Welcome to the Center for Instructional Excellence

Our mission.

The Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE) advances and promotes transformative, evidence-based instruction for academic success at Purdue and beyond. Under the direction of the Office of the Provost, CIE works with faculty, graduate teaching assistants, and staff to support innovative teaching in all modalities and foster a campus culture of student-centered learning.

Our team promotes faculty development and instructional excellence at Purdue. We use proven research to enhance teaching methods and provide opportunities to help instructors continuously improve. We partner with faculty, staff, and campus organizations to build a community of practice around teaching, learning, and assessment — one that anticipates changing needs and encourages growth.

We are available to talk in person or remotely about your needs. Contact us at [email protected] .

Tools & Resources

Reach out to us.

Phone: 765-496-6422 Fax: 765-496 1749 Email: [email protected]

Where to Find Us

Young (Ernest C.) Hall155 S Grant St, West Lafayette, IN 47907

intercultural communication assignments for students

  • Postdoctoral Researchers
  • Pedagogy Advocates
  • Graduate Assistants

Chantal Levesque-Bristol, PhD

Executive Director

Email:  [email protected] Chantal Levesque-Bristol received a B.A. in Psychology (1995), and a PhD (2000) in Social Psychology from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her primary areas of interests are teaching and learning, motivation, educational psychology, faculty development, and institutional change. She was the Principal Investigator on a  First in the World grant  from the Department of Education and recently recognized by Purdue’s College of Education with a  First Book Award  for her publication of  Student-Centered Pedagogy at Scale ,  which describes the development of Purdue’s IMPACT program.

David Nelson, PhD

Associate Director

Email:  [email protected] David Nelson received his PhD in History from the University of California, Irvine and has worked in CIE since 2008. He works on SoTL projects and teaching initiatives with faculty across the campus, and has particular interests in cooperative faculty development and research in computer science, especially initiatives to increase women with programming degrees.

Administrative Assistant

Email:  [email protected] Deb Felix has been a member of the CIE staff since December 2009.  Deb has been an active member of the Purdue staff since August 1979 with roles in the Diversity Resource Office, Engineering Education, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, and Libraries. She received an Associate Degree in Organizational Leadership and Supervision from Purdue University in May, 2001.

Allison Russell

IMPACT Program Manager

Email:  [email protected] Allison Russell has a B.A. in Marketing (2009) from the University of Kentucky. She moved to Chicago in 2010 where she was a research program coordinator with the Health Literacy and Learning Program at Northwestern University. She started working with CIE in October 2017, where she enjoys working with people across campus in diverse ways and guiding faculty through the IMPACT program.

Charles A. Calahan, PhD

Assistant Director, Global Learning Development

Email:  [email protected] Charles A. Calahan directs Global Learning Faculty and Student Development. Chuck is a member of the Teaching Academy, a Diversity Fellow, and a Service-Learning Fellow. His focus is on active and experiential learning using advanced and innovative technology. He is a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory, a trainer for Sentio’s Global Competence Certificate, Unconscious Bias certified, and Cultural Intelligence certified. 

Karen S. Neubauer, MA

Assistant Director, Special Projects

Email:  [email protected] Karen S. Neubauer earned a B.S. (1978) in journalism from Iowa State University and was a print journalist and public relations executive before earning an M.A. (2005) in liberal studies from Indiana University. She taught journalism, communication, and composition at institutions including Purdue Northwest and Ball State University, where she earned an M.A. (2017) in rhetoric and composition. Her areas of interest are writing development and assessment, and instructional development and recognition.

Emily Bonem, PhD

Assistant Director, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Email:  [email protected] Emily Bonem received a B.A. in Psychology and Music from Williams College, and went on to earn her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Michigan. She joined CIE in July 2014 where she focuses on consulting with faculty about their teaching, data collection and analysis for the IMPACT program, and scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Emily’s main research interests include self-determination theory, course redesign, and assessing student learning.

Daniel Guberman, PhD

Assistant Director, Inclusive Pedagogy

Email:  [email protected] Daniel Guberman earned his Ph.D. in music from the University of North Carolina. Before coming to Purdue, he taught Music History and Theory at East Carolina University. His writings appear in Tyranny, Resistance and Music, American Music?, Tempo, and the Journal of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness. His interests include inclusive, social justice, collaborative, and critical pedagogies, faculty learning communities, and bridging STEM fields with the arts and humanities.

Tracey Birdwell

Assistant Director, Purdue in Indianapolis

Email: [email protected] Tracey Birdwell earned a B.A. in History from Vanderbilt University, a PhD in American History from the University of Delaware, and an MA in Instructional Design at Virginia Tech. She is expanding CIE initiatives and support in her work with Purdue in Indianapolis faculty. Her areas of interests include learning spaces (physical and digital), hybrid learning, and the future of higher ed campuses. She frequently publishes and speaks about learning spaces. 

Leslie A. Miller, PhD

Faculty Accessibility Consultant

Leslie Miller earned an A.S. degree in Business Administration (2008, Ohio Dominican), a B.S. degree in Applied Psychology (2013, Franklin University), an M.A. degree in Sociology (2016, University of Oklahoma) and Ph.D. in Sociology (2021, University of Oklahoma). Prior to joining CIE in 2022, Leslie’s research focused on experiences and health outcomes for people with non-discernable disabilities. In CIE, she focuses on accessible and inclusive teaching, equitable learning environments, and assessment. As the Faculty Accessibility Consultant in CIE, Leslie collaborates with all of the PWL instructional community on meeting students’ required accommodations, while maintaining the core elements of the course design and respecting the instructor’s time.

Annika Kraft, PhD

Associate Instructional Developer

[email protected] Annika Kraft received her B.A. in Chemistry and Theatre Arts from Minot State University, and went on to earn her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining CIE in 2023, her research focused on exploring relationships between STEM instructors’ thinking and classroom practices. Her interests include faculty development, course design, inclusive teaching, and thinking about the affective domain of learning (e.g., emotions in teaching and learning).

Lakshmy Mohandas, PhD

Associate Instructional Developer Researcher

Email:  [email protected] Lakshmy Mohandas received her PhD (2022) in Engineering Technology from Purdue University, Indiana. She earned her Bachelors (2012) in Electronics & Communication Engineering and Masters (2014) in Communication Systems Engineering from India. Her research interests include the HyFlex learning model, student engagement, equitable learning using different modes of participation, student motivation and achievement goals.

Instructional Data Processing

Laura Miller

Data Processing Operator

[email protected]

Sheila Oland

EMAIL: [email protected]

Pam Sullivan

Email: [email protected]

Robin Brown

[email protected]

Nikki Schooler

Email: [email protected]

Hyun Jin Cho

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Email:  [email protected] Hyun Jin Cho received a B.A. in German from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Korea, an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Purdue University. She joined CIE in August 2016 and continued to work on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL projects) as a post-doc. Hyun Jin’s primary research interests include self-determination theory, second language learning, beliefs about assessment, and course redesign.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Email:  [email protected] Wonki Lee received a Ph.D. in Education, Curriculum Instruction, Language and Literacy at Purdue University. She received her bachelor’s and master’s, specializing in Korean language education as a second/foreign language, from Seoul National University, South Korea. Her research interests are self-efficacy, culturally responsive teaching, and machine-learning in an educational setting.

Janelle Grant

[email protected] Janelle Grant earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies from Purdue University.  Her primary areas of research are racialized experiences in education and curriculum theory. Before her post-doctoral position, she taught Multiculturalism and Education at the undergraduate-level to pre-service teachers at Purdue. At the CIE, Janelle will conduct research related to student-faculty partnerships and assist with the Student Pedagogy Advocates program. 

Brooke Harris-Thomas

[email protected] Brooke Harris-Thomas earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Educational Psychology. Her interests include studying the motivational experience of adolescent students of color, specifically focusing on the belonging experiences of Black girls within the mathematics classroom. In addition, she is interested in increasing the use of research-practice partnerships within educational psychology and utilizes methodologies that center and uplift students’ voices.

Swagata Sarkar

Graduate Assistant

Email:  [email protected] I am a doctoral student in the Science Education, Curriculum and Instruction Department, College of Education, Purdue University. I earned a B.S. and M.S. in Zoology from India and another M.S. in Teaching and Curriculum from the University of Rochester, NY. My research interests include integrated STEM education in informal and nonformal settings, STEM curriculum design, students’ engagement, motivation, collaboration, and sense of belonging in STEM, preservice science teacher preparation, and authentic assessments.

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Culture Learning: Simulations & Exercises

Games are a fun and effective way to introduce issues of cultural awareness and intercultural communications to students. The information on this page, compiled by the Intercultural Studies Project, is a good place to start looking for specific cultural simulations and exercises and for ways to incorporate them into the curriculum.

Films and videos also make good introductions to issues related to culture, and can serve as starting points for classroom discussions of such issues.

Simulation Games

Publications.

  • Distributors
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Adams, D. (1973). Simulation Games: An approach to Learning . Worthington, OH: Charles A. Jones Publishing Company.

Batchelder, D. & Warner, E.C. (1977). Beyond Experience . Battleboro, VT: Experiment in International Living.

Buckley, R. & Caple, J. (1990). The Theory and Practice of Training . San Diego, CA: University Associates.

Fowler, S. M. (1977). Intercultural Sourcebook. Pittsburg, PA

Fowler, S.M. & Mumford, M.G. (1995). Intercultural Sourcebook . Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

Gochenouz, T. (ed.) (1993). Beyond Experience: The Experiential Approach to Cross-cultural Training (2nd ed.) Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

Greenblat, C.S. (1988). Designing Games and Simulations . Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Horn, R.E. & Cleaves, A. (Eds.) (1980). The Guide to Simulations / Games for Education and Training . Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Jones, K. (1983). Simulations for Language Teaching. New Directions in Language Teaching Series . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Jones, K. (1985). Designing Your Own Simulations . New York, NY: Routledge Chapman and Hall.

