a couple of students are not able to do so; the best solution is translation. a quick translation is more reasonable than definition, giving examples, explanation, mime or anything else (viney, 2004). since, this study was not done in experimental design; it is not possible to generalize the findings. it is suggested to do more investigation.