Reflection on My Thinking About IC

As Walton, Priest, and Paradies (2013) argued, only building cultural knowledge can have little if any effect on attitudes or behaviors, and “may even reinforce prejudice if students’ attitudes toward people from different cultural backgrounds are not explicitly addressed and thoughtfully discussed” (p. 185). Therefore, a critical approach is needed in the classroom to develop students’ intercultural competence. As a world language teacher, it is important for me to provide a comfortable environment and opportunity for students to have discussions and self-reflection about their opinion and attitude toward cultural diversity. Having positive attitudes, such as respect, openness, and empathy is essential for the development of intercultural competence. Furthermore, providing students authentic experiences of cultural diversity, such as traveling, is also beneficial (Teacher as Traveler is an amazing book). However, for teachers, providing authentic experiences does not necessarily mean that we have to travel around the world with our students. Cultural diversity (gender, religion, urban and rural...) within our community could also be a meaningful resource for our students to get in touch with different cultures and develop their intercultural competence.

 For my future study of intercultural competence, I will adopt Deardorff’s (2006) process model of IC for this research. In the model, intercultural development begins with foundational attitudes of respect, openness, curiosity, and discovery. An intercultural mindset is then developed through increasing awareness, knowledge of one’s own culture, and the ability to tolerate ambiguity and create new categories (Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017). The strength of one’s affective, cognitive, and skill development shapes the effectiveness of their communication with others, thus influencing the behavioral domain (Deardorff, 2006). Deardorff ’s process model of IC demonstrates the cyclical, longitudinal nature of intercultural development. More importantly, understanding intercultural competence also helps me reconsider the question of research accountability. What is the motivation for conducting research? Research (and IC program) needs to be hooked to the community and has to benefit the community. As Wilson (2008) introduced in his book, we need to conduct research with our participants, rather than on them or even just based on them. Researchers need to form a harmonious relationship to allow for growth and positive change to take place.

In the area of intercultural competence, most of the studies have been done focusing on improving students' (especially international students) intercultural competence. However, there is a limited number of professional development and training for teachers to improve their intercultural competence. For faculty members in higher education, the opportunity is even lesser. This situation makes me think about the perspective that we have when we talk about intercultural competence. Do we use intercultural competence as an assimilation tool or we truly celebrate cultural diversity. When we expect our students to improve their intercultural competence, however, our teachers and faculty members still maintain an “English only” attitude in their classroom and refuse to accept ESL students in their classes unless those students have a certain language-proficiency level. In my opinion, authentic multicultural education should start with the improvement of teachers' intercultural competence.  Therefore, there is an urgent call for practical, effective, and reliable professional development to improve teachers' and academic faculty members’ intercultural competence.