Dear students,
Developing EFL Student-Teachers’ Intercultural Communication Competences
In my article offered to you below I shared my experiences of designing possible Web-based projects with the EFL student-teachers. The article was published in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Developing Intercultural Competences held in Khabarovsk in June 2010. After reading the article suggest your own ideas of possible Web-based school projects for your students that could be implemented during your teaching.
Developing EFL Student-Teachers’ Intercultural Communication Competences
Through Project Work
Natalya Maximova
Far Eastern State University of Humanities Khabarovsk , Russia
In recent years intercultural communication competences [Alptekin, 2002] are becoming increasingly important in nearly all spheres of our life. The ability to create the conditions for developing such competences is one of the greatest challenges of educators, including EFL educators whose primary task is to involve students into authentic intercultural communication with speakers of the target language.
In this paper I will share my experiences of using project work for developing EFL student-teachers’ intercultural competences and certain professional skills within the framework of the intercultural education module as part of the EFL Methodology course taught at ELT programs in the Russian Pedagogical Universities, namely in the Far Eastern University of Humanities (Khabarovsk, Russia).
The module is aimed at students’ understanding the goals and content of intercultural education as well as getting acquainted with recent instructional methods and tools used for developing intercultural competences, namely: guided discussions, cultural role-plays, reflective diaries and portfolios as tools to monitor students’ sociocultural and intercultural learning, traditional and Internet-based projects, etc). The students are also involved in the process of designing culture-oriented materials including project activities for using them during their practice teaching at schools.
Speaking about the goals of the intercultural education it should be mentioned that Russia
- the ability of the learners to bring the culture of origin, i.e. the native culture of the learners and the foreign culture into relation with each other;
- the ability to be sensitive and use a variety of strategies for contact with those from other cultures;
- the capacity to fulfill the role of cultural intermediary between one’s own culture and the
foreign culture and to deal effectively with intercultural misunderstandings and conflict situations;
- the ability to overcome stereotyped relationships [Council of Europe, 2001: 101-130].
It is important to mention that in recent years more and more attention is paid to the role of the teacher who is responsible for the effective implementation of the goals mentioned above. The researchers point out three main categories of teachers’ qualifications for intercultural foreign language: knowledge, attitudes, and behavior or actions to be taken.
It has become clear now that the scope of the knowledge that the intercultural teacher needs should be much broader than it used to be. Besides the deep knowledge of certain language and culture it should include the knowledge related to anthropology, sociology, psychology, and other fields. Besides, the teacher should be knowledgable of the demands that cultural pluralism in their classroom brings. Teachers should possess extensive enough knowledge in the theory and practice of intercultural communication, which includes intercultural training methods, intercultural communicative skills training and of course the knowledge in the sphere of second language teaching/learning.
As for the attitudes, the intercultural teachers should be open, tolerant, experimental, and willing to negotiate. This means that they should not be teachers in the traditional teacher-dominant sense. Their roles will range from counselor to participant observer, to mediator, to fellow learner. They should create the climate that encourages the development of empathy and as some researchers say, a “third culture” in which cultural differences are recognized and respected. In other words, the teachers should learn how to cope with emotional reactions of their students to other cultures.
Behavior changes will come with the action-centered practice of employing intercultural knowledge in communicative, true-to-life situations in which a learner must try and search for new levels of negotiated interaction. It is a well-known fact that one of the most effective tools to create such intercultural situations is Internet-based collaborative projects that can:
- provide authentic English practice: students are able to see the relevance to the real world of what they are learning;
- provide variety for students and teachers: they get out of the classroom and 'into' the environment;
- integrate the 'four skills' of reading, writing, speaking and listening in a natural way;
- promote learner autonomy and co-operation.
The experiences of using the Internet-based collaborative projects for developing intercultural competences have been described in a number of books and articles on EFL/ESL methodology [Hooper, 2000; Teeler with Gray, 2000; Warschauer, Shetzer, Meloni, 2004; Taylor,1999]. The student-teachers in my course discuss the goals of different types of such projects (school Webfolios, cultural exchange projects, virtual visits and virtual classrooms, research environmental projects, etc) that were organized by schools and universities in different countries. After discussing the advantages and caveats of Web-based project work the student-teachers are encouraged to design the activities for the possible collaborative projects that might be used during their teaching practice or later in their professional work. Students learn how to plan instructions and explanations for the initial stage of the project; design tasks for each participant or group about the topic being investigated; plan a final reflection stage based on students’ reflective diaries, questionnaires, evaluations, etc).
One of the actual collaborative projects that my students explore is a Global learning project that involves students from many different countries, including the USA Russia Global Leaning Center Wichita State University , Kansas , USA
The current collaborative Internet-based project involving the students from two Russian universities (Far Eastern State Humanities University and Khabarovsk Academy of Economics and Law) and Wichita State University
The first example is an interclass Internet project proposed by Valeria Gabalite, a 5th year student-teacher at the Far Eastern Humanities University, Khabarovsk , Russia Khabarovsk
At the pre-project introductory stage the participants get acquainted with each other, for example, by posting their photos on the project web-site and answering different survey questions. The example of the survey questions may be the following:
Freedom for me is:
independence from my parents
an opportunity to express my thoughts freely;
an opportunity to express my thoughts freely;
an ability to wear what I want;
an opportunity to choose friends and pastime;
no rules at all.
