There is no doubt that intercultural communication can put many challenges, but I think that in the FL education this activity can be used to enhance the learning process like no other. As we leared from the readings last week, bringing awareness on the "other's" culture and on your own, and negotiating a "third place" with yourself to adapt and enrich your cultural perspective, are proof that this type of communication offers a dimension in language learning that no textbook can offer.
Reading the many research on what makes interc. comm. a challenge, I realized that expectation and motivation are two factors that can arise tensions between the two sides, as well as personal goals, cultural stereotypes etc. Nevertheless, I think that the kind of involvement that students at any level would get from inter. comm. is extremely valuable, and as close as possible to full foreing language immersion (in fact, this kind of activity could work as the perfect introduction to the idea of studying abroad).
These are a few conclusions derived from the readings to make the inter. comm. project work better:
1. Make a clear and objective presentation of the goals of the project.
2. It would be very good to survey the students expectations on the project beforehand and based on that, work together on a solid commitment.
3. Study and explain the other culture carefully, focusing on the most obvious differences such as politeness, diplomacy, social values, religion, etc.
4. Practice seeing your reality with a different perspective. For example, a debate on religion diversity and the difference between "accepting" the other and "tolerate" the other.
5. Learn as much as possible about the persons on the other side, and explain the benefits of intercultural collaboration.
4 comments:
I like your idea of surveying the students to determine their expectations for the project. Often times when students have significant input in the learning process, the outcomes are far superior than when we, as educators, force our desired outcomes on the learners. I agree that intercultural communication has some of the same benefits as studying abroad.
There are also some tensions between two cultures, twp sides, two mentalities. I agree with you that involvement is very valuable for full for. lang. immersion. I just wanted to mention that no matter how tolerant one may be, how positive one may look at another culture, tensions do occcur. It is an unintentioanl reaction to cultural differences, and it usu takes plave when a person is abroad and is fully immersed into a foreing society.
Nevertheless ,studying language and trying to understand its culture is the best decision.
Javier,
I wrote out this lovely long and thought-out comment to your blog, but it didn't post...and I hadn't saved it. Sooo, I apologize for the brevity of this comment, but I expended all my brain energy on the first, so I'm just going to sum up what I remember:
1: I really liked your point about viewing your reality from another perspective. I think we have a unique opportunity as FL teachers to offer that to our students, since we teach the primary transmittor of culture, language.
2. I wanted to reiterate Maya's point about how misunderstandings can arise even when we are interculturally competent, such as in a speech situation for example.
3. I appreciate your use of the word "tensions" ;).
Very nice post.
I enjoyed reading this post. I agree that intercultural communication can definatly ENHANCE the learning process because it is through authentic communcation with a native speaker. I also like that you included guidelines on how to do a intercultural communicative task because sometimes enough prior planning is not done and the task ends up wasting time.
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