Fostering Intercultural Awareness in Our Classroom - Calling Teachers Collaboration Intercultural awareness can be taught more successfully with the aid of technology. However, it is still up to the educators to integrate technology into their curriculums to make learning faster and more in-depth. Studies have shown that intercultural learning has a positive relationship with exposure to foreign people or cultures. Major universities in the United States have collaborative efforts in departments such as social studies, business, humanity, and foreign languages to make global studies possible. Many universities also have study abroad programs as part of their global study curriculum for students to experience foreign languages and cultures. One can tap into the university Web sites for global studies and find this to be true. Some universities that have these study abroad programs are UCLA, New York University, and many more. Not all universities have such programs; therefore, this paper proposes intercultural learning via technology to enhance global understanding and cross-cultural activities. As an English as a Foreign Language university lecturer in Japan, the writer conducted her classes with intercultural input and assigned research projects on foreign cultures in English. Then after a semester of being showered with all sorts of global issues, discussion and reading, she surveyed her students interests in English, other foreign languages, and cultures. The results confirmed the theory that students became more curious about foreign cultures after being exposed to intercultural learning. Although the objective of her classes is for students to improve their English, she believes that a purpose beyond just language learning can be achieved. One more crucial point she found in her research was that students are more motivated when studying the foreign culture they were initially interested in and became more curious about other foreign countries. According to Kramsch, By constructing both their own and the foreign values, by organizing and extending the range of convenience of these constructs, students can find bridges to the other culture, anticipate foreign events, and discover alternatives to their own cultural patterns of thought (2008). This learning can be expanded through technology to cross-cultural learning and beyond. Through a selection of Internet sources as class materials, teachers have the responsibility to help students understand differences and otherness, self-attitudes, beliefs, and values of others (Belisle, 2007). Issues such as environment, finance, food distribution, and wars are some examples that concern everyone in the global community. The speed of such socio-economic progress requires teachers to expand their teaching sources from textbooks to a more pragmatic method, such as the assistance of using technology (Kraemer, 2006). The author hopes to see an increase in collaboration among teachers all over the world to foster logical, empathetic, and inter-culturally knowledgeable students. This effort will have to be initiated by teachers that first adopt a new professional identity as a global citizen and gather knowledge from intercultural issues, and use technology to enhance learning among students. A mutually exclusive space in the Internet should be formed to assist teachers with this teaching. Finally, educational institutions around the world should begin cooperative learning via technology to increase intercultural awareness and competence. Reference: Belisle, C. (2007). E-learning and intercultural dimensions of learning theories and teaching models. Retrieved May, 5, 2009. Kraemer, A. (2006). Using computer technology to model and teach intercultural communication. Conference Papers International Studies Association. Retrieved May 25, 2009, from Education Research Complete database. Kramsch, C.(2008). Cultural and constructs, communicating attitudes and values in the foreign language classroom. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language Inc. Vol 16, 437-448. Writers Information: The writer is a Chinese-American. After graduating from Queens College, New York, she moved to Japan and started teaching English as foreign language. In the 15years of living in Japan, she became a wife, a mother and a university lecturer. She continued her education after giving birth to her daughter and is now pursuing her Ph.D in education. She is a positive person who is always looking forward to challenging new things. In Japan, many friends and students were affected by her words and encouragement, especially women. Using herself as examples, she encourages women to be a life time learner, open minded and to have self confidence. Now she is a lecturer at a university in Kobe, Japan.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 12:45:52 +0000