At this stage students also familiarize themselves with the cultures of their cities via selected informational Web-sites. It is advisable for students to do computer intercultural simulations, the kinds that are designed for the students of Wichita State University
The results of the survey offered for students may be displayed on the project’s website in the form of the pie-chart or in other forms or on the project coordinator’s blog and may serve as guidelines for round table videoconferences or other activities that could be organized after the survey (competitions for the best poster that symbolizes the concept of freedom or the best song about freedom).
The while-project activities involve students into the process of information gathering on specific aspects of freedom, for example, legal, interpersonal, or reflexive and may be accompanied by reading or listening to the materials related to the general topic. At this stage the students may be divided into groups depending on their interests and preferences or on the form of their final project product. For example, the participants may be grouped together for creating a joint blog, a final report, an oral presentation for a videoconferencing session, or a bulletin. The drafts of the written reports are exchanged via e-mail, and each group’s final report is then posted onto the project’s Web-site. The communication among the participants may continue by means of other Internet multimedia resources such as various messengers or the Skype program that allows daily face-to-face video communication which encourages, besides reading and writing skills, the development of speaking and listening skills. Such kind of interpersonal communication that involves numerous authentic situations of communicative success and failures may motivate the partners to make an autonomous effort for overcoming the difficulties that may arise.
The teacher’s task in this context is twofold. First, to help learners acquire effective communication strategies, for example:
to clarify and specify the information received;
to form arguments and counterarguments;
to start and finalize a discussion, etc.
The second task is to foster positive attitudes to a new culture and its representatives, namely to develop such qualities as tolerance to different ideas and behavior, discipline in fulfilling the required project tasks, readiness to collaborate playing the role of a leader or a member of a working group.
The post-project activities involve students into various reflective tasks that deal with the evaluation of the results of the intercultural communication. The questions for reflection may be the following:
- What kind of pre-project work would you do if you had a chance to plan it again? Why?
- What information about your foreign partners have you learnt while communicating to each other (interests, preferences, opinions)? How different are your foreign partners in their attitudes and behavior as compared to your classmates?
- Which additional knowledge and from which spheres did you have to acquire to better understand the discussed questions and your partners?
The teachers may also analyze print or on-line texts, observation notes made by the students during the videoconferencing sessions, and other documents that allow them to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their efforts.
The second example that illustrates my student-teachers efforts is the Internet-based project designed by Olesya Karzhevskaya. The project was aimed at introducing the students of another Khabarovsk
For the pre-project activities Olesya suggested that the students in groups should explore the resources of the Portland-Khabarovsk Sister-City Association web-site (www.pksca.org/) to answer the following questions:
When was the association founded?
What are the goals of the association?
Who supports the association financially and to who is it accountable?
How is it possible to become a member of the association?
What collaborative projects have been implemented by both Portland Khabarovsk
The suggested activities for the main part of the project are brainstorming aimed at finding new ideas for facilitating friendship between the two cities and gathering information for the final presentations.
In their final presentations students have to explain the goals of the new collaborative efforts, to describe the possible steps to implement the project using different kinds of visuals, to explain the sources that would support the suggested ideas.
The post-project activities may include analyzing and evaluating the results of the project work done by a group of “experts” selected by students and teachers.
Though the project activities designed by my students in the EFL Methodology classroom are mostly creations of the minds and sometimes may sound unrealistic I urge my future colleagues to look at the potential of them, rather than limitations, namely the potential of developing students’ communicative competencies (specifically reading and writing) and intercultural competences ( students' awareness of other cultures, their cultural sensitivity, strategies for contact with those from other cultures,etc).
Conclusion
To involve EFL student-teachers into authentic and challenging intercultural communication EFL teacher-trainers have to rethink their traditional ways of teaching. They must be creative and imaginative and ask their students to do the same. The results may not be always positive and sometimes be matched with frustrations and hurdles in the way of implementing the suggested ideas but the process is worthwhile, if teacher-trainers want to help their students to be autonomous learners, successful communicators and achieve their goals in the best possible way in the age of the Internet and computer technologies.
References
1. Alptekin, C. Towards intercultural comminicative competence in ELT Journal 56(1): 2002.- pp. 57-64.
3. Chlopek, S. The intercultural approach to EFL teaching and learning. English Teaching Forum 46(4): 2008.- pp.10-19.
4. Council of Europe ,: a Common European Framework of References for language: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge Cambridge University
5. Hooper, D. Microsoft Internet Explorer for Terrified Teachers (includes CD), Teacher Created Materials, Inc., 2001.
6. Rimmington, G., Alagic M. Third place learning: reflective Inquiry into Intercultural and Global Cage Painting”.A volume in the series: Teaching<~>Learning Indigenous, Intercultural Worldviews: International Perspectives on Social Justice and Human Rights. Series Editor(s): Tonya Huber-Warring, St. Cloud State University, 2008.
7. Taylor, K. Introducing the Internet: a beginner’s guide to the Internet. Rowley , MA
8. Teeler, D with Gray P. How to use the Internet in ELT, Essex: Pearson Education Limited:. 2000.
9. Warschauer, M, Shetzer, H., Meloni, C.). Internet for English Teaching. United States Department of State, Office of English Language Programs. – 2004.
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