Reflecting on international educative experiences: Developing cultural competence in preservice early childhood educators

ABSTRACT

Given urgent need for culturally competent early childhood educators and the strategic encouragement by colleges for students to travel internationally, this analysis focuses on the question: What is the relationship between international experiences and preservice early childhood educators’ cultural competence? More specifically, three questions were examined: 1) What theories are applied to explain this relationship? 2) What pedagogical strategies are most frequently used during international experiences to develop cultural competence among preservice educators? and 3) What evidence is provided that preservice educators changed (if at all) as a consequence of international experiences? PRISMA analysis of the literature from 2002 to 2016 revealed pedagogical strategies such as immersion and critical reflection led to preservice educators’ self-reports of gains in personal and professional growth, cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity, and cultural competence. Faculty using international travel to develop cultural competence should consider engaging preservice educators in higher order thinking assignments before, during, and after international experiences.     

EFL课堂的跨文化交际能力模式研究——基于教育者和学习者角度

在文化全球化的今天,英语教学的终极目标是培养学习者的跨文化交际能力,使其成为跨文化人。文章结合中国的外语教学实际,通过批判性地学习、对比国内外有关跨文化交际能力的研究,从教育者和学习者的角度出发,强调语言能力和策略能力的重要性,并尝试构建跨文化交际能力模式,指出不足以及相关实证研究的需要。     

Forms of support and challenges to developing international-mindedness: a comparative case study within a national and an international school in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This paper uses mixed methods to explore perceptions of international-mindedness within two case study schools in Istanbul, Turkey: a national school with mostly Turkish students and an international school with students from many nationalities. Using a conceptual framework developed by an international education programme, the authors critically analyse pillars of international-mindedness: multilingualism, intercultural understanding, and global engagement. Findings reveal that the national school was striving to overcome limitations of homogeneity, while the international school struggled to address its assumptions that a heterogeneous population alone would be enough to encourage intercultural understanding. Neither school had developed clear conceptual links among multilingualism, intercultural understanding, and global engagement. Thus, deliberate efforts are needed to provide students with experiences that foster international-mindedness. Other researchers and educators can use this framework and associated methods to examine how international-mindedness is implemented in different schools in other regions of the world.     

Internationalisation and the development of students’ intercultural competence

Universities’ internationalisation rhetoric suggests that students studying on internationally diverse campuses will automatically engage positively with one another and develop intercultural competence. This study examined the extent to which a cohort of first year UK and non-UK students studying on an internationally diverse campus developed intercultural competence. The Intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI®) and a locally designed survey were used to assess students’ intercultural competence and to explore their intercultural experiences over seven months. Students began almost exclusively in lower (ethnocentric) stages of intercultural development and most showed little progress despite reporting relatively high levels of intercultural contact, friends from other cultures and positive experiences. Findings suggest that even positive intercultural experiences do not necessarily lead to the development of intercultural competence and that university policy and practice may need to be enhanced if producing graduates with higher levels of intercultural competence is to become a realised outcome of internationalisation.     

Increasing early childhood preservice teachers’ intercultural sensitivity through the ABCs

While the early childhood student population has become increasingly diverse in the U.S., its teaching force remains primarily European American. The diverse student population demands that early childhood educators possess intercultural sensitivity in order to teach their culturally diverse learners effectively. This study examined the implementation of the ABCs of Cultural Understanding (the ABCs), a multicomponent instructional activity to promote intercultural sensitivity, in a preservice early childhood education course. Twenty-two early childhood preservice teachers participated in the study. The findings suggest the ABCs helped the participants develop intercultural sensitivity and strengthened their awareness and appreciation of other cultures. Despite the positive impact, the findings show most participants were in the early stages of intercultural sensitivity development. It is recommended that consistent exposure to and experiences with assignments like the ABCs are necessary to further promote intercultural sensitivity among preservice teachers.     

解析涉外导游的跨文化交际能力

我国出入境旅游业的蓬勃发展要求作为跨文化中介者的涉外导游具备较高的跨文化交际能力。文章在跨文化交际和文化中介的理论基础上分析影响我国涉外导游跨文化交际能力的因素,初步建立导游跨文化交际能力的分析框架,并提出一些培养涉外导游跨文化交际能力的方法。     

Cultural-Specific Lexis for Intercultural Communication: Case Studies From Two Different Classrooms

In light of the move towards a bi/multilingual turn and recent reevaluation of translation in the field of applied linguistics, this article looks at the translation of culture-specific lexis (CSL) and its role in developing learners’ intercultural discussion and reflection. It examines learning journals kept by students in two different contexts, intermediate learners of Japanese in a U.K. university and intermediate learners of English in a South Korean university. Despite a difference in contexts, three recurrent themes were identified in the learning journals in both classrooms: (1) reflection of languages and cultures, (2) considerations of the target reader, and (3) critical reflection of one’s own translation. The results of the study show that translation tasks involving CSL can enhance students’ intercultural awareness and, consequently, contribute to the development of intercultural competence.     

