Intercultural World Research Articles

Training Language Teachers in a Vuca World

Amidst today's rapidly changing and unpredictable world, the field of language teaching faces unique challenges. In a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment, language teachers need to possess a diverse skill set to effectively navigate the ever-evolving landscape of language education. This study delved into the significance of training language teachers in a VUCA world and highlighted key strategies training institutions need to equip teachers with the necessary tools for successful language education. A qualitative methodology underpinned the study, carried out through a case study investigation. Participants were purposefully selected and consisted of language lecturers and student teachers specialising in language education at the case study institution. Data were collected with open-ended questionnaires and analysed by establishing emerging themes. The study established that language teachers need to be trained with diverse skills to effectively teach learners during VUCA times. This can be achieved by equipping teachers with the necessary skills, knowledge, and adaptability to help learners improve their language proficiency and intercultural competence. To achieve this goal, teachers should be empowered and equipped with the latest teaching methodologies and technological advancements. Teachers should also create an engaging and inclusive language learning environments that prepare learners for the challenges and opportunities of the intercultural world.

Learning Outcomes and Social Emotional Competences: A Cross-Feeding Relationship to Promote Meaningful Learning Experiences

Since the beginning of the employment of Learning Outcomes (LO), the educational field has been marked by significant changes. This approach, by being deliberately learner-oriented, influenced several knowledge fields to promote relevant shifts in different levels of educational programs offered by prominent institutions. Parallelly, the last decades have been characterized by an increasing concern with the development of Social Emotional Competences (SEC) in educational contexts. In this complex scenario, the main aim of this article is to reflect on the relevance of teachers’ social emotional competences in the construction of a healthy learning environment that equally embraces students with different social and cultural backgrounds. Thereby, the current work presents two specific aims: 1) to review the literature that discusses the connections between education and social emotional learning; and 2) to discuss the relevance of cultural identities and SEC for LO in an increasingly intercultural world. To achieve these objectives, the Qualitative Document Analysis’ methodology was employed to identify, examine and select the scientific sources to support the knowledge development which background the proposed discussions. Considering the intrinsic link between cultural identity and learning outcomes, this article defends the development of educators’ social emotional competences as a pathway to provide not only the best educational experiences for students with different cultural backgrounds but also to contribute to the construction of equitable societies by fostering the development of students’ intercultural competences.

Focusing on education through multilingual language policy in South African schools

Abstract Even though multilingual education has been in existence for a long time, the new era has brought another contestation around this educational substitute. Multilingual education which is often realized through multilingual language policy seems to be the best way to prepare future generations to participate in constructing democratic societies in and intercultural world. South Africa is no exception to this development. The language policy and governance in the schooling system of South Africa cannot be seen in isolation from that of the rest of the African continent and the world. This article disinters the extent to which the bodies responsible for the governing of schools in South Africa can formulate and implement language policies that serve the demographic language interest of societies that they serve. This article contextualizes the rights-based approach through fostering a deeper understanding of how different participants and role players in the education system can form the links between rights and participation with a view to bringing about change in language policy formulation and implementation in schools.

What Does the Future Hold for Freedom of Religion and Belief?

Let me begin with a methodological remark. What I can offer is a European perspective of religious freedom in an intercultural world. The horizon of this ‘Comment’ piece will be global, but the point of view is inevitably European. Only God, if he exists, can have a regard from above: our regard is always from within.

Exploring student teachers’ experiences of engaging in Hands of the World, a contextualised global intercultural eTwinning project

This paper considers the impact of student teachers’ participation and engagement in the award-winning eTwinning international Hands of the World (HOTW) project which connects over 2000 students and their teachers in 50 schools across the world. Students participated in a wide range of educational collaborative experiences, before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, to develop their knowledge and understanding of intercultural education. Student teachers live and work in an interconnected and intercultural world and having a knowledge of how to embed diversity, inclusion and cultural awareness into their practice is important to ensure that their pupils develop a positive intercultural mindset. An explanatory design analysed students’ end of year reflections on participating in the project, which were publicly available on the project’s Padlet™ page. Data were analysed thematically focusing on participation and derived benefits. The findings revealed a continuum of engagement with some students participating at a lower level, where they would observe and question, whilst others had a higher level of engagement engaging in the activities and/or applying the project to practice. Our analysis enabled us to identify that although there were various barriers to participation, the design of the project enabled students to engage at various levels with a higher level of engagement evidenced during the COVID-19 lockdown. Our findings suggest that effective intercultural learning in teacher education requires a range of intercultural opportunities that can be accessed at a variety of levels and at different times throughout the year to provide a rich learning experience.

