Both students and teachers should
be prepared to handling so called "culture bumps" or "confused
encounters" which have been the topic of numerous works, e.g. P.Blanche
(2002) refers to "the term "culture bump" in cases when an
individual from one culture finds himself or herself in strange or
uncomfortable situation when interacting with people coming from different
cultures.
Specifics of multicultural training
Multicultural training is supposed
to develop cognition skills needed to understand life in foreign countries,
nevertheless, the students should be allowed to explore their own cultures
before they start discussing values, expectations, behaviours, traditions
rituals, forms of greetings, and identity symbols. The methodology used in the
course is student-centered as the students hypothesise, brainstorm, discuss,
conclude and inform other students and the teacher about their findings, which
means that the students also teach the teacher. The benefits of this approach
are a high degree of student motivation, a great amount of oral language
practice, and student generated
learning.
During the seminars the students
often work in groups of threes or fours and they are recommended to prepare
their presentations in pairs. Discussions explore what the students assume to
know about other cultures and suppose to be true about them and the purpose is
to come to the conclusion that truths and assumptions, concerning especially
time, progress, the purpose of life, human nature, God, and many other
things, are not necessarily
universal.
Teaching in a multicultural group
enables to focus on qualities or abstract ideas that a culture considers
valuable, to explore the students´ cultural values and compare them. Analysing
popular proverbs and sayings, for example, leads to discovering values and
attitudes typical for a culture, examining cultures qualities admired in national heroes contributes to
rising students´ awareness of culture values, which is supposed to result in
overcoming stereotypes.
Taking into consideration various
culture background of the participants of the course, it is necessary to deal
with culture shock as the students seldom know what to expect when they go to
study for a semester or two to another country. Therefore, the students are
presented with acculturation models and their stages, including culture shock
with its symptoms, its emotional patterns and ways of adjustment.
Culture shock
The term culture shock was for the
first time introduced in 1958 to describe the anxiety produced when a person
moves to a completely new environment. This is something that is experienced to
some degree by everyone who travels to a
foreign country and is defined as a reaction to the psychological
disorientation that most people experience when they enter into a culture
different from their own. It can be described
as the physical and emotional discomfort one suffers when coming to live
on another country.
Culture shock is often considered
to be one of the stages of acculturation. In this stage the individual seeks
the support of his countrymen, complaining about local customs and conditions.
The following stage is sometimes called culture stress. This is a period when
some problems of acculturation are
solved, while other problems continue for some time. The person begins to
accept the differences in thinking and feeling around him and slowly becomes
more empathic with the people in the target culture.
When people leave their home
country, they will carry with them so called “cultural baggage”, which is not
visible, but can play a major role in the adaptation abroad. “Cultural baggage”
contains the values that are important to people and the patterns of behaviour
that are customary in native culture. The more people know about their personal
values, the better prepared they will be to understand cultural differences
they will encounter abroad. As international students are often faced with the
challenge of adjusting to a new climate,
strange food, making new friends, different system of transportation, etc.,
they may experience stress.
In the seminar works, the
participants of the multicultural courses usually agree on the fact that Kealy´s acculturation model
reflects their own experiences in the process of adaptation to Czech culture.
The model comprises four basic stages –
the first one called the honeymoon, when the individual is excited about new
surroundings, in the second one frustration occurs, the third stage involves
the readjustment, when a person is partially able to cope with the challenge of
the situation, and the fourth stage is
related to either adjustment or several other possible outcomes.
Intercultural Communication Course and its Evaluation by the
Participants
The course Intercultural
Communication was offered to students by the Department of Communication,
2 Culture, thought and language
3 Home culture and target culture
5 Media and the global economy
6 Culture values
7 Stereotyping and prejudice
8 Acculturation
9 Non-verbal communication
10 Theory of cultures and multilingual dimension
of the European Union
The course was attended by 52
students coming from various cultural background – Turkish, Spanish, Japanese,
Belgian, Polish, Finnish, Greek, and Czech students. The structure of the
course was one lecture and two hours of seminar. The course was taught by Czech
and Canadian teachers, however, the students also had an opportunity to listen
to other lecturers. The assessment involved presentation of a topic related to
intercultural communication, a seminar work, for which most of the students
chose topics concerning world religions, and an oral examination.
At the end of the semester the
participants of the course were delivered short questionnaires. The purpose was
to find out to what extent the contents of the course corresponded to the
students´ expectations and what kind of change or improvement they would
recommend for the future. The questionnaire consisted of two following
questions:
1 How
did the course contribute to your knowledge about other cultures and religions?
2 What
would you change or improve in the course?
The answer to the first question
comprised the following issues:
- information concerning Russian, Finnish and
other cultures, comparing them
- information about religions of the world
- overcoming national stereotypes, becoming more
tolerant
- contact with foreign students
- participation of foreign lecturers
- presentation of a topic – a very good
experience for the students
- preparing for meeting people with different
cultural background, especially during
negotiating
-
information about non-verbal communication, especially kinesics.
In the answer to the second
question the students suggested more information about religions and Western
countries and watching films about other cultures.
The exchange
of students and teachers within the Erasmus Programme
The
questionnaire distributed to foreign students attending the IC Course and Its
Evaluation
The foreign participants of the IC course were distributed the
following questionnaire:
For foreign students studying at
International students involved in the questionnaire research come from
2
Foreign students usually experience culture shock after coming to the
Can
you list the areas ( e.g. food, housing, transport, environment, religion,
interpersonal relations, etc. ) culture shock was related to in your case and
add more information about it?
All the students, except the Polish, admitted that they had experienced
certain level of culture shock. Most of them agreed that its sources were
related to food (Czech traditional cuisine offering greasy meals and
difficulties in getting proper ingredients for preparation of the students´ own
meals ), environment, weather, and interpersonal relations. Japanese students
complained about people staring at them in the streets and about housing.
3 Who provided you with
basic information about the Czech language, Czech culture, lifestyle, etc.?
Answers to this question listed Czech students
studying at universities abroad and Czech teachers teaching there during an
orientation week, foreign students who
had studied in the CR, books and Czech friends during the stay in the CR.
4 What
kind of information would you appreciate at the beginning of your stay and in
what kind of form to help you to avoid culture shock? ( e.g. written material,
an intensive course of Czech language and culture, culture capsules during
specific courses at the faculty, a survival kit at your home country, etc. )
Majority of students would appreciate attending an
intensive course of the Czech language and culture at the beginning of the stay
in the CR, or at least a survival kit at the home country. The students also
suggested assistance of a student assistant who would help them with arranging
things and showing them interesting places.
5 Mark
the following topics you need for basic communication in Czech according to
their importance ( 1- the most important, 10 – the least important
Travelling
Seeing a
doctor
School Entertainment
Shopping Visits and gift
giving
Food Sports
Restaurants Public transport
The most important topics listed by the students were
the following according to priority:
·
Food
·
Transport and travelling
·
Shopping
·
Restaurants
·
School.
Conclusion
Teaching in a multicultural group and
its evaluating show that this form of teaching
significantly contributes to the possibility of comparing cultures, developing empathy and
tolerance and effective using of case studies in international setting. In the future, when students of more
nationalities are involved in the course, it could be even more beneficial both
to students and teachers.
Key words:
intercultural communication,
intercultural competence, multicultural groups of students, syllabi of IC
courses
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