Jones, K. (1987). Simulation: Handbook for Teachers . New York, NY: Nichols Publishers.

Jones, K. (1988). Interactive Learning Events . New York, NY: Nichols Publishers.

Kohls, L. R. & Knight, J. M. (1994). Developing Cross-cultural Awareness . Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

Pfeffer, J. W. & Bronstein, R. H. (1988). Simulations and Games. Training Technology Series . San Diego, CA: University Associates.

Pusch, M. D. (Ed.). (1979). Multicultural Education: A Cross-cultural Training Approach . Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

Simile II Catalogue. Simulations Games for Universities and Colleges: Games for other Ages . Del Mar, CA: Simile II.

Taylor, J. & Walford, R. (1978). Learning and the Simulation Game . Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Weeks, W., Pederson, P.P. & Brislin, R.W. (1977). A Manual of Structured Experiences for Cross-cultural Learning . Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.

There are a number of journals that devote much of their effort to experiential learning activities as well, such as:

  • Journal of Experiential Education http://www.aee.org/publications/journal/aeejourn.html
  • Simulation and Gaming: An International Journal of Theory, Design, and Research http://www.unice.fr/sg/

Game Distributors

American Forum for Global Education The American Forum for Global Education is currently reforming. However, they still offer and excellent set of language and intercultural education curriculum resources: www.globaled.org/database/BrowseResources.php Cultural Detective Phone: (913) 901-0243 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.culturaldetective.com/

George Simons International EUROPE Domaine les RŽsidences de l'Argentire - B‰timent A 637 Boulevard de la Tavernire 06210 Mandelieu-La Napoule, France Phone: +33 4 92 97 57 35 USA 236 Plateau Avenue Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Phone: (831) 531-4706 Email: [email protected] Website:  http://www.diversophy.com or http://www.georgesimons.com/

HRD Press  (in association with Workshops by Thiagi) 22 Amherst Road Amherst, MA 01002 Phone: (800) 822-2801 Email: [email protected]   Website:  http://www.hrdpress.com/

Intercultural Press  (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) 20 Park Plaza, Suite 610 Boston, MA 02116 Phone: 617 523 3801 Email: [email protected] Website:  http://nicholasbrealey.com/boston/subjects/interculturalpress.html

Meridian International Center   1630 Crescent Place NW Washington, DC 20009 Phone: (202) 667-6800 Email: [email protected] Website:  http://www.meridian.org

Simulation Training Systems   P.O. Box 910 Del Mar, CA 92014 Phone: (800) 942-2900 Website: www.stsintl.com/

Workshops by Thiagi   4423 E. Trailridge Road Bloomington, IN 47408 Phone: (812) 332-1478 Email: [email protected] Website:  http://www.thiagi.com

Professional Associations

Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning (ABSEL) c/o Mick Fekula School of Business Administration The Citadel 171 Moultrie St. Charleston, SC 29409 Email: [email protected] Website: http://absel.org/

ISAGA The International Simulation and Gaming Association Appelternhof 24 6581 GW Malden The Netherlands Email:  [email protected] Website:  http://www.isaga.com/

Japan Association of Simulation and Gaming (JASAG) 1-4-24, Hiyoshi-Honcho, Kohoku-Ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 223-0062 JAPAN +81 45-562-5447 Email: [email protected] Website: www.jasag.org/

North American Simulations & Gaming Association (NASAGA) Email: [email protected] Website:  http://www.nasaga.org

Simulation And Gaming Association - The Netherlands (SAGANET) Email: [email protected] Website: www.saganet.nl

Society for the Advancement of Games & Simulations in Education & Training (SAGSET) Website:  http://www.sagset.org/

Society of Simulation and Gaming of Singapore (SSAGSG) National University of Singapore School of Computing 13 Computer Drive, Computing 1 Singapore 117417 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.ssagsg.org/

Swiss Austrian German Simulation And Gaming Association (SAGSAGA) Holzstr. 33  80469 MŸnchen Germany Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.sagsaga.org/

Thai Simulation and Gaming Association (ThaiSIM) Email: secretary @thaisim.org . Website: http://www.thaisim.org/

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Browse Course Material

Course info, instructors.

  • Prof. Bernd Widdig
  • Dr. Lori Breslow

Departments

  • Global Studies and Languages

As Taught In

  • Cultural Anthropology
  • Communication

Learning Resource Types

Communicating across cultures, assignments, class activities.

These documents support various in-class activities:

Some Questions to Ask About Culture ( PDF )

Intercultural Communication Simulation ( PDF )

What Should Walther Do? ( PDF )

Language Exercise ( PDF )

Cross Cultural Negotiations ( PDF )

Cross Cultural Persuasion ( PDF )

Cultural Self-Assessment

This first assignment asks you to examine your own cultural identity - to describe how you define yourself as a cultural being - and to show how that affects your communication style. The following questions are to help you construct that definition. You don’t need to answer every question, and there may be points you include in your paper that aren’t addressed by the questions, but use the questions as a jumping off point.

  • What are my racial, ethnic, national origins?
  • How do my gender and class define me?
  • Are there particular myths or stories I remember from childhood that have helped to define me?
  • Are there particular rituals I remember from childhood that have helped to define me?
  • How does my personal cultural profile affect my relationship to American culture?
  • How does my personal cultural profile affect the rituals I participate in now or the stories I tell?
  • topics you frequently find yourself talking about
  • use of nonverbal communication
  • use of interruption
  • use of silence
  • affinity for or dislike of argumentation
  • channels of communication you rely on

The paper should also reflect some of the key ideas you have read about and we have discussed so far in class. It should be between two and three typed pages.

Due: Session 3

For this assignment, you may choose a nonfiction work that examines the themes of the course in more detail, or a work of literature in which the author looks at how he/she or others come to know another culture and its peoples. (We will give you a list of books we like and former students have recommended, but you can choose a book not on the list. We would like you to clear the book with one of us, however, before using it for the assignment.)

Please write a three- to four-page essay connecting the book to the ideas and practices you have learned in the course. The essay could:

  • Develop a theme or an idea you have learned.
  • Connect your own experiences living in another culture to the experiences of the author or a character in the book.
  • Expand upon the discussion of a particular culture or country we have had in class.
  • Offer evidence that contradicts or provides another perspective to something we have discussed.
  • Link an idea or a description to another work (book, film, piece of music) that pertains to intercultural communication.

The goal of this assignment is to go beyond the material presented in class to think more deeply about some aspect of intercultural communication, and to share that knowledge with us. In order to help you develop your ideas, we will give you a set of questions we would like answered in writing. We’ll give you feedback on those answers before you write the final draft of the review.

Please give us a full bibliographic citation (author, title, edition number [if applicable], publisher, date of publication) for the book you have read at the beginning of your paper.

List page numbers of any direct quotes you include.

If you quote material from another work (book, article, film), provide bibliographic information for that work as well as in a footnote or endnote.

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling count.

Due: Session 11 (answers to questions); Session 15 (final draft)

Questions for Book Essay

The following sets of questions are designed to help guide your thinking about your book, and make writing the essay easier.

If you have read a book of fiction :

  • What is the story about? (Please tell us in no more than three or four sentences.)
  • How would you describe the style of the novel? From which perspective is the novel written? Is the style or perspective at all reflective of the author’s cultural background?
  • What opportunities/challenges for intercultural communication does the main character or characters have?
  • Can you link the intercultural interactions depicted in the book to explicit beliefs or values or deeply held, harder-to-recognize beliefs of the cultures from which the main character(s) come?
  • What factors contribute to the success of the characters in communicating across cultures? What factors contribute to intercultural communication misunderstandings?
  • What links are there between this story and ideas we have discussed in class? In what way has reading this book helped you to better understand the complexities of intercultural communication?

If you have read a nonfiction or academic book :

  • What is the main thesis or argument of the book?
  • What evidence does the author cite to support his/her argument?
  • Do you agree or disagree (or some of each) with the thesis?
  • What evidence can you offer either to further support the author’s thesis or to refute it?
  • What links are there between this book and ideas we have discussed in class? In what way has reading this book helped you to better understand the complexities of inter-cultural communication?
  • Was this book written for a larger audience, or did it contain a lot of discipline specific scholarly/scientific language?

Team Paper and Presentation

This final assignment will give you the opportunity to synthesize what you have learned this semester, as well as add to your knowledge of how intercultural communication operates in a specific professional setting. Examples of professional settings include:

  • health care
  • science and engineering
  • politics or diplomacy

Working together in (ideally, intercultural) teams of three or four, you will explore how intercultural communication impacts some facet of one of these professions.

The Products

You may chose any topic or question that intrigues the team. Your team could consider such projects as:

  • a case study of the acquisition of one company by a company from a different country
  • the challenges of providing mental health services when the service providers are from a different culture than their clients
  • an historical study that describes differences in the acceptance and use of a particular technology in different cultures
  • an examination of issues involving diversity in the classroom or the workplace
  • how political negotiations are impacted by differences in cultural communication styles
  • how the content of a country’s media is influenced by that country’s communication norms

The suggestions above are very broad; the team’s first job will be to narrow down a topic that can be reasonably developed into a 10-page paper and a 15- to 20-minute presentation .

The Process

Writing the paper and creating the presentation will be a multi-step process that will take place throughout the semester. It will begin with a short discussion of teamwork, group report writing and group presentations in session 9. On that day, we will also ask you to identify the topics you are interested in. Based on that exercise, we will help you put together your teams, which we will announce on session 10. We will give you some time during that class to meet with each other to get to know one another and begin to settle on a specific topic.

The remaining parts of the process include the following

Proposal I (session 12) You will write a one-page memo in which you describe concisely the topic of the paper/presentation and an initial list of resources you will use.

Proposal II (session 15) Resubmit your original proposal based on feedback you were given. Add research sources that you have found in the interim.