One size doesn’t fit all educational assessment in a multicultural and intercultural world

ABSTRACT A pronounced development of the 21st century is the technological revolution, which is leading to a global world that creates more multicultural, intercultural, and diverse communities. These developments influence our lives in various ways, one of which relates to education. Educational systems are facing complicated challenges, as they need to align education to the postmodern era while adjusting pedagogical concepts and methods to the multicultural diversity of learners. The article aims to explore these challenges, specifically addressing multicultural educational assessment. We question the prevalent concept of assessment - assessment of learning, vs. assessment for learning or assessment as learning. The former uses assessment as a measurement tool, aiming to benefit decision-making, accountability, control, and supervision, and stems from economic and political considerations. This assessment does not consider the developments of recent decades, which have created a more global, multicultural world where the assumption that ‘one size fits all’ does not work. Furthermore, when this wrong assumption comes to students’ assessment it can have devastating consequences for individuals and groups. We discuss the need to change the educational assessment paradigm, adapt it to a multicultural world, the challenges of doing so, and potential ways to cope with these challenges.

Service-Learning in the Ecuadorian Andes through Spanish, English and Kichwa Voicing

Abstract Community engagement projects create an avenue for university students and faculty to interact with local communities. These endeavors place together groups with different worldviews, cultures, and languages. Service-Learning (sl) has acquired novelty in academic circles; however, there has been limited research analyzing what happens with intercultural communication. This article attempts to fill this gap by asking how intercultural communication is shaped through sl. Research was conducted on a community engagement project in the Andean paramo of Chugchilán, Ecuador involving faculty, students, and members of the indigenous community. For the analysis, a blended design of transcendental phenomenology and sl methodology was used to analyze how participants perceive and make sense of their experience. From a linguistic perspective, we used both bilingualism and diglossia to analyze intercultural communication during the sl experience. The findings show that sl is a valid methodology that can increase intercultural communication while developing cultural competency between participants of the project. Finally, the study considers the revitalization of indigenous languages to be a fundamental step for a global intercultural world.

Sur-Sangam and Punjabi Zabur (Psalms 24:7–10): Messianic and Missiological Perspectives in the Indian Subcontinent

How does the local raga-based music setting of Psalm 24:7–10 become associated with Christian identity in an Islamic context? How does Psalm 24 strengthen the faith of the marginalized church and broaden messianic hope? In what ways does Psalm 24:7–10 equip local Christians for missional engagement? This paper focuses on the convergence of the local raga-based musical concept of sur-sangam and the revealed text of Punjabi Psalms/Zabur 24:7–10. It argues that while poetic translated text in Punjabi vernacular remains a vital component of theological pedagogy, local music expresses the emotional voice that (re)assures of the messianic hope and mandates missional engagement in Pakistan. Throughout the convergence, musical, messianic, and missional perspectives are transformed to a local phenomenon and its practice is perceived in a cross-cultural connection. Furthermore, examining the text and tune of Punjabi Zabur (Psalms) 24:7–10 in the Indo-Pak context may stretch the spectrum of religious repertoire in the contemporary intercultural world.

The relation between intercultural Sensitivity and world music preferences Among grammar school and vocational School students

The paper explores the influence of the type of secondary education chosen by the participants on the level of intercultural sensitivity and world music preferences, as well as the connection between intercultural sensitivity and world music preferences. The research employed a general data questionnaire, the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale and an assessment scale to examine music fragment preferences in a sample of 124 participants. The results have significant implications for music and pedagogical theory and practice, in terms of increasing intercultural sensitivity and the tolerance of students towards members of other cultures and their music.

Developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences among students – the case of business, IT, and services disciplines

Developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences provides future graduates with several benefits, wherein they are equipped for the globalized, intercultural world imbued with all of its uncertainties, diversities, and opportunities, both at the workplace and in everyday life. Entrepreneurial higher education institutions are characterized by an international and intercultural perspective – however, an institution cannot be entrepreneurial without being international, yet it can be international without being entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial university provides a good environment, culture, and practices that enhance student entrepreneurship. Internationalisation, entrepreneurship, and in this context international entrepreneurship education are important topics to which academics and higher education institutions have increasingly devoted attention in recent years. This article discusses various aspects of developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences, which are affected by different approaches to intercultural learning and teaching in the context of entrepreneurship education. In the last part of the paper, results are presented of quantitative research among Slovenian academics who teach business, IT, and services disciplines. Findings have shown that independent variables like teaching international students, providing distance learning with foreign institutions, inclusion of academics in training courses, and academics’ international mobility all influence the frequency of using intercultural and entrepreneurial aspects in higher education learning and teaching practices.

Spatial attention underpins social word learning in the right fronto-parietal network

In a multi- and inter-cultural world, we daily encounter new words. Adult learners often rely on a situational context to learn and understand a new word's meaning. Here, we explored whether interactive learning facilitates word learning by directing the learner's attention to a correct new word referent when a situational context is non-informative. We predicted larger involvement of inferior parietal, frontal, and visual cortices involved in visuo-spatial attention during interactive learning. We scanned participants while they played a visual word learning game with and without a social partner. As hypothesized, interactive learning enhanced activity in the right Supramarginal Gyrus when the situational context provided little information. Activity in the right Inferior Frontal Gyrus during interactive learning correlated with post-scanning behavioral test scores, while these scores correlated with activity in the Fusiform Gyrus in the non-interactive group. These results indicate that attention is involved in interactive learning when the situational context is minimal and suggest that individual learning processes may be largely different from interactive ones. As such, they challenge the ecological validity of what we know about individual learning and advocate the exploration of interactive learning in naturalistic settings.

Spatial Cognition in a Multimedia and Intercultural World Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Spatial Cognition (ICSC 2018).

Spatial Cognition in a Multimedia and Intercultural World Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Spatial Cognition (ICSC 2018).

Intercultural language educators for an intercultural world: action upon reflection

Bearing in mind that learning a new language is much more than acquiring a new code, but a new way of being in the world, the aim of the article is to briefly raise and discuss relevant issues relating to language teacher education in these contemporary times, especially in the area of English Language Teaching (ELT). Emphasis is placed on the importance of teacher education responding to the new demands of this globalised world, proposing among several aspects, new political and pedagogical postures which are to lead into preparing students to become more critical of their own realities and more sensitive to the intercultural encounters they are supposed to engage with this highly complex and ever increasingly intercultural world.

The Implementation of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education: Seeing It from the Stakeholders’ Perspective

<p>Mother Tongue Based-Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) has carved its niche as a practical and effective approach in the educational landscape. It offers a plausible framework for preparing coming generations to become better adaptive and even rich contributors in the globalized and intercultural world. The gate to the new millennium has brought great zeal in and at the same time contestations around this educational alternative.</p><p>This study examined the stakeholders’ perspective on the implementation of MTB-MLE as a pedagogical approach. The stakeholders’ perspective were explored and analyzed through the results of the different focus group discussions among teachers, pupils, parents, local school board, parents-teachers and community association, non-government organization and local government unit.</p><p>Results from this study indicate four main benefits of MTB-MLE, namely: expressing better ideas, building self-confidence, better retention, and promoting friendly environment.</p><p>Meanwhile, the challenges which hinder the implementation of MTB-MLE are grouped into four significant themes: multilingual environment, difficulty in translation, inadequacy of instructional materials, and mandatory compliance to the Department of Education (DepEd) order.</p><p>The significance of the results of this study points out important actions the program can benefit Filipino pupils. Notably, a system that emanated from the higher authorities in which grassroots sector were not consulted, the Department of Education (DepEd) order should be executed by an interface between the higher level management and the local stakeholders. Involving them can undoubtedly contribute in the success of MTB-MLE.</p>

