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TitleEncouraging the Development of Intercultural Competence
SourceCASLS Activity of the Week
Body

by Renée Marshall, CASLS Research Assistant, and Patricia Roldán Marcos, CASLS Graduate Research Fellow for Curriculum

What is intercultural competence? Dr. Janet Bennett lays out a useful definition: "A set of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills and characteristics that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts." Language learners can glean cultural information through their language development, as language and culture are intimately intertwined. However, simply because students are learning a language does not mean that they will develop intercultural competence. Guided exploration of their own culture (C1) and the target culture (C2) can help to encourage the development of intercultural competence. Two useful websites to use as a reference that we will refer to and make use of in our activity is the University of Washington Bothell's Intercultural Competence Tool Kit: http://www.bothell.washington.edu/globalinitiatives/resources/intercultural-competence-tool-kit and also Dr. Bennett's handout (2011) from the Association of International Education Administrators conference: http://www.intercultural.org/documents/competence_handouts.pdf. Due to the vocabulary and academic language, this activity is most suited for university level students. You may need to frontload some of the vocabulary by pre-teaching key words and concepts before beginning. You may also want to modify the activity provided on the website for use with your specific students' needs, language level, and maturity.

Objective(s):

  • Students will be able to become familiar with various cultural concepts by exploring and reflecting on their own culture.
  • Students will be able to discuss similarities and differences between their cultures after completing the continuum activity.

Resources: Intercultural competence handout

Procedure:

  1. Present the iceberg analogy using the handout or showing the image on the projector. Make sure that the concepts of explicit and implicit culture are clear.
  2. Go over the instructions in Part A (#1) and give more examples if necessary. If your target students need more scaffolding, you could provide a list of aspects for them to sort as explicit or implicit culture. Write some of the cultural elements they came up with on the board.
  3. Ask students to complete #2 individually and have some share their ideas with the class.
  4. Before students discuss #3 in pairs, it may be a good idea to point out that values, beliefs and attitudes can differ from person to person in the same culture. This is especially important if teaching in a monolingual setting or with students who have had no exposure to other cultures. Get some students to share their experiences.
  5. In Part B (#1 and #2), students complete the continuum activity in order to further analyze their own cultural values. You could provide a copy of it or have students access it online. Stress that there are no right or wrong answers.
  6. Make groups of 3 or 4 and have students compare their answers, sharing reasons or examples to justify their choices.
  7. To finish, have students reflect on their group discussions by answering questions in #4 in writing.

Reference

Bennett, Janet, PhD. Developing Intercultural Competence for International Education Faculty and Staff.AIEA Conference Workshop. 2011. http://www.intercultural.org/documents/competence_handouts.pdf

Publishdate2014-12-08 02:15:01