文化素养培养为本位的跨文化交际课程探索

文化素养作为英语专业学生亟需提高的素质之一,已受到越来越多教育界人士的重视。然而,跨文化交际课程却仍存在着人文涵养不足,实践教学薄弱等问题。课改通过对跨文化课程现状分析,依据素养的内涵并借鉴美国5C与体验教学模式,探索以文化素养培养为本位的课程建设:从教学内容、教学方式与文化实践三方面入手,以学以致用为原则,寻找提升英语专业学生文化素养的方法途径,以期培养他们全面的跨文化交际能力。     

The development of personal,intercultural and professional competence in international field experience in initial teacher education

This paper reports a qualitative case study of four preservice student teachers’ professional learning experiences in an international field experience programme situated in the language and cultural immersion component of a PGDE(Primary) Programme in Hong Kong. Two of the student teachers undertook the international field experience in Australia and Canada. The other two had their “non-local” field experience in mainland China1. The findings reveal student teachers' development in personal and intercultural competence in cross-cultural experiences. Their professional learning experiences in the action context, socio-professional context, and supervisory context of the cross-cultural school settings, and their reflection upon these experiences constituted the development of their professional competence. Suggestions for improvement of the international field experience programme and implications for future research are discussed.     

大学英语教师跨文化教育的局限性及对策

从80年代初期,我国学者开始研究跨文化交际至今,有关"跨文化交际能力"的文章绝大多数都是讨论和分析如何培养学生的跨文化交际能力,只有极少量的论文提及跨文化交际能力培养的主要实施者——大学英语教师。因此,文章试分析当前一线大学英语教师自身的跨文化交际能力和跨文化教育意识,希望能为进一步推动大学英语教学跨文化能力培养提供一些有益的参考。     

Swimming in the deep end: transnational teaching as culture learning?

Drawing upon the experiences of a group of academics who were responsible for the teaching and coordination of a newly established offshore program, this study considers intercultural learning during transnational education (TNE) sojourns and demonstrates that the personal and pedagogical adaptation required of academics is significant. The study combines data from pre-, during- and post-sojourn interviews with detailed observations of offshore teaching. This ethnographic methodology provides a detailed account of the TNE experience that is rare in the literature. The study adds support to the contention that the acknowledgement of cultural distance, rather than the adoption of a universalist mindset, is a precondition for development of intercultural competence through transnational teaching. The reflections of the respondents indicate that when transnational educators are prepared to learn from the ambiguity encountered during offshore teaching, they have the capacity to experience personal growth and to add significantly to their university's human capital. The paper argues that this ‘preparedness’ to learn should not be left to chance lest it does not eventuate and that the responsibility for development is shared between transnational educators, who must be open to change and prepared to engage in self-reflection that can be confronting, and universities, who must formally recognise the need to provide time, resources and quality, ethical learning interventions in order to facilitate the development of intercultural competence in all staff, especially those who teach overseas.     

外语教学中跨文化交际能力和跨文化敏感度研究

文章应用SPSS12.0统计软件对中国非英语专业英语学习者跨文化交际能力和文化差异敏感度开展调查并对所得数据进行分析,并归纳了现阶段我国外语教学中文化教学的特点;通过提高第二语言学习者文化差异敏感度从而提高跨文化交际能力的可行性,为第二语言教学中如何提高学习者跨文化交际能力这一教学目标找到新的出口。     

非英语专业本科生跨文化敏觉力调查

跨文化敏觉力被认为是成功进行跨文化交际的首要条件,而进行跨文化敏觉力培养的首要步骤便是跨文化敏觉力的调查与评估。该论文基于陈国明和Starosta关于跨文化敏觉力的理论,应用其设计的跨文化敏觉力量表,从大学文、理、工科学生中分别抽取样本来评估非英语专业大学生的跨文化敏觉力。对评估结果进行分析的基础上,作者发现了非英语专业本科学生在跨文化敏觉力的五个维度上的具体表现,并针对大学英语教学中如何提升学生的跨文化敏觉力提出了一些建议。     

Early Childhood Teachers at the Center: A Qualitative Case Study of Professional Development in an Urban District

Professional development for early childhood educators (ECE PD) is an essential component of supporting a professional early childhood workforce. Yet research on ECE PD frequently centers on narrow fidelity data, while teachers’ individual voices and teaching contexts are only rarely considered in order to understand teacher experiences with PD initiatives. This qualitative case study utilizes the critical ecology of the early childhood profession framework (Miller et al., Early childhood grows up: Towards a critical ecology of the profession, Springer, London) to examine process-related questions in a large urban district’s PD initiative connected with the launch of a new district-developed kindergarten curriculum. Examining teacher experiences through an ecological lens, the study focuses on two kindergarten teachers, viewing them as active agents in their own professional learning and situating them within their particular teaching contexts. Data sources included classroom observations, teacher interviews, and curriculum fidelity data. Although fidelity data provided some information about teacher responses to the PD, triangulating this data with teacher accounts of adapting the curriculum to their particular context enabled more nuanced understandings about how teachers adapt information from PD sessions to their particular teaching contexts. This study demonstrates the need for research on ECE PD to go beyond fidelity data to explore process-related questions about teachers PD experiences.     

