IATEFL Poland
Computer Special Interest Group

Teaching English with Technology
A Journal for Teachers of English
ISSN 1642-1027
Vol. 6, Issue 2 (May 2006)

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TEACHING CULTURE!
A MULTI-NATIONAL BLENDED COURSE FOR TEACHERS OF ADULTS IN EUROPE


By Anne E M Fox
Grenaa Handelsskole
Grenaa, Denmark
af @ ghs.dk

 

Abstract

The Teaching Culture! project develops inter-cultural awareness in adult educators through blended-learning teacher training courses. The main question was whether inter-cultural awareness could develop through a course which was largely online. We experimented in monitoring the progress of inter-cultural awareness, a set of skills which are notoriously difficult to define. We used learning diaries and portfolios over two rounds of the pilot course, the first round with language teachers and the second for teachers in all subject areas. The results of our study suggest that our approach succeeds in raising inter-cultural awareness. 

 

Introduction

 

‘To know another‘s language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of one’s self.’ (Brembeck, 1997) 

 

In an increasingly mobile and multi-cultural Europe you don’t even have to travel to come across other cultures. School teachers are increasingly well prepared for inter-cultural encounters but adult education teachers do not have access to so many training opportunities. The Teaching Culture! project, supported by the Grundtvig strand of the European Union’s Socrates programme, sought to remedy this by experimenting with developing a blended learning teacher training course to enable adult education teachers to develop their inter-cultural awareness. One of the greatest uncertainties was whether inter-cultural awareness could be nurtured through a course which was largely online. The project also experimented with how to monitor the development of cultural awareness.

Inter-cultural issues which may arise in the adult education classroom include:

1.       Dealing with different attitudes to learning;

2.       Dealing with different attitudes to teaching; eg. the teacher as ‘sage on the stage’ or ‘guide on the side’.

3.       Building cultural perspectives into teaching materials and activities.

4.       Overcoming stereotypes and prejudice in learners, their families and other teachers.

5.       Communicating across cultures.

These issues arise to a greater or lesser extent across the whole of adult education. The obvious starting point is language teachers, who were targeted in the first round of the pilot course. However the second round of the pilot course was opened to teachers of all subjects so that the general applicability of the course could be tested. In both pilots there were strict limits on the numbers from each country to ensure a mixture of cultural backgrounds. The group size was 11 in both pilots.

The project partners came from Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Austria, Germany, Spain, Ireland and the UK and included professionals from universities, research institutes, teacher training institutions, adult education institutions and cultural associations. There was, therefore, a broad inter-cultural representation from various relevant professions. In addition to technical and administrative support, required roles included personal tutors for each participant, unit tutors to prepare and monitor the use of materials for both the online and face to face units, and a course director to ensure curriculum cohesion.

Often inter-cultural training takes place in mono-cultural groups, so one of the aims with this project was to make the experience inter-cultural right from the start. One common problem for adults taking part in training events is lack of time. Therefore, taking a culturally mixed group of adults for an intensive face-to-face course over several weeks was simply not feasible especially since this would involve long periods in another country for most, if not all, of the participants. The solution proposed was therefore a blended learning course in three modules. The first module is an extended period of collaborative online study followed by the second module, an intensive week of face-to-face activities, with the whole rounded off by a third module, a second online period in which participants devise and try out each other’s ideas in the classroom. See the course structure in Table 1 below.

 

Module

Mode and content

Module 1 (5 months)

Online – inter-cultural basics

Module 2 (1 week)

Residential face to face – experiencing culture

Module 3 (3 months)

Online – applying in the classroom

 

Table 1: The three module structure.

 

The project faced two major challenges:

 

1.       Is it possible to develop inter-cultural awareness online?

2.       Is it possible to chart the development of inter-cultural awareness online?

 

Module One

 

1. Developing inter-cultural awareness online

 

There are two approaches to inter-cultural training, culture specific and culture general. Culture specific refers to the do’s and don’ts guidelines one often gets just prior to a business trip, foreign work placement, or internship to a specific country. This gives information without stressing understanding. Culture general refers to the acquisition of an understanding of what culture means and how it can lead to different behaviours and perceptions. Whilst not of immediate use to a forthcoming visit to a specific culture, it may help to make one more tolerant of ambiguity and differences, which in the long run may be more useful. It was this latter approach which we tried to promote in the Teaching Culture course.