First Draft (2 days after session 19) The draft of the report that you submit should be as close to completion as possible. The more polished this draft is, the better feedback we can give you. We reserve the right to return any draft we don’t feel is far enough along to warrant our reading it.

Outline of Presentation (session 20) We would like a brief outline of the presentation you will be giving. Again, the more complete you can make the outline, the more guidance we can give you on creating a successful presentation. This outline should include what role each team member will take during the presentation.

Presentations (In class session 22, session 23, 2 days after session 16, and session 18) Give a 15- to 20-minute presentation ( every team member must speak, so the length of time will depend on the number of people on the team ) based upon your research report. Your presentation should describe your most innovative, interesting, or unique finding and use evidence to further our understanding of that point. Use appropriate visual aids. Allow time for questions and discussion at the end of the presentation.

Final Report (2 days after session 24) The final report should include footnotes and a bibliography.

The entire report is worth 30 points with each step worth the following:

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Wondering how to engage students of vastly different economic, social, racial, and cultural backgrounds in the classroom? Interested in becoming more skilled at communicating across cultures? This collaborative webpage offers resources, strategies and activities to develop intercultural competence.

Key Concepts

Both intercultural competence and cultural humility presume that it is not possible to become competent in someone else’s culture. Instead, they focus on the lifelong learning that begins with understanding of one’s own cultural positionality.

Intercultural Competence

A set of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills and characteristics that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts.

Bennett’s (2008) definition of intercultural competence has been developed by the Association of American Colleges and University (AAC&U) into the Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE rubric.

Cultural Humility

Originating in the healthcare field, cultural humility is an approach to engaging with others that requires self-reflection and self-critique, includes the desire to fix power imbalances where none ought to exist, and involves aspiring to develop partnerships with people and groups who advocate for others (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998).

Cultural Iceberg

Like an iceberg, only a fraction of culture is visible, manifested through customs, language, physical appearance. The majority of culture is hidden from view and expressed implicitly, through deep-held values and preferences.

The iceberg analogy was first proposed by Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book, Beyond Culture.

Activities & strategies to develop Intercultural Competence

Cultural awareness self-assessment.

To begin to assess your cultural self-awareness, ask yourself several questions:

  • What are some of my core beliefs and how have they been culturally influenced?
  • How would I describe my worldview?
  • How would I describe some of the students’ worldviews?
  • How might these differ from the ways in which I see the world?
  • How much do I know about my students’ cultural backgrounds?
  • What information am I missing and how can I get that information?
  • How can I incorporate my students’ worldviews into my course materials?
  • What worldviews are demonstrated through the course materials I currently use?
  • How can I enhance those materials so that other worldviews are represented?

Activity: Mapping Your Cultural Orientation

This simple activity is a great way to engage participants in a conversation about cultural values and appreciate how these relate to others. It can be done as an individual, written reflection, or be “acted out” by participants lining up along imaginary continuums.

Classroom strategies to increase engagement of culturally diverse students

While mainstream American academic culture prizes individual accomplishments and promotes an egalitarian treatment of others, individuals from many other cultures find it highly awkward to be singled out in front of a group, challenge their instructor, or call their superior by their first name. To increase engagement of culturally diverse students, try these specific classroom strategies, developed by a group of faculty and staff from the University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia College during a workshop in October 2013, and during the Teaching in Progress Series in Spring 2017:

  • Set clear expectations – via your syllabus, a collaboratively-developed community agreement, and modeling desired behaviors – for class participation and the value of sharing cultural perspectives.
  • Model the learner mindset. Share your awareness of personal limitations and worldview.
  • Take time to get to know students as individuals, e.g. have students complete a short questionnaire or notecard during the first week of class; use nametags with gender pronouns throughout the quarter.
  • Think > pair > share.
  • Vary forms of classroom participation, including: working in dyads and small groups before reporting out to large group; using clickers; utilizing responses from course website/discussion board during in-class discussions; having students write individual contracts that allocate points based on categories of skills they want to develop.
  • Communicate on an individual level, e.g.require students (or give them specific incentives) to sign up for office hours during the first 2-3 weeks; walk around the room to engage with students or student groups on a more individual basis.
  • Arrange seats in a circle and pass around a “talking” object.
  • Plan time for reflection before soliciting responses from the class, e.g. assign a free-writing prompt to stimulate thinking.
  • Raise the status of students with lower language skills.
  • Use show and tell activities to highlight culture, e.g. incorporate “artifacts” in e-portfolios.
  • Be intentional in the design of groups or assignments, e.g. assign specific roles; use playing cards to assign students to groups randomly.
  • Allow moments of silence instead of rushing to fill it.

Working with Non-Native Speakers of English

Resources compiled by Young-Kyung Min, PhD, former Lecturer in the UW Bothell Education Program, highlight culturally diverse approaches to writing, organizing ideas, and issues such as plagiarism. They are intended to help instructors better understand the non-native speakers of English in their classrooms and provide tools to address their specific needs.

  • Approaches to Teaching Non-Native Students Across the Curriculum Sigsbee, David et al. 1997. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco. Available as an eBook from UW Libraries.
  • Chavez, Vivian. Cultural Humility video
  • Cultural Humility Versus Cultural Competence : A Critical Distinction in Defining Physician Training Outcomes in Multicultural Education. Melanie Tervalon, Jann Murray-García. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Volume 9, Number 2, May 1998, pp. 117-125. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Developing Intercultural Competence for International Education Faculty and Staff Bennett, Janet, PhD. 2011. AIEA Conference Workshop. Also found in: Bennett, Janet. 2008. Transformative training: Designing programs for cultural learning in Contemporary leadership and intercultural competence: Understanding and utilizing cultural diversity to build successful organizations, ed. M.A. Moodian, 95-110. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

ESL Resources for Faculty . Min, Young-Kyung, PhD. 2013. UW Bothell Writing and Communication Center.

Exploring Interculturally Competent Teaching in Social Science Classrooms. Deardorff, Darla, EdD. 2009. ELiSS, Vol 2 Issue 1.

  • “ The Rationale for Developing Global Competence “. Parkinson, Alan (2009) Online Journal for Global Engineering Education: Vol. 4: Iss. 2, Article 2.

If you have resources that you would like to see added to this toolkit, please send to: Natalia Dyba , Director of Global Initiatives

NAFSA Home. Connecting People. Changing The World.

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Intercultural Activity Toolkit

Access updated version of the intercultural communication & training toolkit (ict) june 2022.

The lntercultural Communication & Training (ICT) Toolkit is a practical document that is meant to be applied. You may find it helpful to read it straight through, or you may skip around to where your interests lead you or as the need arises. You may already have a plan to implement a certain kind of training that can be further supplemented with the information provided here. The ICT Toolkit is not designed to make you an expert intercultural trainer, but it suggests first steps for starting a new phase in your intercultural training journey.

In using the ICT Toolkit, you will be able to:

  • Plan and implement a basic program of intercultural training.
  • Design and deliver a basic intercultural training workshop.
  • Understand and apply common ICT training methodologies.

While the ICT Toolkit was written primarily for the international education professional who is relatively new to the field, it may be useful for anyone who wants to understand and apply the basics of creating and delivering intercultural training, including:

  • graduate students exploring career options in international education;
  • early career, pivoting, or seasoned professionals adding intercultural work to their repertoires;
  • senior officials leading but not necessarily performing this work; and
  • practitioners with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEi) experience interested in adding international-intercultural perspectives and methods.

Note that the ICT Toolkit can and should be applied to your own circumstances. Faculty and teaching assistants may apply intercultural concepts in the classroom or with research groups. Staff and student leaders might apply this in their offices, advising practice, orientation, and campus life. Program providers might utilize this resource in their practice. Students in transition programs may also benefit from intercultural training during orientation and first year experience programs. Readers should choose objectives, examples, and points of emphasis according to their own context.  

Meredith Henderson, EdD (ICT Subcommittee Chair 2020-21) Nicholas Dunn Althea Gordon, MA Hannah Marie Morris, PhD Alison Owens, MA Liliana Gabriela Casanova Rangel, MA Kandy Turner, EdD  

intercultural communication assignments for students

8 Strategies for Teaching Intercultural Communication through Film

intercultural communication assignments for students

Film is a highly useful instructional multimedia tool for learning about and teaching cultural differences. As cultural documents, films give substance and meaning to intercultural communication discussions in the classroom. A film can be a veritable stimulus for other communicative language activities and strategies that can be practised in pre-viewing and post-viewing activities, such as improvisation, production, interaction, negotiation, and mediation.

How do you teach intercultural communication? Some strategies and tools that can be used for teaching intercultural communication include film, cooperative learning, improvisation, inquiry-based instruction, task-based instruction, production, interaction, negotiation, mediation and role play.

In today’s mobile world, intercultural and interpersonal communication skills are of utmost importance , not only in the educational setting, but above all outside of this institutional setting and in particular, in interpersonal and professional life settings. Students who are encouraged to develop their intercultural awareness benefit from deeper learning . They are equipped with the knowledge, skills and methods they will need in their professional and civic life.

The Importance of Intercultural Communication Competencies

Since many students do not have the opportunity to travel across the globe, firsthand cross-cultural experiences may be difficult to share. Foreign films can fill this void, since they offer a unique window into the attitudes and behaviours of people from various cultural or linguistic backgrounds . By incorporating film and several simple teaching strategies into your lessons, you will create a more dynamic classroom .

The use of film can assist learners in enhancing their reflection techniques while observing, analyzing, and eventually reformulating information they have seen, heard and understood. This reflection process is a part of a virtuous cycle that can motivate students to participate . There is more than one way to use film in the classroom. In this post you will find:

  • a list of 8 teaching strategies, for using film in the classroom, and
  • for each one, an example and resource for using them effectively.

Classroom Teaching Strategies

The strategies below deal with the content of your lesson or course and will help you to answer the following question:

  • Which strategies can I adopt to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to my students? 

