Awakening Intercultural Competence in Mexican EFL Educators Through Exchange Programs
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Memorias del Congreso Internacional de Celaya, Guanajuato, México Investigación Academia Journals Celaya 2018 © Academia Journals 2018 Noviembre 7, 8 y 9, 2018 Awakening Intercultural Competence in Mexican EFL Educators through Exchange Programs Rosalina Romo Molinares1 and Ireri Armenta Delgado2 Abstract— The postmodern era has been characterized by the enormous rise of communication and collaborations across nations, all which leads to cultural diversity. Education plays an important role in cultivating intercultural competence with the result that individuals are better prepared to cope with diversity. The Mexican National Secretariat for Education, through the British Council actively promoted exchange programs and scholarships for teachers to train abroad. This qualitative research, using narrative inquiry methodology and interviews, seeks to explore the stories of seven English educators who participated in an exchange between Mexico and the United Kingdom. The participants’ narratives indicate their experiences abroad had a significant impact on the development of their intercultural competence. Stories of increase sensitivity towards cultural diversity resonated among the teacher participants. This suggests that programs of this kind are valuable for educators’ intercultural competence, and by extension, for the cultivation of cultural awareness among their students. Key words— intercultural interaction competence, cultural awareness, mindfulness, nonjudgmentalness Introduction There is no doubt that due to the current global situation an increasing amount of people travel around the globe for personal or professional purposes. Constant migration has led to cultural globalization, which refers to intercultural interactions where individuals exchange ideas, values and beliefs (Kummaravadivelu, 2008). Consequently, post-modern individuals are exposed to cultural diversity and therefore have the need to develop intercultural competence in order to interact successfully with people from dissimilar cultures. Cultural globalization has strongly impacted the educational field. To meet the needs derived from it teachers should acquire intercultural interaction competence (ICIC, hereafter) (Apple, 2011) which aids teachers to address cultural diversity. Mahon (2007) states that teacher education programs try to incorporate exchange programs as it is suggested they support teachers in familiarizing with the global situation as well as giving them the opportunities to gain ICIC. Indeed, the Mexican Secretariat of Education (SEP, Secretaria de Educación Pública) and the Mexican Secretary of International Relations (DGRI) are working together to promote an exchange program with the United Kingdom. The “Foreign Language Assistants” (FLA) exchange program consists of transferring Mexican English as foreign language (EFL) teachers to work as Spanish assistants for a period of nine months in the United Kingdom. The purpose of this program is to provide EFL practitioners with opportunities for teacher development. Therefore, paper sets out to discuss the effects that this experience had in seven teachers who participated in this exchange program. Intercultural Interaction Competence In recent years, there has been an increase in the amount of literature that seeks to define and conceptualize ICIC as it represents the competency of the postmodern era. Thomas (2003) defines ICIC as: Intercultural competence shows itself in the ability to recognize, respect, value and use productively-in oneself and others─cultural conditions and determinants in perceiving, judging, feeling and acting with the aim of creating mutual adaptation, tolerance of incompatibilities and a development towards synergistic forms of cooperation, living together and effective orientation patterns with respect to interpreting and shaping the world. (in Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2009, p. 52) Accordingly, ICIC has three aspects that identify it: (1) an individual capacity to recognize, respect and value not only ones’ own culture but varying cultures, (2) being able to tolerate and adapt to cultural incompatibilities, (3) and finding conducts to negotiate cooperation forms. Although the definition advocates to adaptation, this does not necessarily mean that the individual should abandon one’s own ideas, beliefs or values. On the contrary, one’s own culture gains more value, and it is not to be replaced by any other culture. Instead, Kim (2001) states: 1 Lic. Rosalina Romo Molinares, is a student of the MA in Applied Linguistics in ELT at the University of Guanajuato, [email protected] 2 Dr. Ireri Armenta Delgado, Language Department, University of Guanajuato, [email protected] ISSN 1946-5351 online 4823 Vol. 10, No. 8, 2018 Memorias del Congreso Internacional de Celaya, Guanajuato, México Investigación Academia Journals Celaya 2018 © Academia Journals 2018 Noviembre 7, 8 y 9, 2018 “The process of becoming intercultural is not one of having to replace one culture with another. It is instead, working through all of the cultural experiences as to create new constructs that is, constructs that did not exist previously” (p. 196). Becoming intercultural is therefore a complex process where the individual constructs a new mindset in which his culture is present and learns to coexist with other forms of thought. This new mindset, or as Kim terms it, “construct” is overall a capability which allows individuals to live together in cooperation and respect among each other. Indeed, intercultural competence is a complex process, several psychologists (Bryam,1997; Chen & Starosta, 1996; Gudykunst, 2004; Stahl, 2001; Ting-Toomey, 1999 among others) have created frameworks identifying the central elements of ICIC. While the frameworks discuss various components of ICIC this paper focuses on three relevant notions: cultural awareness, mindfulness, and nonjudgmentalness. Byram (2008) defines critical cultural awareness as “an ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries” (p.162-163). This includes knowledge of social values, customs, norms and systems underlying a culture (Chen & Starosta, 1996). As argued by these scholars, this is a cognitive process that needs to be cultivated through making the implicit, explicit. Without an understanding of the values that guide individuals’ behavior it would be difficult to achieve recognition and cultivate values of respect, openness and tolerance towards Others’ cultural practices. Hence, developing cultural awareness makes it possible to discern the whys and hows of behaviors in given cultures, in other words, to better understand what leads people to act or communicate in a certain manner. Within the frameworks of ICIC, there are affective components that act as indicators of this competence. Mindfulness is one of the affective components that denotes the development of ICIC. Gudykunst (2004) describes it as the conscious choices we make to interpret strangers’ behaviors, not only considering our frames of reference (the Self) but also the Others’ positionality. It is thus a personal decision to be sensitive at understanding the social reality outside of one’s own vision and understanding. According to Ting-Toomey (1999) this personal decision hints the person’s willingness to interact and understand others, as he puts it, “it reflects our ability to change mindsets, behaviors and goal to meet the specific needs of the people and the situations, it signals our desire to understand, respect, and support the others’ cultural identity and to do so with sensitivity” (p. 141). This characteristic is unique in that a mindful individual is one who is sensitive enough to focus on meeting the needs of others during the intercultural interaction. It is important to highlight that practicing mindfulness is much more than showing respect, it suggests a personal desire, willingness, and commitment towards successfully interacting with dissimilar others. Furthermore, Gudykunst (2004) argues that individuals who are mindful are highly adaptable and flexible. Nonjudgmentalness is an additional affective component of ICIC. Stahl (2001) recognizes it as “expressing approval of the host culture; avoiding stereotypes; avoiding making jokes about host nationals; discussing the uniqueness of the host country in a factual manner” (p. 202). It is then the avoidance of emitting judgement towards dissimilar others. One way of preventing this is being able to avoid cultural stereotypes that might not illustrate the reality of a given culture. Schneider (2004) associates cultural stereotypes to personal schemas, explaining that stereotypes happen as a natural product of our background knowledge. This author defends the idea that stereotypes are an effect of our cognition. Thus, stereotypical images are not just simple judgements, but they are inherited ideas within our cognition. Thus, individual should first be made aware of the use of stereotypes in order to evaluate their use. Spencer-Oatey & Franklin (2009) observe that the main conflict of cultural stereotypes in regard to ICIC is that they “take on an essentialist character” (p. 124); that is as assuming and generalizing. Through the literature review we acknowledge the complexity of ICIC and identify some components that are present with the frameworks offered by different scholars. The first notion, cultural awareness, is part of the cognitive process in the development of ICIC while mindfulness