The first module provides an introduction to the major features of inter-cultural considerations by reference to both the basic theory of inter-cultural communication and the participants’ own personal experiences. The second module was the face to face component designed to provide inter-cultural experiences by bringing the multi-cultural group together in an unfamiliar location where they would get to know each other. They would also take part in inter-cultural activities which test their ability to operate in a different culture. The third and final module is where participants get the opportunity to combine theory and personal experience in planning activities for their own classroom as well as trying out their colleagues’ ideas to judge how well the ideas travel across cultural boundaries and how to adapt them for use in different cultural contexts.

In adopting the culture-general approach, it is usual to lead participants to recognise their own cultural background before going on to examine features of other cultures and their own reactions to these. However, this was not explicit enough for the participants of the first pilot round, and therefore in the second round the project group devised a story metaphor to chart this learning journey. The story was based around the idea of the group coming together in the virtual campus. The resulting story and corresponding modules are shown in Table 2 below.

 

Module and title

Mode and content

1. International campus: Think of your experience as a treasure chest.

Online: Grounding in inter-cultural communication

2. Intercultural encounters: Think of your learning as a journey.

Face-to-face: Inter-cultural experiences

3. Intercultural classroom: Think of your lesson as an experiment.

Online: Trial of inter-cultural materials in the classroom through online collaboration.

 

Table 2: The story metaphor across the three modules

 

The story metaphor was most strongly developed in the units of Module 1 as shown below in Table 3.

 

Unit title

Unit aim

1. Welcome to the Moodle campus

Familiarisation with the online learning environment

2. This is how we do things at home

Exploring your own and others’ cultures

3. Do you really only use Windows around here?

Exploring the metaphor of culture as the software of the mind.

4. Is there method behind this madness?

Theoretical background to inter-cultural communication

5. What would they say back home?

Cultures as depicted in the mass media

6. You’ll never believe what happened!

Role play: A critical incident in Cologne

7. Don’t forget your toothbrush

Preparation for the residential

 

Table 3: Units in Module 1 – Intercultural campus

 

Attempts were made to vary the activities as much as possible during the online sections and to avoid the tendency to make online courses heavily text-based. The exercises in Module 1 therefore included reports on the participants’ own culture, exploration of metaphors, choosing representative pictures, collecting evidence from media, and individual interviews and role plays. This achieved two goals, the first being to make the course accessible to those whose skills in English are not so high and the second being to make the course as experiential as possible since this is deemed most effective in inter-cultural training.

 

2. Monitoring the development of inter-cultural awareness online

 

Inter-cultural awareness is manifest in the reactions of an individual when faced with an inter-cultural situation. Those reactions are based mainly on an individual’s innermost beliefs and values and can be tempered to some extent by training and awareness-raising. These deeply personal attributes are largely hidden from view and difficult to make explicit. There are also important ethical questions relating to the extent to which we can aim to tamper with and change these beliefs as described by Byram (2000). Another indication of the sensitivity of the issue is that the promoters of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages have considered and failed to come up with indicators of inter-cultural skills.

 

Learning diary and portfolio

 

The project team therefore concluded that the most effective approach to charting inter-cultural awareness development was through self-reporting and self-assessment. The approach adopted was to encourage reflective learning through the compilation of (1) a learning diary, in which participants recorded their progress, feelings, triumphs and difficulties; and (2) a portfolio in which participants could collect their work, notes and other material of interest. These two items were shared periodically with the personal tutor which each participant was allocated. This was usually the project partner in the country where the participant was based. In most cases this ensured the participant had face to face meetings throughout the duration of the course but in a couple of cases the distances involved meant that these tutorial sessions were also online or at least by telephone. Table 4 below shows where the tutors fit in to the overall course structure.