They also deal with the expected learning outcomes of your lesson or course, will help you to answer the following questions:

  • ‘What do I want my students to be able to do after completion of this lesson or course?’ 
  • And ‘Which strategies should I adopt to achieve this?’

1. Promote Cooperative Learning

Break with the traditional classroom setting and rearrange your classroom environment. Encourage students of mixed abilities to work together by promoting small group or whole class activities while watching and discussing the film or series clip. The cooperative learning environment encourages students to actively assimilate and process the new information, while cross modeling it with fellow classmates (source: Barkley, Elizabeth F., Claire H. Major, K., and Patricia Cross. 2014. Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty, 2nd Edition. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco).

Through verbally expressing their ideas and responding to others, your students will develop their self-confidence , as well as enhance their communication and critical thinking skills which are vital throughout their entire personal and professional life.

For instance, you may ask your students to consider how they would react in an intercultural situation, such as welcoming a foreign student into their classroom. They could discuss and list the types of questions they would ask or how they would go about resolving an often intimidating and difficult situation for newcomers.

2. Utilize Role-Play Before and After Viewing

Have your students improvise and act out short drama sketches based on intercultural communication before viewing scenes from the film. After viewing, discuss and troubleshoot areas for improvement through constructive peer evaluation. A mock scenario is the safest place to make and learn from cultural mistakes, or as the French say « faux pas » .

This is just one example of how role-play can be incorporated into classroom lessons. By solving problems, being creative and negotiating outcomes students can develop and enhance the soft skills revered by employers (source: Dana Di Pardo Léon-Henri, 2019, Going beyond words and actions: teaching metacognitive and soft skills to ESP communication students at the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution , See Appendix 1 )

In terms of cultural differences, these sketches or improvisations may be related to a variety of cultural differences such as language, clothing, food, traditions, music, or social norms and behaviour codes . You may even choose to integrate culture clash, stereotypes or clichés about culture (that beret –topped, cigarette-smoking, baguette-holding Frenchman riding a beat up old Peugeot basket-equipped bicycle comes to mind – although that still exists! Just kidding!).

3. Support Inquiry-based Instruction

Ask thought-provoking questions which inspire your students to think for themselves and become more independent learners . Encourage them to ask questions and investigate or research their own ideas. This will help them to improve and further develop their problem-solving skills, as well as gain a deeper understanding of intercultural issues and interpersonal concepts.

Make a basket or box of questions and have the students pull out a question and work in discussion groups. Depending on the level of the students, inquiries can be of an interpersonal nature such as ‘how does body language and culture differ from one continent to the next?’ or ‘do all French people speak the same French language?’

Based on the film, the questions may also be subjective and more open in nature to encourage students to express their unique views and personal or cultural experience, e.g. ‘which kind of foods are your favorite?’ or ‘would you try eating sushi?’

For students in higher education, you may choose to address issues that deal with the professional setting. For example, ‘you call a foreign client and you cannot understand her/his dialect or accent. How do you manage this situation’? (source: Dana Di Pardo Léon-Henri et Bhawana Jain. 2017. Role Play: A Practical Way to Teach Intercultural Communication, Recherche et pratiques pédagogiques en langues de spécialité, Vol.36 N°2. )

4. Integrate Task-Based Instruction with Differentiation

Task-based instruction and experiential learning methods are very beneficial to the development of your student’s abilities. However, in giving the same tasks to all of the students, you can sometimes overlook some student needs. Differentiate your teaching methods by allocating tasks based on students’ abilities , to ensure that no one gets left behind (source: Differentiated Instruction Educator’s Guide (2016 ) .

By assigning classroom activities according to students’ unique learning needs, individuals with higher academic capabilities are broadened and those who are struggling or in need will get the appropriate support.

In fact, differentiation can involve simply handing out worksheets based on the film or series clip that vary in complexity to different groups of students. You may also choose to set up a range of workstations or activities around the classroom and give students an assortment of tasks from which they can choose.

5. Didactization of a Film

You may choose to base a lesson, a group of lessons or a thematic course on the didactization (the process of rendering content into syllabi) of a film. This has many advantages in that the film becomes the primary source for content. However, it does not limit you to expanding the course to various other themes.

Early on in my ESP (English for Specific Purposes) career, as a university instructor in France, I did this with the film The Rainmaker (1997) in the context of teaching legal English for my third year students (source: Di Pardo Léon-Henri, D. 2012. Teaching foreign Languages through the Analysis of Film and Television Series: English for Legal Purposes. Recherche et pratiques pédagogiques en langues de spécialité/Cahiers de l’APLIUT, Vol. XXXI, N° 2, p. 126-139 ). Many different areas of the film were exploited to show many intercultural differences between the French and American legal systems, from: 

  • the initial stages of establishing a contract between lawyer and client;
  • jury selection and courtroom drama;
  • opening arguments, exchanges between lawyers and judges;
  • closing arguments, and
  • the outcome of the case.

Since the main story line of this film deals with a sick patient and the evolution of his insurance bad faith court trial against the fictitious American insurance giant, Great Benefit. Involving a newly established young lawyer and an established specialist in tort law, the following scenes were chosen for analysis:

  • being assigned a lawyer and signing the initial contract;
  • preparing a case;
  • choosing and dealing with jury members;
  • appearing before the court, questioning witnesses, and
  • negotiating with defense lawyers, as well as presenting closing arguments.

The above study demonstrated that the students greatly appreciated the manner in which the course was taught. The overall objectives of this course – to improve written and oral language skills , while focusing on legal terminology in a motivational setting through the use of film were achieved.

6. Focus on Linguistic, Sociolinguistic and Pragmatic Skills

When planning your film-inspired intercultural syllabus, incorporate exercises that are based on linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic skills development . When placing emphasis on these areas, students become more aware of the non-verbal features of spoken language and the importance or influence of body language. 

By adopting this strategy, they are also encouraged to explore the different elements of another culture and the correlation between language, identity and culture , while negotiating meaning in dealing with difficult situations (social conventions or living conditions, for instance) and differing points of view or perspectives.

For instance, repeated scene viewings are possible while focusing on specific pragmatic particulars in terms of speech acts or politeness. (source: Alcon Soler, Eva., Maria Pilar and Safont Jorda (eds.). 2008. Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning . Springer: Castello, Spain, pages 123-245). And remember, a syllabus has many purposes: it can be a planning and reference document, a communication tool, and, in some cases, a contract between teachers and students.

7. Adopt a New or Different Role

In traditional settings, teachers are generally considered as the expert instructor and formal authority that unilaterally controls the transfer of knowledge and delegates roles or missions. Why not put this traditional role aside and adopt the role of facilitator or moderator ? You may also choose to adopt the role of participant or resource . Similar to the aforementioned strategies, this strategy can be adapted to any teaching environment ( source ).

Placing the students in working groups will promote teamwork and encourage them to reflect on issues independently, while working together and developing their resourcefulness. This will also shift the balance of power and provide students with a flipped-classroom setting, offering very enriching insights into instruction, while furthering the development of their soft skills. 

With regard to the use of film and intercultural communication, this particular strategy can be implemented in many different ways. For instance, you may provide a variety of verbal or non-verbal-related communication tasks and have each small group report back to the class either before or after the viewing of a particular scene. The role-play (see above) is also an illustration of this strategy,

8. Consider Joining FILTA 

Since my early teaching days, I have used film in my classroom. In the 90’s, I used the film Moonstruck (1987) and French Kiss (1995) to inspire my adult Introductory Italian and French students. They loved to talk about their travel dreams and what to expect in terms of stereotypes and clichés.

Later, as a university instructor, I used film to teach English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and more precisely legal English to illustrate significant differences between the French and American systems. It was during this period that I discovered a plurilingual focus group called the Film in Language Teaching Association: FILTA . 

An association of language teachers, film educators and researchers, FILTA was formed for the purpose of providing a forum for the exchange of information related to the use of film in language teaching. FILTA is also concerned with issues dealing with education, instruction and training in multimodal literacy and its application to language learning. Their aim is to encourage online community memberships, the use of collaboration to solve problems, and the use of technology to shape the flow of media.

For a list of intercultural films, click here.

Related Questions

What is the meaning of intercultural communication? Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies cultural codes and behaviours, as well as verbal and non-verbal communication codes across different cultures and social groups. It also encompasses the total sum of communication processes, obstacles and challenges that materialize when individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds converge. 

For this reason, people who study intercultural communication strive to understand and respect how individuals from differing countries or cultures behave, communicate and perceive the world around them. They also examine intercultural communication to better prepare for, respect and facilitate interaction and verbal or non-verbal communicative acts. 

For instance, are you familiar with the proper protocol when offering and receiving a business or calling card from a Japanese colleague? You must offer, receive and hold the card with just your fingertips on the edges closest to you. And never simply tuck it away and ignore the card. Consider it as a gift, which must be treated with respect and appreciated for its uniqueness, just like the Japanese person in front of you. 

What are some intercultural skills? Intercultural competence refers to the ability of a person to naturally employ a wide range of cognitive, affective, and behavioural skills that will assist in facilitating communication with people from different cultural origins. Appropriate intercultural communication includes appropriate behaviours that correspond with the expectations of a specific culture, the particularities of a given situation, and the rapport between the parties involved.

Individuals who possess excellent intercultural skills are people with high levels of cultural self-awareness and a deep understanding of and respect for the influence of culture on behavior, values, and beliefs. These individuals also consider their own cultural norms and choose the best appropriate and most comfortable compromise between the different cultural norms to accommodate their interlocutor and minimize feelings of uneasiness and awkwardness.

Both in the educational and professional setting, intercultural skills and competency are of great significance and value, since cultural awareness leads individuals to better grasp how his/her own culture functions and behaves, while respecting the differences associated with foreign cultures.