Study Abroad Reentry: Behavior, Affect, and Cultural Distance

Reentry has become a more focused aspect of study abroad in recent years as the field has moved away from a laissez-faire approach and toward an emphasis on intervention and support of study abroad students in their efforts to make sense of their experiences (Vande Berg, Paige & Lou, 2012). Although not a new concept (Brathurst & La Brack, 2012), reentry in its more recent incarnation can be seen as an opportunity for students to ratify and reconstrue their encounters with a foreign culture in a way that enhances a sense of self in an intercultural world (Selby, 2008). Despite its history and current popularity, many concepts and ideas about reentry rely on anecdotal, non-research based theorizing. The current study attempts to quantify two important aspects of reentry (behavioral readaptation and emotional response) in the context of measured factors that might impact the intensity of reentry challenges.

Content and Target Aspects of the Relativism Concept of National Stereotypes in the Higher School Foreign Language Teaching

The paper deals with the innovative educational concept of teaching the foreign languages to the senior university students. The research methodology is based on M. Bennett’s model of intercultural sensitivity development necessary for the gradual transformation of ethnocentrism into ethno-relativism. The development of students’ relativistic perception of national stereotypes is perceived by the author as an important factor of both the natural cognitive mechanism and intercultural communication. The author argues that relativistic perception of national stereotypes can be achieved by fostering the intercultural world outlook, and therefore recommends incorporating a relativistic world view component in educational content structure along with the traditional components of knowledge, skills, attitudes, motives, creative activity expertise, etc. The paper emphasizes three consequent educational modules of ethnodifferentiation, ethno-integration and ethno-relativity in the proposed methodological system. The gradual fulfillment of educational goals, related to the above modules, can ensure the transformation of students’ perception of national stereotypes at the cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels. The proposed educational concept, approbated in the German Language Department of Zabaykalsky State University in 2010 – 2013, along with the research data prove the effectiveness of the given method, and demonstrate a substantial development of students’ intercultural competence and a decline in the ethnocentrism level.

Levinas, Chauvinism, and Disinterest

Europe, that's the Bible and the Greeks. It has come closer to the Bible and to its true fate. Everything else in the world must be included in this. I don't have any nostalgia for the exotic. For me Europe central.1The arrival on the historical scene of those underdeveloped Afro-Asiatic masses who are strangers to the Sacred History that forms the heart of the Judaic-Christian world.2The yellow peril! It not racial but spiritual. Not about inferior values but about a radical strangeness, strange to all the density of its past, where no voice with a familiar inflection comes through: a lunar, a Martian past.3-Emmanuel LevinasINTRODUCTIONLevinas a chauvinist? To even pose the question in so direct a way risks resembling a sort of gossip. How can Levinas-the philosopher of the Other and of unconditioned giving-have failed so miserably? Worse than gossip, the question itself perhaps loaded. In conventional usage, the term chauvinist connotes unfair and often assumed privilege given to the same. Whether this unfair privilege granted to my gender, my nation, my culture, or my x, in each case it involves what I most identify with by comparison to negatively judged others. As such, it seems we are justified in asking: what are we to make of above statements in light of the explicit meaning his philosophy stakes out?As far as I've been able to ascertain, Robert Bernasconi was the first to broach this problem in the scholarship. In Is My Neighbor? Who Is the Other? Questioning 'the Generosity of Western Thought,' Bernasconi performs a nuanced analysis of the problems that emerge in relating ethics to his dismissive references to other cultures. Bernasconi ultimately concludes that there an answer in Levinas to the question of what judges cultures, it remains the classical Enlightenment answer, the idea of the West.4 Critchley concurs and hints that Eurocentrism loom[s] large in the overall problems of politics.5 Sikka, too, insists that Levinas privileges a particular culture in an insufficiently critical, and therefore irresponsible, manner.6 Finally, Ma, following McGettigan, asserts: Levinas's ethics cannot be accepted as a philosophical construction.7 But there such a thing as a philosophical construction? And what responsibility such that Levinas fails at it here? Can we propose answers to these questions without straightaway performing prejudice? If we are irreducibly cultural beings, and if one persistent problem with European philosophy its very claims to culture-transcending it isn't clear that neutral philosophical constructions exist. One cannot, of course, retreat to some willy-nilly relativism or abstractly reject all context-transcendence to avoid the problem at hand. Indeed, will-to-power, the Seinsfrage, diffe?rance, 'care of the self,' etc. all make specific claims for what it means to mean (and not mean), claims that are potentially universal in scope. (Is Hinduism a species of the 'metaphysics of presence'? Buddhism a life-denying nihilism? Islam a biopolitical terror? etc.). Or take more self-consciously particularist traditions: if Confucianism is a rather typical non-universalism, even though it does believe that its own doctrines are indeed the ultimate truth, then how do we interpret these truths in relation to the Yi,or barbarian?8 What does it mean to be a typical 'non-universalism'? Such questions suggest that the problem of prejudice in inter-cultural relations more difficult then we normally assume. If we are to evaluate Levinas fairly, we must have some sense of what it means to be unprejudiced in an irreducibly inter-cultural world. ethics in fact attempts an account of how this possible, and this makes the question of his alleged chauvinism all the more pressing.Levinas scholarship has presented three strategies for interpreting his apparently chauvinist statements. …

