Building Investment

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Building Investment Community in Intercultural
Online Learning Communities

• Geoff Lawrence, Ph.D.
• ICIS Co-Chair
• Building Effective Intercultural Communication in
  Online Courses
• Saturday March 19, 2011

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Session Overview

• Toronto-Dubai intercultural wiki-writing project
  
• Rationale
• Project overview
• Lessons learned!
• An intercultural learning framework
• Guidelines to develop an online intercultural
  practice

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Toronto-Dubai Case Study Rationale

• Opportunity to explore transnational wiki-writing
  collaboration between a Toronto ESL/Emirati
  (Dubai) EFL class
• Explore the intensely collaborative nature of
  wiki writing
• Potential for the development of
  intercultural/language learning communities
• Improvement in academic writing/editing, extended
  sense of audience

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The Toronto Educational Setting

• University of Toronto
• English Language Program (ELP)
• International, multicultural students
• Academic English strong motivation
• Mixed computer literacy
• Diverse expectations high intermediate
  proficiency

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The Dubai Educational Setting

• Dubai Mens College (DMC)
• Young male, Emirati population from similar
  cultural backgrounds
• English is mandatory
• Advanced computer literacy/ infrastructure
• Familiar with rote, teacher-centred learning
  approaches

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Wiki Writing Tasks Timeline
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Home page
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Student Details page
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Teacher Collaboration page
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Initial Student Reactions

• Excitement collaboration with people from other
  countries
• Insecurity new task, new medium, unknown
  partners
• Concerned with creating good online identities to
  present themselves

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Sample Editing Screens
Essay Editing in Progress
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Final essay example
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Toronto-Dubai Case Study Student Reactions

• Technologically challenged
• Frustrated with selection of famous person
  (Emirati students chose first)
• Frustrated with lack of peer collaboration/prompt
  responses (largely Toronto group)
• Frustrated with difference in proficiency levels
• Some territoriality over writing

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Some student comments

• What I extremely hated is that I have tried to
  connect my partner but he did not respond.
  Toronto student
• the WIKI webpage give me a nice opportunity to
  make friends with foreigners and improve English.
  This time, I knew a Saudi Arabia (Barbie, I am
  Emirati, not Saudi ... just as you are Chinese
  not Taiwanese) boy whose name is Ahmed Darwish.
  He is very friendly and sympathetic..
• .What makes me upset is that the cooperation
  between my partner and I is very little because I
  think we need more time to interact. (I agree ...
  we need more time. My information about Leonardo
  is not yet posted, but it's coming...) The fact
  sheet for the most part was finished by me.

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More student comments

• In general, the main problem that I observe, is
  the big differences between the groups that are
  been part of this project because I consider we
  dont have the same expectations and interest on
  it. In my experience with my Dubais partner, the
  project as a collaborative assignment did not
  work at all. He did not answer my messages, and
  probably the reason is in part that he did not
  understand how the page works

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And more

• The WIKI is so interesting, and I like it a lot.
  It makes us improve our English, and teaches us
  how to communicate with others from different
  countries.
• Firstly, this project is useful for me as it
  give me a chance to practice cooperating with
  somebody cooperation will act a very important
  part in my studying or working life. In fact, I
  argued with my partner on last Wednesday, and I
  was a little angry. Because of my anger, I have
  apologized to him although, it was not all my
  fault. Not only cooperation is an interesting
  thing but also searching is another one.
• Thank you for asking our thoughts about this
  programme.
• At first, the WIKI program is a wonderful
  project. I enjoy it very much so far, because I
  believe when we get into university, sometimes we
  need to study like this

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Toronto-Dubai Case Study Teacher Observations

• Students distracted by computer-based task not
  reading instructions/listening
• Chaotic facilitation at times
• Students sometimes lacked interest in making
  accommodations for partners
• Students susceptible to cultural generalizations
  based on quick judgments
• Some resistance to collaboration
• Timing/curricular constraints

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Toronto-Dubai Case Study Some outcomes

• Some students produced longer writing containing
  good idea development
• Students became more confident in their own
  abilities as writers
• Students realized they lacked sufficient
  vocabulary, motivating vocabulary learning
  strategies
• Little intercultural awareness developed due to
  inattention to this potential

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The Intercultural Potential seems to depend on

• Recognizing that online collaborative writing is
  bound with a culturally contextually framed
  
• communicative purpose
• expectation of social relations and
• expression of individual identity
• Building investment in the online learning
  community (where communication becomes a
  discourse of trust/engagement)
• Actively facilitating/debriefing intercultural
  reflection

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A proposed intercultural ESOL 3-step strategy

1. Use strategic intercultural inoculations
2. Explicitly highlight implicit aspects of cultural
   behaviour
3. Adopt an experiential, exploratory
   (ethnographic), critically reflective culture
   learning approach

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1. An inoculation-based approach is key...