For instance, an individual who is in possession of these skills and thus cognizant of intercultural differences will self-monitor (cognitive) to censor (behaviour) anything (verbal or non-verbal) not acceptable (affective) to another culture during an intercultural interaction. In general, social, open-minded, and non-judgemental individuals generate respect for the differences associated with foreign cultures, since they are considerate of others.

Dana Di Pardo Leon-Henri

Dana Di Pardo Léon-Henri is a senior researching lecturer with ELLIADD (EA 4661), currently teaching English for Special or Specific Purposes (ESP) at the University of Bourgogne Franche Comté at the UFR SLHS in Besançon, France. Her research is focused on ESP and LSP Language Teaching, foreign language learning and teaching, pedagogy, didactics, evaluation, artificial intelligence and language teaching, language policy and professional skills development at the higher education level.

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Intercultural Communication

(14 reviews)

intercultural communication assignments for students

Shannon Ahrndt, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Copyright Year: 2020

Publisher: University of Missouri - St. Louis

Language: English

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Reviewed by Christi Masters, Clinical Associate Professor, Purdue University on 12/19/23

This covers a fairly wide range of topics in regard to intercultural learning. For an introductory course (especially geared towards freshmen), this will provide a nice overview of topics. Given the title, I was expecting to see more comprehensive... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This covers a fairly wide range of topics in regard to intercultural learning. For an introductory course (especially geared towards freshmen), this will provide a nice overview of topics. Given the title, I was expecting to see more comprehensive information about culture and communication (e.g., how to communicate more effectively). Chapter 1 covered this more comprehensively than the remaining chapters.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Overall the information is accurate and sources are cited. Writing about this topic can be tricky as we often view this from our own experiences in life, but the author appropriately references material discussed.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The overall topic and broad information is quite relevant. While there are a few examples that are recent, many of the examples (including video clips) were often quite old (and not clearly related to how it is relevant to current times).

Clarity rating: 5

The clarity is excellent. I appreciated how each chapter provides clear learning objectives before getting started. The key terms at the start of each chapter (and being able to click on them for more information) was helpful, especially when thinking of the student perspective.

Consistency rating: 4

Consistency with terminology throughout the text was noted. The consistent start of each chapter with learning objectives and key terminology was helpful. All of the chapters ended with "key takeaways", but two chapters did not include "exercises" at the end of the chapter.

Modularity rating: 5

Although chapter 1 was long and contained more information than others, there were still clear sections and subheadings that aided modularity. Although some of the information builds off previous content/chapters, it would still be feasible to assign a chapter or section and still make sense to the reader and allow for learning based on that specific assignment/chapter.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The text was organized and flowed well while reading. As mentioned previously, the organization of each chapter was helpful (starting with learning objectives and key terms, and ending with key takeaways and exercises).

Interface rating: 5

The images and charts were clear. The key terms and videos were easy to click on and find. There were no distracting features noted.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

A few minor errors but nothing that hindered content or readability.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Given this is the focus of the text, it covers a range of cultural topics. Again, some of the information/examples are older and it would benefit from more recent examples.

There were many things I appreciated about this text. For example, noting the importance of reflection and reflective practice when it comes to intercultural learning. I wish there was more focus and an explicit statement about intercultural communication competence being a life-long journey - you don't just one day become "competent". While I am sure the author knows that, I think an undergraduate student could read the section on ICC and think there is an "endpoint" where you are finally competent.

Reviewed by Kay L. Colley, Professor of Mass Communication, Texas Wesleyan University on 7/31/23

This book is a comprehensive yet concise read allowing students to really understand the basics of intercultural communication. The glossary provides a great resource for students and anyone who wants to understand how to more effectively... read more

This book is a comprehensive yet concise read allowing students to really understand the basics of intercultural communication. The glossary provides a great resource for students and anyone who wants to understand how to more effectively communicate across cultures.

Most intercultural communication texts are written through a lens, so examples veer toward a focus on one area, usually the area of specialization of the author. This text provides a good depth of examples that seem to go beyond your traditional examples in such a text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The basic theories and concepts of intercultural communication are tackled effectively in this text, and content is fairly up-to-date. As this topic changes so quickly, it is difficult to keep intercultural communications up-to-date, but examples and issues are relevant to today.

This text is well-written and more accessible to students than several other texts I have reviewed. A limit on jargon and clear explanations of complicated topics make the text one that students will use.

Consistency rating: 5

Consistent use of terminology and phrasing is clear throughout the book.

Modularity rating: 4

The first two chapters are a bit long, especially chapter 1. Breaking the chapter into a bite-sized portion would be helpful.

Clear flow and logic are present in this text.

I was impressed by how the text looked. It is clear, attractive and written in a font that makes reading easier.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

There are a few grammatical errors, which is common in most texts today. Nothing is glaring, in terms of grammar, but there are some S-V agreement issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The topics that this textbook covers are sometimes hot button. There are some graphics that may be jarring, but that is the nature of intercultural communications. In studying how to communicate effectively across cultures, there are times when issues must be addressed that are uncomfortable.

This textbook is far more accessible to my students than the previous textbook in terms of writing, tone and style. I really believe my students will understand the subject better as they use this text, which is integral to understanding how to communication effectively across cultures.

Reviewed by Marc Pinheiro-Cadd, Associate Professor, Drake University on 12/15/22

While each chapter is of interest and potentially useful for an introductory course to intercultural communication, there is no index and no glossary. This could be addressed using ancillary materials, but it would not suffice as a stand-alone... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

While each chapter is of interest and potentially useful for an introductory course to intercultural communication, there is no index and no glossary. This could be addressed using ancillary materials, but it would not suffice as a stand-alone textbook.

The content is unbiased, taking a "neutral" stance on the various topics. The content is consistent with current research in the field, although there are some missing content that would be useful.

My primary motivation for reviewing the text was to find a better presentation of the chapter on gendered communication, i.e., something that addresses more the interaction between males and females. While the text discusses the LGBTQ+ movement and community, it lacks a thorough discussion of communication within the community and with other communities. While the research in this area has not been largely forthcoming, most instructors will want a text (or replacement chapter) that is more current. A chapter devoted to acculturation might be a useful addition.

The text is very clearly written and 100% appropriate for an introductory course. Studnets who wish for or need material that can be applied directly to their lives without difficult jargon, this would be an appropriate selection.

Assessing this is a little difficult given that there is no index or glossary, but based on my reading, it is consistent. The framework remains consistent in that it is a very user-friendly text.

I believe this is one of the strengths of the text. Individual chapters could be used to supplement or replace chapters of other texts. Alternatively, chapters of this text could be omitted and replaced by others more suitable to the instructor and their students. The divisions internally within each chapter have been well chosen.

The first three chapters of the text are the more "theoretical," although they are easily processed by a reader unfamiliar with the field. The remainder of the chapter address various aspects of human society that face some of the issues addressed in the first three chapters.

There were no interface issues to note. Every chart and image were clearly displayed and easily understood.

No grammatical errors were found.

Race, class, and gender were addressed in individual chapters. A discussion of communication between non-binary and binary/cis individuals would be an appropriate addition. No offensive material was detected.

Having known little about OER prior to the search that led me to this text, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover this text. It will be useful for future iterations of my courses.

Reviewed by Elissa Mitchell, Associate Professor, University of Southern Indiana on 11/18/22

This book covers many areas (e.g., stereotyping, beliefs and values, race and ethnicity, social class, gender and sexuality) so it's diverse enough to be used in a broad course, likely as a supplemental text/reading. Each chapter has a good... read more

This book covers many areas (e.g., stereotyping, beliefs and values, race and ethnicity, social class, gender and sexuality) so it's diverse enough to be used in a broad course, likely as a supplemental text/reading. Each chapter has a good overview of the topic. It doesn't not go in depth on any one topic, so would be best for an introductory course.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

While I am not expert in this field, it appears as though the information in this book is based on the appropriate literature and is supported by in-text citations and linked in the references.

This is an up-to-date discussion of intercultural communication, although I would have liked to have seen more of a discussion on nonverbal communication (an important factor). While language or preferred terms may evolve over time, this could easily be updated to reflect those changes. A list of key terms would be a nice addition to each chapter, perhaps included at the end with the key takeaways.

I found this to be a very well-written text. It is fairly informal, not including a lot of unnecessary jargon, and makes the text accessible (ideal for undergraduates). Personal examples and stories are included which engages the reader.

The text is consistent in terms of formatting, style of writing, and additional content (key takeaways, student exercises) throughout

This is a highly modular text and chapters could easily be used independently without assigning the whole text. Chapters on race or gender, for example, could be used as supplemental readings in courses addressing those topics. The chapters can be a bit long so one might even consider breaking up chapters into subsections.

The text is well-organized and flows well. While some chapters start differently than others, I think that helps break up the monotony of some texts. The book starts with an overview of the topic and then each subsequent chapter talks about a specific aspect of culture or identity.

The text is free of significant interface issues or navigation problems. The images/charts are clear and cited & I appreciate the linked in-text citations.

This is a well-written text with few grammatical issues. Those that are present do not detract from the topic or information being presented.

This is an appropriate book for intercultural communication from an American perspective. Those from other nations would likely have a different view. That being said, the U.S. has many cultures and subcultures and this book does a nice job of discussing potential issues and considerations.

intercultural communication assignments for students

Reviewed by Reslie Cortés, Assistnat Professor, James Madison University on 11/9/22

The information provided and the chapter organization is interesting and good but overall, I think this book is more about identity than culture. It covers very little ground to the extent that I would not be able to keep it as my main book and... read more

The information provided and the chapter organization is interesting and good but overall, I think this book is more about identity than culture. It covers very little ground to the extent that I would not be able to keep it as my main book and would only be able to use it to supplement a different text. It is also quite short at only 100 pages. So while it could be used as a helpful reference it’s not a stand-alone text.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

While the book often brings in widely accepted concepts regarding prejudice, there is insufficient/inaccurate discussion of how these function through colonialism. For example, in discussion of social class the author points to overpopulation in the global south. This is a myth borne out of colonial discourse which erases exploitation of these countries and has been widely disproven. We have also moved beyond considering oppression as an individual experience and much more structurally.