 

Personal tutor

In the same country, monitors progress

Unit tutors

Plan and present course material

Course director

Ensures continuity and cohesion

Background IT (instructional technology), financial and administrative support

 

Table 4: Support structure

 

Collaborative activities

 

Another important part of the strategy was to create opportunities for reflection by promoting collaborative activities across cultures as the main method of content delivery. Many of the activities across the whole course required working in small groups with participants from different cultures. Participants were also required to use their immediate circle of family, friends and colleagues as cultural informants for finding out about their own cultural background. During the face to face residential period one of the tasks is for participants to form small inter-cultural working groups for the final teaching activity in which group members try out and evaluate each other’s tasks as well as their own, once back in their own home environment.

 

Module 2

 

The residential

 

The residential in the first pilot took place in Lithuania, a country unknown by most of our participants except our one Lithuanian participant, and therefore a really inter-cultural experience for all. An important element of the residential was an exercise designed to reveal the participants’ values with respect to their teaching. This was the subject of a useful plenary on the last day about the implications of participants’ bringing different sets of values to their classrooms. In addition to purely pedagogical and team building exercises, various inter-cultural experiences were timetabled in. One was a tutorial in the Lithuanian language and another was a city-wide treasure hunt through Vilnius which required our participants to solicit information from passers-by thereby initiating contact with local people.

In Lithuania, our hosts organised dancing classes so that our participants could learn one or two traditional Lithuanian dances. The dances are a much more important part of Lithuanian culture than in many other European cultures partly because they were suppressed or discouraged during the Soviet era. The school children assigned to the task did a very good job of coaching our participants. The biggest challenge was for our participants to perform, in front of the mainly local Lithuanian audience, the two dances they had learned at a folk dance evening organised especially for our benefit. The performance was followed by a buffet reception which in fact turned out to be more of a challenge for the project partners than the participants who had had the benefit of getting to know the Lithuanians all afternoon. This demonstrated the value of personal contact quite forcibly and the lesson was not lost on the project partners. A basic theme running throughout the project is ‘from virtual to real´ but sometimes it was the other way round as when the participants created an online travelogue of the residential period which can be seen at http://www.teaching-culture.de/en/events/litauen/travelogue/travelogue_start.htm.

 

Module 3

 

The lesson exchange

 

For some participants this was the most anticipated part of the course. During the residential week they came together in small inter-cultural groups of three to four persons to create inter-cultural lessons around a common theme. The themes which emerged during the residential were


·         non-verbal communication

·         the use of pictures

·         developing empathy or tolerance.


Groups formed easily during the residential prior to creating, trialling and exchanging teaching ideas. The biggest problem in this final module was the staggered summer holiday across Europe which made regular online communication difficult since the project partners had naturally insisted on inter-cultural working groups. It also affected the participants’ ability to trial the lesson plans with exam or induction periods intervening.

 

Challenges

 

The project organizers were able to learn a great deal from the first round, and lessons learned were implemented in the second pilot which at the time of writing is still in session. The second pilot invited participants from any subject area and this attracted a very wide range of participants including art and dance teachers, online learning consultants, multimedia teachers and economics lecturers, which will create a challenge in forming groups for the exchange of teaching ideas in Module 3.

Two of the problems encountered have already been mentioned namely staggered holidays and the need for a more explicit thread running through the course. These have both been addressed; the first by re-scheduling the course and the second by the development of the story metaphor. Another problem was that a common language had to be chosen for the course. One of the main aims was to foster communication between the participants, thus facility in English was a requirement, and it then became a question of what level was sufficient. We decided on B1[1]  according to the Common European Framework of Reference. Even so there is a delicate balance to be struck between the amount of background theory to be considered as a basic minimum and over-burdening participants with language which is above their level.

In some cases this problem can be overcome by ensuring that all rubrics, guidance, and instructions generated by the project developers are at an appropriate level. For example, an article was specially written for one of the units and this was explicitly simplified for the second pilot. This was done using online tools such as The Compleat Lexical Tutor (http://www.lextutor.ca/), which analyzes texts to show which word lists the vocabulary used belongs to. It was therefore possible to substitute uncommon words with more common words in many but not all cases. The readability analysis contained within the text processing program was also used to reduce average sentence length and number of passive sentences.

