A SET OF PRINCIPLES OF INTERCULTURAL TEACHING AND LEARNING
Two assumptions underlie the following set of principles for intercultural teaching and learning: That (1) an ethical dimension and (2) a developmental dimension permeate all endeavours in education.
One must make moral judgement regarding how research endeavours affect other cultures… Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion of praxis underscores the need to set a moral ground in all our communication research, including intercultural communication. This means that all intercultural research involves a moral core. (Roy & Starosta, 2001:17)
Alternative conceptions research has documented students beliefs indicating that they enter with conceptual configurations that are culturally embedded; are tied to the use of language; are connected to other concepts; have historical precursors; and are embedded in a cycle of expectation, predication, and confirmation or rejection. For students as for scientists, it appears that a course of learning is not a simple process of accretion, but involves progressive consideration of alternative perspectives and the resolution of anomalies. (Confrey, 1990)
INTRODUCTION
Intercultural learning develops in learners the knowledge for recognising, valuing, and responding to linguistic and cultural variability through processes of inferring, comparing, interpreting, discussing, and negotiating meaning. It extends beyond the development of declarative knowledge based on the presentation of cultural facts, and do’s and don’ts in cross cultural interactions.
Intercultural learning engages with all aspects of human ‘knowing’, communication and interaction. Going beyond ‘cross-cultural education’, intercultural learning requires not only observation, description, analysis, and interpretation of phenomena in the context of human communication and interaction, but also requires active participation in explaining, and thus understanding, human nature self-reflexively. This self-reflexive interaction in understanding human communication and its variable contexts of interaction is a dynamic, progressive process that engages teachers and learners in negotiating human interaction by reflecting on one’s own intra-and-intercultural identity.
Reflection is integral to intercultural learning. Teachers and learners need opportunities, as part of their interactions, to develop their capability for reflecting on their successes, failures, uncertainties, future developments, and further extensions and applications of ‘knowledge’ for intercultural communication.
Learning to be an intercultural communicator/interactant also requires the development of a sense of responsibility for oneself as a participant in a global endeavour to develop an intercultural stance, based on mutual respect in valuing negotiation as a shared means in communicating and interacting among fellow humans.
Developing an intercultural stance is characterized by the following set of principles. This set of principles is seen as operating simultaneously, and by applying it in designing programs to promote effective ‘internationalization’ of education, an educator engages directly with intercultural development across the curriculum.
• Connecting the intercultural with the intercultural
• Constructing intercultural ‘knowing’ as social action
• Interacting and communicating
• Reflecting and introspecting
• Assuming responsibility
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