Intercultural Communication as a By-product of the Globally Networked Learning Process
Intercultural Communication as a
By-product of the Globally
Networked Learning Process
Mira Bergelson,
HSE, Moscow, Russia
mirabergelson@gmail.com
Meredith Harrigan,
SUNY, Geneseo, NY, USA
Craig Little,
SUNY, Cortland, NY, USA
Our goal in this paper
• Rethinking the experience OR a typology of
studying intercultural communication in vivo
• Comparing three approaches with focus on:
– the content of the subject field
– participation in a real process of peer-to-peer
intercultural communication
– joint multi-sided discussions of the topical
issues of social life in various cultures.
• Each approach has its potential benefits
and pitfalls
First case: Social Control
• Course on social control by Prof. Craig little
• SUNY Learning Network
– Asynchronous web-based platform
• 1. 2002
– 7 SUNY students; 5 ESL students
• 2. 2004
– 10+1 English-native; 7+3 ESL Russian-native students
• 3. 2013
•
•
– 20+ English-native (US+Australia); 7 ESL Russian-native
Little, Craig. B., Titarenko, Larissa, Bergelson, Mira. Creating a
successful international distance-learning classroom. Teaching
Sociology, vol.33, 2005 (October: 355-370).
Little, Craig B., Titarenko, L., Bergelson, M. The Role of Democratic
Dialogue in Collaborative International Distance Education.
AUDEM: International Journal of Higher Education and
Democracy, 2012, Vol.3.
Course structure
• The Modules Included the Following
Assignments and Activities
– Mini-Lectures (prepared by the professors)
– Reading from the assigned books
– Reading Questions to be answered on the
assigned books
– Examinations—one for each of the three core
modules
– Web-Based Assignments
– Student-Led Discussions
• Demonstrated Benefits
– Intensive writing
– English language enhancement practice
– Other ?
The international on-line classroom provides
an effective forum for democratic dialogue
• A democratic dialogue: An exchange of
information and opinions on public issues in
an open forum
– potentially either a boring or a threatening
communication event
– Boring - if opinions to be exchanged are more
or less similar
– Threatening to the social face of the
participants - if they are opposite or adverse
– If there is no exchange of opinions, but of
information only – it is unlikely to happen
Advantages of SLD
• A cross-cultural dialogue is generally more
revealing in terms of information obtained
and more threatening
– vast proportion of the opinions is based on
cultural (national) stereotypes
• The SLD is an excellent vehicle to
promote a democratic dialogue
– more efficient, more educating, less
threatening
– allowing to make most out of its crossculturally
SLD allows:
• a free but still structured format;
• an explicit demand for exchange of
information;
• students choose what input to respond to;
• a postponed, not face-to-face response to a
comment;
• competitive attitude based on how many
people respond to a given post and how
they evaluate it;
• a multi-linear dialogue (polylogue);
• because of the prolonged period for the
SLD (a module is about three weeks) there
is a certain time line for developing of each
topic.
Some quotes
• I think that it was very educationally rewarding.
I learned a lot about social control in different
countries. I learned from their questions more
about the United States, and I felt comfortable
posting mine. It was definitely rewarding learning
about their feelings towards social control, and it
helped that not everyone was the same age or
from the same background because you learned so
many different perspectives. (American)
• This course showed that interaction of people
from different countries and cultures can not only
be interesting but rather profitable for
everybody. (Belarusian)
• It was interesting to learn opinions of students
from other countries. Some points of view
appeared to be really unexpected. (Russian)
Second case: Intercultural
Communication in the Global Classroom
“The study of intercultural communication
begins as a journey into another culture
and reality and ends as a journey into
one’s own culture”
~Peter Adler
The Partnership
SUNY Geneseo
Department of
Communication
Moscow State
University
Department of Foreign
Languages and
Literatures
The Goal
To bring intercultural
communication theory to
practice and create a
transformational learning
experience for students.
The Strategy
To create an eight week team project
in order for students to
learn through doing
Specific Project Task
Each team will create a
social advertisement
for their partnering culture
The Process
• Students complete 5 online modules
• Each module required three
activities:
1. Main Project Activity
2. Relationship Building Activity
3. Reflective Activity
Learning Management System: Moodle
Main Project Activities
1. Make Key Decisions
2. Collect Data
3. Create a Draft Ad
4. Seek Feedback
5. Finalize the Ad
Goal #1: Practice intercultural communication
Goal #2: Use culture as a lens as they create
ads
Geneseo students product
MSU students product
Relationship-Building Activities
• Creating slide shows using Animoto
• Creating metaphorical “backpacks of
culture”
• Engaging in the DIVE exercise via
VoiceThread
• Engaging in team conferences via Skype
Reflection Exercises
• Online discussion posts
• Class-to-class videoconferences
Relationship Building Activities
Reflection Activities
• Online discussion posts
• Class-to-class videoconferences
Retrospective SenseMaking
What We Know Now That We
Didn’t Expect Then
Unanticipated Benefits of
Planning Decisions
•
•
•
•
Evaluate our own students’ work
Teach content through process
Have a primary LMS organizer
Meet prior to each class-to-class
videoconference
• Structure each class-to-class
meeting consistently
Unanticipated Glitches:
Technological Management
• Collect hyperlinks rather than videos
files
• Beware of browser differences
• Collect savable pictures rather than
links
• Consider the impact of system
upgrades
• Have support staff or user-friendly
technology
• Stay aware of the “new” digital divide
Unanticipated Questions:
Intercultural Management
• Are our differences culture or
personal?
• How do we differ in our time
orientation?
• How do we differ in our semantic
rules?
• How do we differ in task and
relational orientations?
Unanticipated discoveries
• Time matters
• Geneseo – MSU ≠ US – Russia
• Creating a product requires creation of
interculture
• Technology divides (?)
• When intercultural becomes interpersonal
• Creativity
• Motivation
Unanticipated Discoveries:
Embracing Teachable Moments
Learning Activities Often Yielded
Unanticipated Opportunities for
Learning
DIVE Exercise
• Anticipated Goals:
– To make students aware of the
powerful role culture plays in our
perceptual process.
– To encourage perception-checking.
• Unanticipated Outcome:
– Increased intercultural and cocultural knowledge.
Third Case : Global
Understanding courses
• Project started by East Carolina
University in 2003
• 42 Universities from 28 countries
• FFL MSU students have participated since
2005
• Project Leader Prof. Alla Nazarenko
• Videoconferences and chat between
students for four weeks
• Three partners per semester
Global Understanding Topics
•
•
•
•
•
Education
Family and Traditions
Meaning of Life
Stereotypes and Prejudice
English as lingua franca
http://www.ecu.edu/csacad/globalinitiatives/course.cfm
In Search of Typology
• Focus on language skills ~ on subject
field ~ on technology
• Methods of interaction between course
participants
– One-on-one interactions ~ team work ~
class-to-class interactions
• Number of participating parties
• Role of SLD or other forums
Course essentials
• Groundwork: the conditions for success
– Motivation: for professors, for students
– Relationships
– Institutional accounting
• Building the course
–
–
–
–
Selecting the topic
Keeping it simple: chunking, scheduling
Opportunities for online interaction
Coordinating frequent written assignments with
the readings
• “The study of intercultural
communication begins as a journey
into another culture and reality and
ends as a journey into one’s own
culture”
•
~ Peter Adler