The other major problem unsurprisingly was misunderstandings. To a certain extent, an inter-cultural communication course thrives on misunderstandings in that they provide a rich fund of critical incidents which serve both to illustrate problems and which can be used as exercises for deepening understanding later on. The potential for misunderstanding was all the greater because we were working mostly online. The main example from the first round occurred when we invited participants to post pictures representing their culture.

When one of the participants posted a picture of the Virgin Mary, some of the other participants assumed that this meant that she was fervently religious. However, such assumptions were not voiced openly through the course website. Rather they were voiced privately between participants or to tutors by email. It was not until the residential week when a session on the use of pictures was scheduled that an explanation of the picture was finally forthcoming. The participant had posted the picture to represent the differences she had experienced moving from a Protestant part of Germany to a Catholic region where religious icons are much more common. This incident illustrates two points. First was the need to define tasks carefully when working online. The problem arose when the participant did not realise she was meant to comment on her choices after allowing an initial period for reaction by the rest of the group. The second point is that while the course was carefully planned, there was also a need and a willingness to amend the programme when the necessity arose.

 

Benefits

 

There were many benefits to running two pilot rounds, one of these being that we could use the participants from the first round as consultants to the round 2 participants when they come to planning their inter-cultural classroom activities. By sharing their newly gained expertise and further experience gained since the end of the course it is hoped that this will be an important additional benefit of the course.

 

Results

 

What sort of reflections does the learning diary give rise to? The following extracts are quoted as evidence that the online section of the course does give rise to real increases in inter-cultural awareness. They are taken from the pilot 2 participants, who have yet to meet face to face at the time of writing.

1.       It was my first chat and I liked it. Talking, communicating, replying, listening, disclosing - that way we may get to know our own stereotypes as well as the more hidden ones in the media. Knowing my dialogue partners leads to the wish to understand them.” Birgit

2.       “I've enjoyed this lively expression and exchange of messages and reflections, and I find the asynchronous online format useful for such discussions. I like the pause to stimulate my own thinking before I write back to you, and sometimes I may have an inner dialogue for a while before I answer, and maybe even not, when I'm too busy elsewhere.” Susanne

3.       “I really enjoyed this unit because of its really practical and everyday-life implications. Unit 5 was a very important step for my intercultural understanding.” Magdalena

4.       “I would like to tell you that I was really enjoyed about the last unit and the chat was a very new and interesting experience for me. All your contributions made me think a lot about the influence of mass media and my own stereotypical views and their origins.” Brigitte

There is greater interaction in the second round, and this has made for a richer experience for all. It is difficult to know whether this is due to the individuals involved or whether it can be attributed to the improved presentation and structure of the course. The quotes below from current participants reflect this:

1.       “And until now all my expectations have [been] fulfilled and every day I am looking forward to the news from all the other participants.” Brigitte

2.       “I like working in multicultural settings and thought this course would be interesting [and so] it proves to be.” Birgit

 

It must be admitted that using this devolved system of recording inter-cultural awareness development means that the results are very personal, known sometimes only to the participant’s personal tutor apart from the participant. Indicators of progress emerge by proxy through evaluations undertaken at key points of the course such as half way through Module 1, at the end of Module 2, and at the end of Module 3. Since the inception of the project, the project team has been working on producing a set of can-do statements regarding cultural awareness for participants to assess themselves against. We are making progress on such a list but have yet to test it out on any of the pilot groups.


Conclusion


The hope is that the course developed by the project can be adapted and used by others once the project is over. The blend of online and face-to-face contributes to its success, with online Module 1 providing a solid basis from which to work in the face-to-face Module 2. The residential is an important transformative event which builds on the awareness set in train during the online period and helps to build the trust necessary for the participants to work more closely together in developing and sharing teaching ideas. The two pilot rounds have been invaluable in fine-tuning the course. As we enter the read-write era of the Internet, the so-called Web 2.0, more interactivity could be built into the online section of the course thereby making this part even more inter-cultural.

 

Notes

 

1. Level B is an independent user; B1 is defined as ’Threshold’. Find out more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_
Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages#Levels
                     

2. Readers interested in finding out more about the project are invited to request a video DVD about the first round from the author or see a reduced-quality version on the project website (http://www.teaching-culture.de/en/events/
litauen/travelogue/video.htm
).

