Can crosscultural training make matters worse

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Can cross-cultural training make matters worse?
SIETAR Europa Congress 2007

• Lessons to be learnt from an empirical study of
  expatriate EFL teachers in Taiwan
• Wei Ju Liao Robert Johnson
• University of Bedfordshire

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Outline

• Background
• Cross-cultural adjustment
• Classroom management issues
• Research findings
• Possible explanations

• Culture shock training
• Commonly used approaches and tools
• Problems and pitfalls
• Essentialism and the small culture paradigm
• Recommendations

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Background

• Expatriate English teachers in Taiwan
• Methodology
• Hypothesis
• Expatriate English teachers previous
  cross-cultural training is positively related to
  their adjustment
• in the general environment
• in social interaction with host country nationals
• in the workplace

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Cross-cultural adjustment

• What is cross-cultural adjustment?
• Is there an effective model for researching
  cross-cultural adjustment?

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The framework of international adjustment
Black, Mendenhall Oddou (1991)
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Reported conflicts between East and West in the
classroom
Based on Cortazzi Jin, 1996 Li, 1998, 1999
Maley, 1986 Miklitz, 1996.
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Research findings

• Expected correlation groups
• Teachers experiencing culture shock
• Cross-cultural training matched with homesick,
  talking about myself with others and Taiwanese
  students lack of independence
• Unexpected correlation groups
• Language ability
• Levels of culture-shock
• Influence of students parents

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Possible explanations

• Misleading responses, either due to particular
  situation or faults in the research design.
• Taiwan makes foreign expatriates go crazy.
• The training they received may have been badly
  designed, clumsily delivered or pitched at the
  wrong level.
• The tone of the training may have been too
  negative leading trainees to expect to have
  difficulties a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Culture shock training

• What is it?
• Time and resources
• Participation
• Delivery and quality control
• Content

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Commonly used approaches and tools

• Facts about the place
• Facts about the people
• Dos and donts
• Exploring stereotypes
• The iceberg
• The U-curve and the stages of adaptation
• Jolt activities, simulations and role play
• Cultural dimensions

• Conventional
• Innovative

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Problems and pitfalls

• Do some of these activities help to create an
  impression of polar opposites in the mind of
  the trainee?
• Is there too much of an emphasis on the negative,
  stressful aspects of crossing cultures?
• If this is the case, can it become a
  self-fulfilling prophecy?
• Are we providing trainees with a useful toolkit,
  a set of strategies or something else?

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Essentialism and dualism
(Holliday, Hyde and Kullman, 2004)
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The small culture paradigm

• Small culture vs large culture
• The slippery slope of Culturism reductionism,
  otherisation, cultural fundamentalism
• Small culture is
• Any social grouping from a neighbourhood to a
  work group.
• A dynamic, ongoing group process which operates
  in changing circumstances to enable group members
  to make sense of and operate meaningfully within
  those circumstances.
• (Holliday, 1999)

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Recommendations

• Institutional training is not the icing on the
  cake
• Personal trainers must engage in pedagogical
  reflection and professional development
• Professional international standards for
  cross-cultural training?
• Design more effort needed in planning stage
  more consideration of pedagogical principles
• Content dynamic process not fixed product
• Evaluation a measure of effectiveness or a
  marketing tool?

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Questions to consider

• What do you think of these research findings?
• In your experience, does cross-cultural training
  overemphasize the stressful aspects of crossing
  cultures?
• What can trainers do to avoid this kind of
  negative effect?

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Thank you very much

• Wei Ju Liao
• E-mail weiju.liao_at_beds.co.uk
• Robert Johnson
• E-mail rpk_johnson_at_yahoo.co.uk