Trust-Based Learning and Its Importance in Intercultural Education

In his article Trust-Based Learning and Its Importance in Intercultural Education Clemens Seyfried introduces the concept of learning, an approach he developed for learning in an intercultural world and applied in primary and secondary education. The objective of the concept is the raising of opportunities students with (im)migrant background in education. Seyfried presents an overview of the educational situation of (im)migrants and ethnic minorities in the European Union with special focus on Austria, followed by a description of the said concept of trust-based learning including the results of a statistical survey conducted in Austria. The focus of the concept is the importance of trust, framed by the following question: is there a difference in the self concept of students regarding trust as a determining variable for learning by students with and without an (im)migrant background? The article closes with a proposal for a new approach in pedagogy in general and in intercultural education in particular. Clemens Seyfried, Trust-Based Learning and Its Importance in Intercultural Education page 2 of 6 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 16.3 (2014):

Introducing the Discussion and One Another

Over a month-long period, the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication hosted an online discussion among 11 intercultural scholars across and outside of the discipline in response to four key questions. Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Rona Halualani, facilitated the discussion and introduced the question prompts. The goal was to create a vibrant, interactive dialogue about definitional framings of intercultural scholarship and their views of key urgencies, issues, and challenges in today's intercultural world. This section features the introduction of the discussion and of the scholar discussants themselves.

Foreign Language Learning as a Factor of Intercultural Tolerance

The paper deals with the outcomes of an empirical, explorative research aiming at considering the relation between foreign language learning and intercultural tolerance. The research problem was whether foreign language learning influences the increase of intercultural tolerance, with the aim to consider the influence a new foreign language has on changes occurring in the attitudes towards other nations. The assumption was that foreign language acquisition has positive effects on intercultural tolerance. The research sample was casual, consisting of 247 Belgrade University students. The independent variable was foreign language learning and dependent variable was intercultural tolerance. The method of systematic non-experimental observation was used in the research. Intentional manipulation of variables was not carried out, except for the statistical analyses in a sense replacing experimental controls. The link between empirical data and the theoretical background was searched for in qualitative interpretation of findings, in a sense using systematic approach through synthesis of the data; this is justified by the very subject of the research, i.e. complexity of attitudes and the ways they change. Statistical procedure was based on the comparison of the rankings of the European nations in the test and retest – Mann -Whitney Test. The findings confirm the hypothesis that foreign language acquisition, followed by the knowledge on the related nations and cultures makes people more open for the new and the unknown and more tolerant to diversity, thus more ready to accept life not only in multi-, but also in intercultural world, that has become our reality. As a consequence, it has once again been confirmed that there is a need to acquire foreign language and learn about foreign cultures from the earliest age, as well as to introduce a number of foreign languages in schools, since this is how open and tolerant society is created.