can cross cultural training make matters worse

7/28/2019 Can Cross Cultural Training Make Matters Worse

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Can cross-cultural trainingmake matters worse?

Lessons to be learnt from anempirical study of expatriate EFL

teachers in Taiwan

Wei Ju Liao Robert Johnson

University of Bedfordshire

SIETAR Europa Congress 2007


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Outline

1. Background

2. Cross-culturaladjustment

3. Classroommanagementissues

4. Research findings5. Possible

explanations

6. Culture shocktraining

7. Commonly used

approaches and tools8. Problems and pitfalls

9. Essentialism and thesmall culture

paradigm

10. Recommendations


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Background

Expatriate English teachers in Taiwan

Methodology

Hypothesis:

Expatriate English teachers previous cross-culturaltraining is positively related to their adjustment:

i. in the general environment

ii. in social interaction with host country nationals

iii. in the workplace


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Cross-cultural adjustment

What is cross-cultural adjustment?

Is there an effective model for researchingcross-cultural adjustment?


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The framework of internationaladjustment

Black, Mendenhall & Oddou (1991)


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Reported conflicts between East andWest in the classroom

Based on Cortazzi & Jin, 1996; Li, 1998, 1999; Maley, 1986; Miklitz, 1996.

In the East (CONFUCIAN) In the West (SOCRATIC)

Teachingmethods

Teacher-centred Student-centred

Focus on grammar andvocabulary

Focus on using the language

Grammar TranslationMethod

Communicative, interactiveteaching styles

Purpose oflearning

To pass examinations and getgood marks

To be able to use thelanguage for personalinterests

Roles Teacher serves as role model,transmits wisdom of theancients

Teacher leads students totake responsibility and findtheir own truth


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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 particularsituation or faults in the research design.

Taiwan makes foreign expatriates go crazy.

The training they received may have been badlydesigned, clumsily delivered or pitched at thewrong level.

The tone of the training may have been toonegative leading trainees to expectto havedifficulties 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 ofadaptation

Jolt activities, simulations and roleplay

Cultural dimensions

Conventional

Innovative


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Problems and pitfalls

Do some of these activities help to create animpression of polar opposites in the mind of thetrainee?

Is there too much of an emphasis on thenegative, stressful aspects of crossing cultures?

If this is the case, can it become a self-fulfillingprophecy?

Are we providing trainees with a useful toolkit, aset of strategies or something else?


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Essentialism and dualism

Essentialist view of culture Non-essentialist view of culture

The world is divided intomutually exclusive nationalcultures. People in one culture

are essentially different frompeople in another.

Cultures can flow, change,intermingle, cut across and throughone another, regardless of national

frontiers, and have blurredboundaries.

Peoples behaviour is defined andconstrained by the culture inwhich they live.

People are influenced by or make useof a multiplicity of cultural forms.

To communicate with someonewho is foreign or different wemust first understand the detailsor stereotype of their culture.

To communicate with anyone whobelongs to a group with whom we areunfamiliar, we have to understandthe complexity of who s/he is.

(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 inchanging circumstances to enable group members tomake sense of and operate meaningfully within thosecircumstances.

(Holliday, 1999)


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Recommendations

Institutional: training is not the icing on the cake

Personal: trainers must engage in pedagogical reflectionand professional development

Professional: international standards for cross-culturaltraining?

Design: more effort needed in planning stage; moreconsideration 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 crossingcultures?

What can trainers do to avoid this kind ofnegative effect?


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Thank you very much

Wei Ju Liao

E-mail: [email protected]

Robert Johnson

E-mail: [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

can cross cultural training make matters worse

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