 

References

 

Brembeck, W. (1997) The development and teaching of a college course in intercultural communication. Readings in Intercultural Communication. Pittsburgh: SIETAR Publications, University of Pittsburgh.

 Byram, M. (2000) Assessing inter-cultural competence in language teaching. Sprogforum, 6 (18), 8-1. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/sprogforum/Espr18/byram.html.

Cobb, T. The Compleat Lexical Tutor.  [Web site]. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://www.lextutor.ca/.

Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operation/education/
Languages/Language_Policy/Common_
Framework_of_Reference/1cadre.asp#TopOfPage

Teaching Culture. [Web site]. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://www.teaching-culture.de. 


Editor’s notes:

 

This presentation was made as a regular session at theWebheads in Action Online Convergence on November 19, 2005. 





NEGOTIATING FOR MEANING ACROSS BORDERS WITH CMC


by Peggy Patterson
Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA
ppatters @ rice.edu

and Susana Trabaldo
National Technological University, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Strabaldo @ net-learning.com.ar

 

Abstract

 

In our Tandem Language Learning (TLL) project experience using Computer Mediated Communication, fifty students of Spanish at a university in the USA exchanged e-mail and participated in synchronous conversations using Instant Messaging with fifty students of English at a university in Argentina.  An analysis of the discourse produced with these two methods of CMC showed that a variety of functions were used by the students to negotiate for meaning.   The investigators will refer to the importance of TLL and negotiating for meaning in Second Language Acquisition as well as the students´ opinions after the experience.  We will also include examples of the learners’ cultural exchange, post study observations, and recommend possibilities for future investigation. 

 

Introduction

 

As language educators we all know that learning a language is more than just memorizing a vocabulary list and grammar rules.  Language learners need communicative competence which has as a feature the ability to use the target language to communicate in a spontaneous situation.  Computer technology has created the opportunity to include computer mediated communication (CMC) in our language teaching.  Recently, second language (L2) researchers have found that using e-mail and chat rooms is an effective use of technology for a communicative approach to teaching languages (Blake 2000, Lee 2004, Patterson 2001, Toyoda & Harrison 2002, Tudini 2003, Schwienhorst 1997 and 1998, Sotillo 2000, Smith 2003). The increased use of and familiarity with CMC have provided us with the prospect of incorporating computer mediated Tandem Language Learning (TLL) into the classroom.

 

Tandem Language Learning

 

TLL involves the interaction of two individuals with different native languages that are learning each other’s language.  They meet and talk, speaking one language for half the time and the other language the other half.  In this way both participants benefit from the exchange.

Schwienhorst (1998) and Little et al (1999) refer to the three principles of tandem learning presented in the Tandem Guide by Little & Brammerts (1996), which have been respected in this project:

·         Bilingualism: Learners were instructed to use both target languages equally throughout the project. 

·         Reciprocity: Because the learners alternated languages in both forms of CMC, both groups benefited from the interaction. 

·         Autonomy:  Rather than switch to their native language students often negotiated for meaning in the target language when they did not understand something. They took the initiative for their own learning and took advantage of the opportunity to learn both language and culture from a native speaker without the guidance of a teacher. 

 

In TLL the learners assume the responsibility for improving their own language skills, facilitating clear communication with native speakers of their target language by asking questions and negotiating for meaning, and helping their tandem partners to understand their native language.  The learners have an opportunity to not only practice the target language but also to be exposed to a different culture, first-hand from a native speaker.  Each learner takes on the role of teacher or as Donaldson and Kötter explain it, "the partners become in effect 'resident experts' of their own linguistic and cultural community and support the learning process of the other" (1999: 537).

Appel (1999), Lee (2004), and Schwienhorst (1998b) liken the concept of learner autonomy to the social-interactive nature of language presented by the psychologist Vygotsky.  As Lee puts it, language is a tool that the individual uses to socialize with others and through this socialization, learners can help each other in performing a shared task.  Vygotsky (1978) states that this social interaction promotes learning through the “zone of proximal development” which he explains as the difference in what an individual can achieve solving problems by himself and what he can achieve with the help of an adult or more capable peers.  Thus, through social interaction during the course of this investigation, using CMC, the tandem partners enter this ‘zone of proximal development’ as they interact and negotiate meaning, helping each other comprehend each other’s language and learn about their culture under one another’s guidance.