Does not extensively use “current events” to explain concepts so it feels very anachronistic. This could increase its longevity but also detaches it from everyday experiences.

Writing style is very clear, accessible, and personable. The author refers to themselves in the third person which I think student would like. Most students should be able to easily digest the reading.

The terminology is consistent, however there is an imbalance in paradigmatic coverage. There seems to be an implied assumption that all intercultural communication research has this critical approach which I feel is very inaccurate and limits the coverage on social scientific or interpretive perspectives in the field. In other words, presenting critical perspectives as the umbrella instead of one approach. I myself am I critical scholar, however in a survey course we must address the other paradigms as well.

Chapters are 25 pages or less with plenty of subsections

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The chapters are divided by different identities and while this contributes to a good flow, there is more to intercultural communication than identity. I fear this organization has excluded some important themes such as cultural space, identity performance, globalization and modern-day imperialism, the role of media, cultural practices, language, etc. Furthermore, while intersectionality is discussed, this organization hampers readers ability to see how these functions because the identities are all discussed separately.

Well placed headers, images, charts. Links work correctly.

None detected

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

There seems to be a hesitance address modern-day colonization and imperialism in this book. Additionally, I think it could be updated by using “enslavement” rather than “slavery”. It discusses important social inequalities at length but mostly at an individual level, leaving out explorations of more structural oppressions. There are also some red flags throughout that reveal internalized oppressive discourse of the author. For example the chapter on social class (only 10pgs or so) talks about criminal justice and uses a photograph of a black man being arrested with no contextualization or discussion of rates of arrest in different communities or police brutality. Literally choosing to include this without drawing its relevance to culture. What was their goal for discussing this topic? Out of touch and completely unacceptable.

Reviewed by Caleb Lamont, Adjunct Faculty in Communication Studies, Eastern Oregon University on 9/9/22

Various topics and theories are explored in the text and present them in a fun and engaging way. Everything is easy to understand throughout and students are able to see how one topic connects to another one. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Various topics and theories are explored in the text and present them in a fun and engaging way. Everything is easy to understand throughout and students are able to see how one topic connects to another one.

Everything was accurate and relatable to the students.

Everything is very relevant and up-to-date. Granted, some things might need to be revised down the road in future editions to make things more relatable and current but as of today, everything was fine and relevant.

Everything was very easy to understand and flowed clearly from chapter to chapter.

The author was consistent throughout.

Overall, everything is easy to understand throughout and is a solid text the way it is today. Everything flows and builds off of previous chapters/topics.

The text is very well organized and everything flows from the first chapter to the last chapter.

No issues with this, no broken links were found.

While not a major issue, there were several typos and other grammatical errors in the text. Not a major issue at all though, and it did not take away from the material being presented to students.

The examples used were all current and relatable to students but it was more geared toward North American culture it seemed. Expanding the cultural examples being used is suggested for future revisions.

Overall, this is a solid text and does a great job presenting information to students.

Reviewed by Andrea (Ané) Pearman, Assistant Professor, Tidewater Community College on 7/28/22

Although the text covers a vast amount of content, there are foundational aspects of ICC that are not addressed as well as I would prefer. There appears to be a more sociological or cultural anthropology focus to this text and less of a focus on... read more

Although the text covers a vast amount of content, there are foundational aspects of ICC that are not addressed as well as I would prefer. There appears to be a more sociological or cultural anthropology focus to this text and less of a focus on the field of communication. For example, nonverbal communication was barely addressed yet it plays such a significant role in ICC.

I appreciate the listing of key terms at the beginning of each chapter as well as the direct links between the listing and the content within the chapter. I would recommend a well-structured glossary as an addition to this text or a detailed index to the entire text for reference; this would make content even more accessible for students. I appreciate the inclusion (which is not rather standard process) of learning objectives for each chapter but I do not always see the connection within the chapters.

Content, without copiously scrutinizing each chapters’ content and fact checking each and every single reference, appears to be accurate. The author cites sources at the end of each chapter and within the content of the chapters. Links to source citations are added within each chapter’s content for credibility and to enhance further research. I appreciated the links within the "References" section for each chapter to easily access original source content.

Overall, the language of the writing does not tend to “date” the content as the author has written with “timeless” language. The author includes both historical and current examples which may impact the long-term relevance of the text. The inclusion of incredibly current content (text written in 2020 with sources from 2020) may help this text stand the test of time. The language is current and there is a good inclusion of up-to-date examples of some concepts discussed within some of the content (particularly in the Ch. 7 Socialization and Human Sexuality). These examples could easily be updated to keep the content as current as possible.

Clarity rating: 4

The chapters are clearly written with the author’s writing style being very “readable” and I feel that this puts the readers at ease regarding the content. The author’s language is written at a level easily accessible for both higher and lower-level undergraduate course students. The author uses anecdotes and personal examples to make the content more “relatable” and the author tries to create connections with students, overall, with the language style of the writing. However, the somewhat heavy reliance on personal examples by the author can take away from the overall research value- for me, as a reader.

The chapters’ language, formatting and content follow a consistent pattern. I appreciate the use of key terms, learning objectives, photo boxes, “getting real” and “getting plugged in “sections, key takeaways, examples, video links and one level of sub-heading throughout each chapter. I would even value a further level of sub-heading, if possible, in future editions. The flow of content is logical and consistent, but some chapters are significantly longer or include more content than others which requires the professor to break down into addition reading sections for students.

In the text’s current organization, the chapters seem to flow logically into each other or lead logically to the next chapter’s content. Having said this, the chapters are structured in a manner that they can easily be rearranged for teaching style and timing. The subdivision of content with secondary headers within the chapters makes it easier to “pick and choose” if necessary, content to be addressed.

As previously noted, some chapters contain considerably more content than others and this could be modified with either adding more chapters OR more content to other chapters. The flow of content is logical and well-structured. There is consistency in the content included with the exception of some chapters including more pedagogical aids than others.

Interface rating: 4

Basic but, overall, easy to use. Downloadable pdf with links (but it’s easy to lose your original place of reading when using links). Although I appreciate the links for key words and source information, the “open in another tab” option is not available, but it would make the process easier to return to prior reading place.

I did not review the text as an editor nor run through editing software, but I did notice a few slight grammatical issues present; the errors were nominal and none that would impact the author’s credibility.

The examples were very current as well as relevant and, overall, would relate to, or at least interest, students. I found the book to be sensitive to a variety of aspects of culture but found it to be somewhat “American-centric” meaning it was more relevant to North America than subcultures of other geographic areas (like Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe).

I found the text to be an enjoyable read and I think students would find value in the content included. I appreciated the key term links and exercises for students as well as the personal anecdotes of the author. While the coverage of intercultural communication from a sociological perspective was quite thorough, I would not be able to use this as a “stand alone” source for my Intercultural Communication courses but would need to supplement with additional content regarding communication theories as well as more content from cultures outside of the United States.

Reviewed by Sweta Baniya, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech on 4/1/22

The book is less comprehensive than I thought. Though it covers a variety of important topics, I wanted some comprehensive historical grounding of IC and its importance. read more

The book is less comprehensive than I thought. Though it covers a variety of important topics, I wanted some comprehensive historical grounding of IC and its importance.

All content seems accurate.

Content is very relevant

The language is really clear.

Information is very consistent. However, I think the history of IC is missing.

I think so! I like the format.

It seems like there are so many items within one page but those are easily identifiable.

No issues that I can think of

None that I can see.

I think the book is really good. However, I think I wanted a comprehensive history of intercultural communication that will help the students to understand the grounding of IC. I do think the book is really good. However, I am not so confident in using only this text as my major text for my class. The chapter on Race and Ethnicity is really important. I will definitely assign some chapters from the book to my future IC class because the book has important topics.

Reviewed by Gloria Wenman, Adjunct Instructor, English Language Acquisition, Kirkwood Community College on 12/15/21

The textbook covers a wide range of the American cultural landscape. It explains the history of certain issues with tact while also conveying the good and bad of historical figures and impactful decisions (historical as in the past few to many... read more

The textbook covers a wide range of the American cultural landscape. It explains the history of certain issues with tact while also conveying the good and bad of historical figures and impactful decisions (historical as in the past few to many years ago). Explanations are placed with the initiation of a concept. This is convenient as it alleviates the need to grab another book to find the meaning. At times, explanations are tied back to previous concepts to help with understanding, e.g., “the socializing institutions we discussed earlier…” The table of contents could be revised to include headings within each chapter. This would help the reader to see at a glance all that a chapter focuses on, rather than just the chapter's main thesis.

While most of the content consists of statements of fact, the author's opinions are obvious in the words used to examine different concepts. It is usually clear when the author's own viewpoint is being expressed. The content is well referenced with a discussion of the sourced information. In-text citations are linked to the reference page. Most of the references are linked to the originating document. This makes it easy to fact-check a discussed concept or approach. A random sampling showed that the author stayed true to the represented ideas of the linked articles.

Very few ‘currently trending’ words or phrases are used thus lessening the need for interpretation. This lends to the relevance of the material as it prevents ‘dating’ of the material. Much of the textbook is tied to the historical beginnings of certain outcomes. While the interpretation of these may change, hopefully, the facts won’t. When combined with common use words, this will keep the textbook from being outdated within the next decade (as is the case with many printed books).

The author's style of writing helps the reader understand the different approaches used. The contained concepts are well defined and considered from several perspectives. It is also written with good sentence structure and paragraph placement making for a clearer understanding of theories, opinions, and explanations. Headers, sub-headers, and highlighting help to simplify content and connections.