• Discuss cultures complexity, its contextual,
  dynamic nature
• Discuss our cultural filters (i.e., how cultural
  experience shapes assumptions/expectations)
• Highlight the potential weirdness of ME, my
  cultural experiences/assumptions (the powerful
  teacher)
• Start with the ME in culture (i.e., cultural
  self-awareness before otherness)
• Model excitement about exploring otherness
• Negotiate guidelines for intercultural
  awareness/respect
• Link difference and commonality in activities
• Elicit cultural experiences from students to
  present a collage of voices from similar cultures
  (to demonstrate cultural diversity,
  deconstructing stereotypes)

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Sample Inoculations

• Discussions on what is culture? My cultural
  influences?
• How do my cultural backgrounds shape my
• communication style, values, expectations,
  identities?
• i.e., how does culture influence language
  use/behaviour?
• Exploring cultural differences, their impact and
  intercultural understanding
• Proverbs and cultural values
• Low context vs. high context communication styles
• Emirati vs. other cultures? - What would you like
  to learn? (building curiosity and openness)
• Ice breaker activities with partners (building
  community)

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Sample Activities Infusing the Intercultural.
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• The Who Am I Identity Dialogue...
• In reviewing the figure, which three identities
  are the most important to you?
• Which one identity is shaped by the values of
  your ethnic/cultural membership? What are yours
  ethnic/cultural membership values? Do they
  differ from your personal values?
• Looking at the figure again, which one identity
  are you most comfortable with? Why?
• Which one identity are you least comfortable
  with? Why?
• If someone wanted to find out more about who you
  are, how should they approach you? How should
  they begin? What are the best ways to get to
  know you? (work into online introductions?)

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2. Highlighting implicit aspects of culture using
culture-general frameworks

• Language use
• Non-verbal behaviour
• Communication styles
• Value orientations

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Communication style differences the way a
message is constructed AND interpreted

• Low vs. high context
• Speaker vs. listener-focused
• Direct vs. indirect
• Restrained vs. expressive
• Intellectual vs. relational confrontation
• Idea (relating through thoughts, separate from
  me) vs. experience-focused (relating through my
  experiences/feelings)

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Differences in communication styles can result in
mismatches in perception/interpretation

• For example
• A direct communication style can be perceived as
  
• logical, intelligent OR
• condescending, treating me like a child
• An indirect communication style can be perceived
  as
• evasive, disorganized OR
• eloquent as meaning is implied
  individually constructed

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Value orientation differences

• Individualism - collectivism
• Egalitarianism - hierarchy
• Competition - cooperation
• Limited time - plentiful time
• Action - being focus
• Ambiguity tolerance (vs. intolerance)

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3. An exploratory, reflective teaching approach
embedded in student experience
using innoculations exploiting rich points
(teachable moments)
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The D.I.E. K. activity approach (to build
intercultural awareness)

• Learning to separate evaluation (what I feel
  judgment)
• from interpretation (what I think)
• from description (what I see)
• Describe a situation/encounter
• Work to see multiple interpretations from varying
  perspectives
• See what evaluation/action seems most suitable
  BUT also see what knowledge can better inform
  interpretation action
• See www.intercultural.org for complete
  activity/details

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Some Guidelines to develop an Intercultural
Online ESOL Practice

• Build community, connections and investment among
  students
• Develop curiosity towards cultural difference
• Develop culture-and-language observation skills
• Develop interpreting/relating skills
• Develop critical cultural awareness
• Have fun working with your students in this
  challenging but exciting exploration!

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The rationale for intercultural communication...

• There is, perhaps, no more important topic in
  the social sciences than the study of
  intercultural communication. Understanding
  between members of different cultures was always
  important, but it has never been as important as
  it is now. it is a matter of survival of our
  species.
• While more people from more cultures are
  communicating and co-operating across
  differences, as many, it seems, are killing and
  maiming each other in the name of cultural and
  religious identity. The dilemma of the global
  age is that we are profoundly divided by race,
  culture and belief and we have yet to find a
  tongue in which we can speak our humanity to each
  other.
• G.M. Willems, European Union Policy on
  Language Education, 2002

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Questions?

• geoff.lawrence_at_utoronto.ca

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References

• Kramsch, C. Thorne, S. (2002). Foreign
  language learning as global communicative
  practice. In D. Block D. Cameron (Eds.)
  Globalization and Language Teaching (pp.83-100).
  New York Routledge.
• DeCapua, A., Wintergerst, A. C. (2004).
  Crossing cultures in the language classroom. Ann
  Arbor, MI University of Michigan Press.
• Lawrence, G., Young, C., Owen, H., Compton, C.
  (2009). Using wikis for collaborative writing and
  intercultural learning. In M. Dantas-Whitney S.
  Rilling (Eds.), Authenticity in the adult
  language classroom (pp.199 - 212). Alexandria,
  VA TESOL.
• Levy, M. (2007). Culture, culture learning and
  new technologies Towards a pedagogical
  framework. Language Learning Technology, 11(2),
  104 - 127. Available at http//llt.msu.edu/vol11n
  um2/pdf/levy.pdf
• Ting-Toomey, S. (1999). Communicating across
  cultures. New York Guildford Press.
• Wintergerst, A.C., McVeigh, J. (2011). Tips for
  teaching culture Practical approaches to
  intercultural communication. White Plains, NY
  Pearson.