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Course: Intercultural & Flipped Foreign Language Classroom

Instructor: Professor Lydia Tseng

Judy Yeh

Chris Chen

Presenters: English Department

From Barriers to Awareness:

Our Intercultural Learning Experiences

Date: January 4th, 2023

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Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Challenges

III. Gains

IV. Conclusion

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I. Introduction

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Singapore

Taiwan

France

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World Cinema + Telecollaboration

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2022.12.15 @ Global Lounge

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Intercultural Communication

  • Having an understanding of one’s own and other cultures
  • Noticing similarities & differences between different cultures
  • Developing cultural awareness

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II. Challenges

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Barriers to Intercultural Communication

LINGUISTIC

  • Intonation
  • Colloquialism
  • Accent

CULTURAL

  • Attitudes
  • Values
  • Beliefs

PERCEPTUAL

  • Stereotypes
  • Prejudice

EMOTIONAL

  • Negativity
  • Stress
  • Uncertainty

(Langenegger, 2021)

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Linguistic Barrier—Accent

  • FL pronunciation → affected by mother tongue
  • Not easy to understand French partner

[r] in French → guttural

[h] in French → not often pronounced

  • Confusions & misinterpretation

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Telecollaboration

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Cultural Barrier—Values

  • French people → valuing quality family time
  • Taiwanese people → putting work & school as priority
  • Different values on a thing affecting one another

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Telecollaboration

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Perceptual Barrier—Stereotypes

  • Barely knowing Singaporean culture
  • Having stereotypes of Singaporean culture

→ Influencing our minds & perspectives

    • Easily affected by the major source—I Not Stupid

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World Cinema

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Emotional Barrier—Stress

  • Audience might find it difficult to understand cultural issues
  • Participants might be shy to share their thoughts & discuss

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World Cinema

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A: 你聽Blackpink的新歌了嗎？

B: Oh? Are you talking about the K-pop girl group? They released a new song recently?

C: 恁哩講啥？啥物是K-pop？

A: K-pop就是韓國流行音樂，Blackpink是一個韓國女生團體，很紅啊，到美國開演唱會欸。

B: Yes. K-pop stands for Korean popular music. Some of my friends in the States went to their concert. They told me that the show was fantastic.

C: 韓勾郎去美國唱歌喔？唱韓國話嗎？美國人敢聽有？

B: Actually Korean groups and singers are pretty popular in many countries, including Taiwan. Many people love K-pop much. Haven’t you heard of Super Junior, Twice, or BTS?

C: Super Junior就是喔，按呢有聽過啦。啊毋過韓國話恁啊無熟似啊。

Multilingual Activity in World Cinema

​

A: 聽不懂也沒關係啊，我們可以查歌詞的意思，而且多接觸一些語言也沒什麼不好吧。

B: Agreed. Sometimes I listen to Spanish songs but I don’t even understand a Spanish word.

C: 啊國語跟台語歌敢謀好聽？

A: 中文的也好聽啊，我的歌單裡除了中文台語英文還有日文韓文，好聽的我都喜歡，而且聽得開心最重要啊。

C: 恁按呢袂使啦，臺灣人就是矣講台語，聽台語歌啦。

A: 啊客家話咧？原住民語咧？

B: I think all languages are fine, as long as we enjoy the music. It’s not limited that a person from a country can only listen to the music from that country.

C: 敢按呢？抑無我嘛去聽看覓彼个Blackpink。

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Intercultural Teaching

  • Purpose of the activity

→ Fun but why?

→ Relating the activity to intercultural issues

  • Intercultural presentation

→ Lacking focus & further implications

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III. Gains

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Intercultural Learning

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  • Observing, identifying, recognizing
  • Comparing and contrasting
  • Negotiating meaning
  • Dealing with or tolerating ambiguity
  • Limiting the possibility of misinterpretation
  • Defending one's own point of view while acknowledging the legitimacy of others’ ones
  • Accepting differences

Process of becoming more aware of and better understanding our own culture and other cultures

(Rose, 2021)

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Cooperation

  • Building teamwork
  • Learning to respect others
  • Combining various notions on cultural issues

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Communication Skills

  • Verbal: Online meetings, f2f interactions
  • Non-verbal: facial expressions, posture, positions, eye contact, hand movements
  • Visual: Images, charts
  • Written: Text messages (email & Slido)

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  • Respect
  • Conciseness
  • Confidence
  • Clarity
  • Eloquence
  • Friendliness
  • Public speaking

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IV. Conclusion

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Intercultural Competence

  • Key components: Knowledge, skills, attitudes
  • Values: Intercultural attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, critical cultural awareness

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(Byram et al., 2002)

“The attitudes of a person interacting with people of other cultures are the basis.”

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Cultural Awareness

  • Communicating with locals & using materials of the cultures
  • Seeing other cultures from different points of view
  • Noticing similarities & differences
  • Examining our own culture

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Byram, M. (2009). Intercultural competence in foreign languages : The intercultural speaker and the Pedagogy of Foreign Language Education. The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence, 321–332. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071872987.n18

Byram, M. (2012). Intercultural competence. The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0554

Byram, M., Gribkova, B., & Starkey, H. (2002). Developing the intercultural dimension in language teaching: A practical introduction for teachers. Council of Europe.

Byram, M., Nichols A., & Stevens, D. (2001). Developing intercultural competence in practice. UK: Multilingual Matters.

Langenegger, D. (2021). Effective intercultural communication in the remote workplace. Business 2 Community. Retrieved December 30, 2022, from https://www.business2community.com/communications/effective-intercultural-communication-in-the-remote-workplace-02407440

Rose, C. (2021). Intercultural learning. TeachingEnglish. Retrieved January 3, 2023, from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/intercultural-learning-1.

References