We provided our students with the opportunity to participate in this TLL project hoping that as they interacted with native speakers of the target language they would improve their language skills, increase their vocabulary in the target language (TL), learn more about the culture found in their tandem partner's country, and of course increase their language acquisition.  

 

Negotiation for meaning

 

           Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research has shown that interaction and especially negotiation for meaning are essential elements of language acquisition (Gass and Varonis 1994, Gass 1997, Long 1985, Pica 1994, Swain 1998).

Pica (1994: 494) defines negotiation as “the modification and restructuring of interaction that occurs when learners and their interlocutors anticipate, perceive, or experience difficulties in message comprehensibility.”  As the learners negotiate for meaning they modify their speech linguistically to produce comprehensible TL. They accomplish this task by repeating a message, adjusting its syntax, changing the vocabulary, or modifying its form and meaning.

Long and Robinson (1998) classified the process of negotiation for meaning under the Interaction Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that the conditions for second language acquisition are improved when learners negotiate meaning with other speakers.  These negotiations tend to increase input comprehensibility through language modifications such as simplifications, confirmation or clarification requests, elaborations, and recasts.  Thus, activities that promote negotiation for meaning create a quality environment for SLA to occur.

 

Design and methodology of study

 

The subjects of this study included 50 learners of Spanish from Rice University in Houston, Texas and 50 learners of English from Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.   The two groups of 50 learners at the two universities were randomly paired as tandem partners.  Throughout one semester, from September to December, the pairs of students communicated with each other by sending e-mails and participating in Instant Message (IM) online chats.  In addition, some Rice students created video letters to be viewed by the Buenos Aires students and Buenos Aires students posted digital photographs on-line for Rice students to see. 

In September and October the learners exchanged two e-mails every week: one e-mail in Spanish and one e-mail in English.  There were, however, no controls or limits on the topics or the amount of language they should write in each e-mail.  Because of this there was no consistency in the length of e-mails that were sent.  Throughout the month of November, the pairs of learners participated in four IM chats online using the MSN Instant Messaging system.  They were told to participate in each chat for a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes, twice in Spanish and twice in English.  At the end of the investigation, the learners were given a questionnaire to provide the investigators with feedback and the learners’ opinion of the study and its benefits if any.

 

Data and Discourse Functions

 

Data were collected in the form of e-mails and saved IM chats.  Each written utterance produced by the 50 pairs of learners was analyzed and classified according to its function within the discourse.  The categories used to classify the different functions of each utterance in both the asynchronous e-mails and synchronous computer discussions are based on those used by Patterson (2001) in her research on Computer Assisted Class Discussions (CACD).  A list of the functions used in the discourse analysis which are considered to reflect negotiation for meaning can be found in the table in Appendix I .

 

E-mails

 

            After completing the discourse analysis of all e-mails, we totaled the number of times each pair used the specific discourse functions that were previously noted to be associated with negotiation for meaning.  These data are located in the following table (Table 1).

 

FUNCTION

E-Mail

Confirmation check

200

Elicit clarification

106

Elicit vocabulary

40

Comprehension check

9

Reply clarification / definition

104

Reply confirmation

26

Reply vocabulary

30

Reply comprehension

2

State elaboration

352

State correction/self correction

155

Total

1024

 

Table 1: Total Discourse Functions associated with negotiation used in all e-mail

 

Due to the nature of this TLL project it was not possible to separate the two languages in the e-mail portion.  The students often wrote a question in an e-mail written in one language and received a response in the next e-mail in the other language, as can be seen in the examples below.  Therefore, the data for e-mails are for both languages combined and there is no distinction between the negotiations found in native or foreign languages.  

The following examples are excerpts from e-mail exchanges.  Negotiation functions in the examples are written in bold letters and labeled.  The Spanish discourse is followed by an English translation. 

This first example is taken from e-mails written in English.  Student D from Argentina is unsure about some of her phrases in