The style of writing is consistent throughout the textbook. Words, phrases, and concepts of the same level of proficiency are conveyed in a similar manner throughout. Chapters are laid out in the same pattern making it easy to pinpoint references, suggested learning outcomes, key terms, key takeaways, and student exercises. The flow of the chapters is similar without any jarring (or chaotic) changes. The call-backs to previous chapters or discussions help to connect the entirety of the communication concept between and within different American ideals, beliefs, and systems.

Moving through the book in a linear fashion allows certain aspects to bloom in a particular way. However, the author’s way of developing the textbook does allow for segmentation. Chapters could be subdivided with the extractions combined in different ways. This helps home in on certain facets that may be at the forefront of common thought, the news of the day, or the planned focus of a class. This makes it easier to pick and choose which portions to use in classroom discussions. While each chapter has a set focus, some of the concepts do overlap. This helps with flow and understanding but may make it more difficult to subdivide without seeming fragmentary.

The textbook is organized into overall categories then subdivided into specific areas of focus. This continuity of structure helps the reader move from one aspect, or focus, of the chapter to another. However, some chapters begin with a story of a recent event, others start with consideration of different research, and yet others begin with an expressed opinion. While this might lend an interesting diversity, it impacts the flow between chapters. This keeps the textbook from being as useful of a classroom tool as it could be. Some chapters have questions after the opening foray, but most do not. The questions are useful because they make the reader immediately question their own biases. They also provide a great starting point for discussion-based classes.

Interface rating: 3

Links within the document help with understanding. The links allow you to click on a keyword or reference and be taken to the definition or usage within the textbook. Getting back to your starting point is not as easy due to the necessity of scrolling back. Clicking on a picture byline or reference did not result in the same issue. Hitting the back button returns you to the exact place in the textbook you left. Perhaps the issue is only true of links within the document rather than those linked to outside sources. While this aspect is probably true of many online documents, having a link that goes backward and forwards could alleviate this.

There are some dropped words, such as indirect articles, and some awkward word usage. However, I didn’t read it with the intent of proofreading, and the meaning and intent appear clear.

The dynamics and inter-connectedness of the different aspects of American culture are well explored. The textbook is somewhat limited to those already in or wishing to integrate into, the existing stratified American culture or to better understand their place(s) in it. For those coming to this country with the wish to understand the culture, and not change their own, this is a great overall introduction. However, while there may be commonalities between cultures, the book doesn’t consider outside backgrounds and cultures.

The textbook is focused on the intersectionality within American culture. It is more intracultural than intercultural. I had looked at this textbook for possible use in an English Language Acquisitions’ Culture and Communication class. This is a high-level class, and in the next lowest (in a progression-based system) we discuss a person’s culture of familiarity in comparison with the American culture. When I first looked at this book, it seemed to be a possibility. After more in-depth consideration though, I don’t think it will work for helping students to understand the American culture as it relates to their own. Thanks to the decent modularity, there are many facets that I can use. I just can’t use it as a whole class. I think this textbook is great, and I certainly like it for its inclusivity of American’s varied cultures.

Reviewed by Kristen Livingston, Associate Instructional Professor, Pittsburg State University on 6/3/21

Very dense- all encompassing and dare I even say "loaded" with all of the connecting ideologies to sociological foundations. I worry that it is not effective in communication practices but may be helpful understanding people which is how... read more

Very dense- all encompassing and dare I even say "loaded" with all of the connecting ideologies to sociological foundations. I worry that it is not effective in communication practices but may be helpful understanding people which is how connections in communication may be made. I would reduce the overwhelming focus on descriptions and focus on what intercultural means in terms of communication. Intercultural communication can be an overwhelming subject and this may encourage more anxiety with the topic. The key terms would benefit including definitions at the beginning or the end of the chapters to help reiterate the importance of those in relation to intercultural communication. The exercises are helpful to generate discussion/reiteration of content.

The content, in accordance with best practices, theoretical framing, and academic acknowledgments, is referenced adequately. The citations at the end of each chapter clarify anything within the text that may encourage questioning. Intercultural communication is heavily reliant on experience as much as academics- I know this may not be a popular "opinion. Thus, this text does a good job collecting information to help further a classroom discussion.

Since intercultural is tangible and reliant on those individuals communicating, this book is relatively up to date but will not adjusted often. It is helpful to have the historical timelines, case studies, and the author's references to aid in the exploration of content. It will be up to the instructor to guide students through the text and engage them with approaches to understanding the content. It helps to know where we have come from to know where the discussion will allocate further in the classroom.

The seven chapters are clearly written, organized, and offer context for the terminology used throughout the text. It is easy to read, navigate, and connects the subject matter from chapter to chapter. I would appreciate a bit more connectivity to student learning and an understanding that this can be very overwhelming (which at times I felt was without during my reading).

The text is consistent, has a clear identity in reading, and flows from one subject to the next. Some chapters don't have the abundance of student inclusion (exercises) but that may be due to the subject matter in question. It does a good job in framing ideologies, given how the text pulls from a variety of resources, and condenses into a relatively unified voice.

The chapters can be divided easily throughout a semester or a summer course. Given the lengths of chapters, some information may need to be reduced by the instructor through picking and choosing the most important content (due to how much content there is overall). How each chapter is divided into sections is helpful to for discussions and assignments.

The textbook is organized in an easy "map" formation that will lend to understanding one topic to the next. The subject builds upon itself to help set tone, standards, and understanding before moving on.

Everything worked, links were not broken, and imagery was clear without pixelation.

There were some typos that I caught during my brief experience with the text (however, due to how dense the material is, I am not surprise).

This text is HIGHLY relevant and is inclusive by default of subject matter. However, all examples, case studies, and references help to monitor and recognize all aspects of intercultural exploration.

This is a well-written book that just needs some minor considerations as an adoption in class. I think an instructor can cherry pick the materials from this text OR ultimately will choose to create content themselves from OER resources. Overall, I would recommend but each instructor should recognize how much material is embodied in the text, the scope of the text in seven chapters, and what they would like their students to learn most importantly.

Reviewed by Noel Neptune, Lecturer/Clinical Education Coordinator, University of Southern Maine on 3/31/21

Covers the content expected. I appreciate all the works cited sections at the end of the chapters as well to see their references. I think a section at the beginning of each chapter defining key terms would be beneficial. I also like the... read more

Covers the content expected. I appreciate all the works cited sections at the end of the chapters as well to see their references. I think a section at the beginning of each chapter defining key terms would be beneficial. I also like the explanation of some of the exercises that have been used when looking at cultural awareness. It provides a lot of resources to look into to use for courses.

I believe the content is accurate and free of bias, but there are several points in the book that the author tells their own story. I think these would make better boxed out discussion or authors thoughts rather than in the middle of the text. The author also lists all of their references.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The content is up to date but I think many of the sections and references will seem poorly written as time goes on (refers to things in recent history, etc...). I do like the historic timelines of important dates and those will be easy to update. But the in-text references will be harder to update.

Fairly clear but I think a chapter in the beginning that clearly defined key words, or having tabs off of the text to do so would be helpful. Some of the definitions of terms you had to read the whole section to decipher the authors definition. Also, lots of first person story telling. I like the stories, but think they should be separated from the researched information.

The author is consistent throughout the entire book.

The text is obviously divided but I think it may even be more beneficial to break into even smaller segments. I like books that make it easy to break up the reading into small segments with clear places you can stop and resume at later dates. This does have several subsections you can do this with in some chapters but others it doesn't work as well. Chapter 1 is a bit too long and reads dry.

Topics are all introduced but I find the flow of the book a bit choppy for some reason. It might be because the book jumps from personal story to research, then to definitions and back and forth.

I did not have any issues with interface with the online text.

No issues that I noticed but I will admit, this is not my strong point.

It is a book about Intercultural Communications. It can't get much more culturally relevant than that. The examples the text used are all relevant to evaluating cultural awareness and competence.

I like the exercises at the end of the chapters. I also enjoy the authors personal notes, just wish they were introduced outside of the chapter reading. I would also add a list of terms and definitions at the beginning of the chapter for quick reference. Overall a good text. My biggest concern is the amount of timely references made in the book and how they will hold up and read with time.

Reviewed by Cory Geraths, Visiting Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Wabash College on 2/28/21

This book, unfortunately, is not comprehensive. The textbook proposes a focus on intercultural communication and, while this is a recurring theme throughout (particularly in the opening chapter), much of the content focuses more on the... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

This book, unfortunately, is not comprehensive. The textbook proposes a focus on intercultural communication and, while this is a recurring theme throughout (particularly in the opening chapter), much of the content focuses more on the "intercultural" side of "intercultural communication." The selections compiled by the editor into this text stem largely from Sociology and, while this is helpful to a degree from the perspective of interdisciplinarity, Communication teachers looking to use this book in an Intercultural Communication course will find the book quite light in terms of explicit focus on communication theories, practices, and situations. The text does not include an index, though it does include highlighted key terms throughout. Such terms are also noted at the outset of each chapter alongside core learning objectives. Each chapter also ends with a bulleted summary of key themes and most chapters (there is an inconsistency here) also include some exercises for students. Unfortunately, the learning objectives and summaries are often quite lengthy; a more refined list of student goals and key takeaways would be helpful.

The book does not contain, to my eye, significant issues in accuracy of content. The primary issue, as noted elsewhere in this review, stems from the need for a richer focus on Communication Studies as a discipline, broadly, and Intercultural Communication as a rich subfield of that discipline, specifically. Of particular concern, in my view, is that multiple chapters (namely, Ch. 5 on class and Ch. 7 on sexuality) lack a rich engagement with scholarship and other evidence. Rather than drawing upon work by academics and others, these chapters rely primarily on Wiki sources. And, while such sources can be useful as sites for general information, they lack a needed rigor and richness in the context of a textbook to be assigned to students.

