The child brings to the classroom a socially conditioned way of behaving, both verbal and nonverbal, which reflects both the maturational process and sociocultural conditioning, and a socially conditioned view of what the norms of the dominant society are and what that society expects of him or her. The school attempts to transmit the cultural heritage in the form of certain basic social values and practices and in the "correct" usage of the national language. Teachers also bring to the classroom their own socially conditioned ways of behaving and a value system on which they interpret their role as teachers and the goals of the school, and they accept, reject or attempt to modify the behavior of the children. Thus there are three sets of rules in operation in a school setting, each in interaction with the other two. The communication problems that can occur in teaching and learning as a result of this interaction are magnified and made more complicated in the case of a multiethnic classroom. This paper identifies the purely crosscultural and linguistic factors that affect communication in this teaching-learning situation and illustrates them with specific examples from school settings containing large percentages of Chinese, Filipino, and Hispanic populations. (Author/CFM)