Intercultural Competence

Hi!

You are back again with Stefani. This week I am going to discuss about Intercultural Competence which plays a very important role in shaping critical thinking. But before that, I would like to remind you that you can put comments in this section so that other teachers can learn from you. I would like to make my blog as a tunnel to bless others with experiential learning method, where we use people’s experience as a foundation of our learning.

Okay! Let’s start!

Each of us often hears about culture. Can you define what culture is? For me, culture is background information about someone which makes them special and identifies who they are. However, Anthropologist, John. H. Bodley, defined culture as, “What people think, make, and do (1994, p. 22). This definition is developed further to be 3P model of culture by Frank (2014). The 3P’s are perspectives, practices, and products.

Let’s talk about them one by one.

Perspectives describe “what member of a culture, think, feel, and value (Frank, 2014, p.3.). Ideas and believes exist in society belong to this model. Perspectives make people do appropriate and inappropriate behavior. For example like, how your students call you in a class.

Perspectives shape Practices. Practices include traditions and typical behaviors in a culture. For example: gestures when people are talking, the situation of formal and informal, how people wear dress, how direct or indirect people are communicating.

Products talk about clothing, music, literature and food. Food is the most common product that comes out when people talk about culture.

 “The more people engage in the traditions and ways of living of their culture, the more that culture's perspectives, practices, and products are reinforced.”

AE E-Teacher Program

Culture is dynamic not static. The 3P’s can change over time. Therefore, it is very important for people to be able to interact to other people who have different cultures from theirs. This ability to interact is called Intercultural Competence. It is needed to avoid misunderstanding people from different cultures. By this ability, people can be flexible in their thinking and realize that people are complex. On the other hand, to see people in ways that are simple and not complex is to stereotype people.

In this world, people have different level of intercultural competence. That’s why it requires an ability to think critically about differences.

EFL Teachers need to prepare students to face intercultural encounters. In order to do that, students need to know themselves as a cultural being. They have to understand how their own culture shapes them.

This intercultural competence is an ongoing process which is needed to be trained continually.

Now guys, it is your turn to start thinking about your classroom. I believe that as teacher you create your own classroom culture.

You can answer these questions through comments below to reflect to your own class. Please write your name after your description. :

1.  What is culture in your own words?
2. Now start to think and reflect about your students in your class (their age, the size of the class) an object that you use daily in your classroom, a motto that you always use in class that guides your work with students, and the reason why you use those objects and motto.

I will answer the question number 2 as an example for you:

I teach Business English to university students between 18 to 21 years old. The classes consist of 30 to 40 students. My students are so eager to learn English though sometimes the terms in the subject are difficult. These students are hungry to master the language.

Most of the students in my class come from the suburbs area around the city. They face difficulty in speaking skill because they say that they do not have partners in practicing. Regarding this, in class I usually bring laptop, speaker, and a bunch of videos to class. Before I start the lesson, I play the video as the introduction of what we will do today. Otherwise, I play it in the middle of the lesson as an example of the discussion. I do this because I want them to be engaged with the real culture of the native speaker. There will be a time also when I bring pictures to class and ask them to discuss the picture in simple games.

Every time there is an activity in my class, I always answer with "Wow. Very Nice. Good job guys!" or I will say "You can do it guys!" I use these words because I want to encourage them. I always explain to them that there is nothing impossible for those who always try the best.

I use these videos and words in class because I always attempt to create positive environment where students are not scared to learn instead they enjoy the English class. When a child listens to a positive word in a positive place, her spirit will be positive and ready to learn something new. I want it to be their culture wherever they go, to respond something positively.

Thanks!

Stefani.