Comparing Chinese undergraduate students’ level of intercultural communication competence: does studying in the USA make a difference?

This article presents the results of a study conducted in order to determine whether Chinese students who study in the USA for a portion of their internationalised undergraduate degree programme report differences in intercultural communication competence (ICC) compared to their classmates who remain in China. The results showed no significant differences in reported intercultural communication competence between students studying in Beijing and those studying in Denver. Frequency of multicultural group work was not associated with higher intercultural communication competence for students in Beijing, but it was positively associated with higher intercultural communication competence for students in Denver. The strongest relationship observed in the data was between intercultural communication competence and reciprocity, that is, the equal exchange of information and ideas among students. These results have implications for alternatives to study abroad, as well as classroom interventions designed to improve students’ intercultural communication competence.     

跨文化交际能力教学

语言与文化密不可分,因此英语语言教学也就是文化教学。目前几乎所有人都认可大学英语教学的最终目的是交际能力的培养,而交际能力的各个组成部分都离不开文化,也就是说跨文化交际能力才是大学英语教学的最终目标,跨文化交际能力与大学英语教学息息相关。怎样将跨文化交际能力的培养融入大学英语教学才是现在英语教学最应该关注的问题。讨论或辩论、角色模仿、演讲和情景分析几种方法被多数学者倡导,同时"冲突事例"方法似乎是结合各种方法于英语教学的最好解决方案。虽然跨文化交际能力教学与英语教学息息相关,但是其培养与教学仍然存在很多问题,值得进一步探讨和研究。     

也谈跨文化交际能力与英语口语教学

随着对外交流的增加,跨文化交际能力的培养越来越受到我国英语教学界的重视。本文从跨文化交际能力的内容及其相关涵义入手,分析了跨文化交际能力和英语口语教学的关系,提出了以口语教学促进跨文化交际能力的办法:培养英语思维习惯;提高学生文化修养;加强心理素质;培养他们在经济和社会生活领域的交际能力。     

Playing with maths: implications for early childhood mathematics teaching from an implementation study in Melbourne,Australia

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia governs early childhood education in the years before school in Australia. Since this framework is not a curriculum, early childhood educators report uncertainty regarding what mathematical concepts to teach and how to teach them. This implementation study, positioned within the broader E4Kids study, explored the enactment of a suite of play-based mathematics activities by five early childhood educators in different settings over a seven-month period. The educators' approaches to incorporating the activities are discussed in light of the reported implementation frequency and the duration of activities. A regression analysis predicted significant changes in children's Fluid Intelligence/Reasoning associated with attending high-implementation programmes. Recommendations are made for further investigation of the enactment of mathematics activities in early childhood settings and for the provision of professional learning opportunities that focus on supporting children's concept development as well as their mathematical skills.     

Preparing early childhood educators for global education: the implications of prior learning

This paper outlines the increasing cultural diversity of Australia’s education settings and explicates the global education movement and the new Australian Early Years Learning Framework. It discusses the implication of these factors for early childhood education practice and early childhood teacher education. The key research question considered in this paper is what prior learnings do early childhood educators utilise to consider global education? Data are presented on a research project that explores the prior learning of pre‐service early childhood educators at a major Australian university. The paper shows that, unlike primary and secondary pre‐service teachers, most early childhood education pre‐service teachers have significant professional experiences in educational settings. These prior experiences have a significant impact on pre‐service early childhood educators’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes in the area of global education and align strongly with the global education curriculum movement and new national curriculum.     

建构主义学习理论指导下非英语专业学生跨文化交际能力的培养——浅谈抛锚式教学模式

随着科学技术和经济全球化的进一步发展,2008年奥运会在北京的成功举办以及2010年上海世博会的胜利落幕,越来越多的英语教育者已经意识到跨文化交际能力的培养在英语教学中的重要性,很多教育学家也从国外引进了一些该领域的理论和教学方法,同时也提出了他们自己的观点以及符合中国实际的教学模式。但很多介绍都是针对英语专业学生,很少有论文涉及非英语专业学生跨文化交际能力的提高,结合建构主义学习理论的教学方法更为罕见。因此,本文试图结合建构主义学习理论在语言教学中一些优点来培养非英语专业学生的跨文化交际能力。