This textbook is inconsistent in terms of relevance. At times, examples are up-to-date (as in parts of Ch. 7 on sexuality). More often than not, however, the data marshaled and the examples proffered in this book lack a necessary recency. There are, for instance, multiple occasions where data is marshaled from the 1990s or 2000s. Such data is not explicitly connected to the present moment or even a more recent moment. It is, instead, used without sufficient context in a way that is troubling and would, in my view, lead a faculty member assigning this textbook to have to fill in the gaps on her own.

The seven chapters compiled by the editor into this text are, by and large, clearly written. Terms are clearly defined and highlighted, and the book appears as one would expect a textbook to appear. The prose is accessible was easy to follow. At times, however, I would have appreciated more explicit engagement with the student audience. It is not always clear that these chapters conceive of students as the primary audience; for instance, this is more common in Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 and much less so in later chapters.

By and large, the textbook has a clear flow and is consistent in terms of terminology and framework. Because the chapters are taken from a variety of original open-access sources, however, there are occasional repeats in key terms and the style of language/prose is not always as consistent as one would like. Moreover, as noted elsewhere in this review, there are a few chapters that lack exercises for students at the end.

The textbook can certainly be divided into modules over the arc of a semester, quarter, or other class. I wish, though, that the chapters were more even in length. Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 are quite dense, and would likely need to be split up over a few days (depending on the level of the course and one's students). The latter chapters, on the other hand, were quite short and, at times, led to me desiring more information, content, and examples. That said, chapters all contain helpful subheadings and would be easily assigned to students in this regard.

Yes. The textbook, as compiled, moves from overarching theory in the beginning chapters to more specific subject areas. This makes sense at a logical level.

Yes. I found no significant issues with the interface. Links (at least those I clicked, worked) and images, charts, and figures were clear on the pages.

There are a handful of grammatical errors in this text. I noticed a few typos, words missing or out of order, and so forth. By and large, however, this is not a distracting issue.

I found no significant issues here. The textbook works purposefully to cite examples across identity categories and life experiences.

I went into my reading of this text hopeful that I could assign it in a forthcoming upper-division Intercultural Communication course. I am, however, disappointed with the end product due to the reasons that I have noted above. And, for those reasons, I will look elsewhere for an open-access text on intercultural communication.

Reviewed by Kerric Harvey, Associate Professor, The George Washington University on 1/15/21

This is not just a comprehensive assemblage of material about the topic, but it actually stretches the conventional boundaries of "intercultural communications" in the best way possible -- and in a way that is long overdue. Intercultural... read more

This is not just a comprehensive assemblage of material about the topic, but it actually stretches the conventional boundaries of "intercultural communications" in the best way possible -- and in a way that is long overdue. Intercultural communication, as a field, has always been one of those subjects best approached as a "praxis," a vibrant, supple, dynamic combination of theory and practice that must react to changes in the "real world" just as nimbly as it responds to the development of new concepts and hypotheses. As such, any textbook in this discipline must be sensitive to shifting social values and cultural conventions to a degree that isn’t necessarily the case with other dimensions of communications studies, per se. Ahrndt’s text fulfils this requirement at the Olympic level. She not only covers the best and most enduring of the legacy material, but expands what “intercultural” means to include sub-divisions within the American “body cultural,” including LGBTQ+ populations, hearing impaired, differently-abled, gender fluid, religious, and other affinity groups not usually addressed in a text of this sort. She also addresses the “intercultural” communication dynamics among African-American, Native American, and Latinex, and several types of Asian, Arab, and Indian sub-continent populations whose immigrants and American-born descendants interact with Americans of European descent.

Interpreting the word “accuracy” to mean the degree to which the text presents without error the theories, concepts, specialized vocabularies, relevant canonical literatures, and real-world case studies used to create a teaching instrument, this text is remarkably accurate across a wide range of core and cognate fields and sub-fields of intercultural communication. The author also does an excellent job with the photograph captions that pepper the text, providing clear, concise, but comprehensive commentary for these illustrations that accurately capture the political context of the events, issues, and objects they depict without overt editorializing or, at the other extreme, falling back on such vapid, "pro forma" descriptions that the captions rob the photos of their cultural vibrancy. Not being able to fact-check the entire text, I can’t guarantee that single piece of information it contains is correct in all ways, but I didn’t see any conspicuous errors, or even anything that suggested less than scrupulous attention to factual detail.

This is an extra-ordinarily relevant text. It’s really the model for understanding what “culture” means in the 21st century, especially in pluralistic societies and taking into account the meta-societies created by the emerging acceptance of multiple identities on many dimensions. Even the case studies are contemporary to the moment (this review is being written in January 2021), including as they do references to the Marriage Equality Act, the Summer of Ferguson, Take Back the Night, the Parks 51 controversy, and on-going tensions about Confederate flags and statues. Although as time progresses and events continue to unfold, these “teaching examples” might diminish in terms of their immediacy, they will still provide emotionally accessible insights into tensions, topics, and events that will retain salience for a very long time to come. The text can also be easily amended to augment the current material with anecdotes and information that “brings it up to speed” in subsequent editions.

One of the real joys of reviewing this text was how easy it was to read. The author moves along at a lively rate without short-changing important concepts or down-grading important theories into superficial versions of themselves. Instead, she condenses material without diminishing it, and does so using clear, approachable language that is deftly crafted and judiciously punctuated. Ideas are presented in digestible form and linked concepts are explored without falling into cumbersome, complicated grammatical constructions. Every chapter begins with a list of “key words” and any technical language or specialty vocabulary is explained organically within the text as it flows from point to point.

This book is very consistent in terms of tone and authorial approach as well as structure and organization. Each chapter is organized the same way, utilizing the same elements, and the informational content itself is recognizably the same authorial “voice” all throughout the work. Terminology remains consistent throughout the entire text, as well.

This book would be very easy to use as a course text. It’s broken up into subject-specific chapters that make intuitive sense, and each chapter is well-organized in a way that would translate easily to classroom presentation. Chapters build on each other as the book unfolds, but not to the extent that would prohibit instructors from re-arranging the chapters according to a different course organization, or using some and not others. This useful modularity continues within each chapter itself, in that instructors can avail themselves of all that each chapter offers, or can extract chapter sub-sections that can still stand on their own as teaching tools.

This book is very well-organized, in a way that leverages its modularity while simultaneously making it easy to use as a fully intact text, in its entirety. Specifically, each chapter begins with information about the source of the material within it, followed by a list of keywords and the learning objectives for that chapter. This is followed by the central material, augmented along the way with exercises, illustrations, relevant tables and graphs, and magazine-style “sidebars” in which the author raises pertinent questions or provides a more granulated look at the chapter’s main issues through a short “case study-like” story. Each chapter concludes with an executive summary of “key takeaways,” a chapter bibliography, and more structured and elaborate student exercises.

As far as I can tell, there are no serious problems with the technological interfaces or the various links associated with this book. It’s an especially nice feature to be able to click on citations to add immediate texture and enhancement to what’s being covered in the text at hand.

I didn’t find any grammatical issues in the text. There were a few instances of odd spacing and of double-words, although I strongly suspect that’s a casualty of my own computer clunky “reading” of the pdf rather than something that’s actually there in the text itself. I did notice that the word “Dutch” was not capitalized in the caption for the photo of Tiger Woods.

This book is absolutely culturally sensitive – in fact, I’d call it an exemplary model of how to do that well and gracefully. It’s also wonderfully diverse in the author’s attention to breaking up monolithic labels for what are rightfully heterogeneous populations. For example, she writes eloquently and sensitively about the diverse as well as the shared immigration experiences of the variety of Spanish-speaking peoples in the United States today, noting contrasts among Mexican, Puerto Rican, Central American, and other Latino and Latina groups. She repeats this useful approach several times, even when discussing the social biographies and the residual communication environments for different types of European immigrants. In subsequent editions, I’d love to see her complexify her discussion of the Native American experience a little more, focusing perhaps on the meaningful linguistic differences as well as cultural norms among different tribal groups and addressing the special situations faced by reservations in the Far North, as well as those on which casinos are located, a challenging setting for intercultural communication if ever there was one. Another place where what she’s already doing well could be expanded would be a bit more material on the escalating presence of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, especially the women who are making such remarkable contributions to American science and medicine.

This is a highly readable, deeply sensitive, excitingly contemporary text. It preserves the best of the field’s canon while simultaneously introducing culturally salient, socially relevant, and intellectually invigorating new material that is highly relatable for today’s students and easily adaptable to a wide range of courses. I’m so taken with it that I’m already trying to figure out how I can use it in the courses I already teach, or use it as a springboard into ones I’ve yet to develop.

Reviewed by Jackie Mosley, Associate Professor, University of Arkansas on 1/6/21, updated 2/2/21

I have yet to find a textbook that fits with my Cultural Competence course, and this might just be the one! This text covers various theories of cultural competence, without going into a "boring theories section", which is difficult to find. The... read more

I have yet to find a textbook that fits with my Cultural Competence course, and this might just be the one! This text covers various theories of cultural competence, without going into a "boring theories section", which is difficult to find. The material is presented in an easy way for my undergraduate students to comprehend with tangible examples, rather than larger concepts and ideas that are often boring or more difficult to understand.

Content is timely and accurate.

This book is super relevant right now, and could be utilized in so many different types of social sciences courses. This text was written in 2020, which is imperative, given the current climate in the United States and has timely topics related to cultural events.

Text is very easy to comprehend, especially for undergraduate students in introductory courses related to cultural competence.

Consistent terms and material.

I love that the Learning Objectives are very clear and then what major terms will be focused on in the module - very helpful for readers (students) and faculty who want to organize for their own class. I also enjoy the Takeaways at the end of the module that are bulleted - easier to read quickly vs. a large paragraph of a summary. I think students would enjoy this too.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

I feel that the material (especially in the 1st module) jumps around and covers a lot of material, that I'm not quite sure how I would adapt in my own classroom. It will make it difficult to specify which pages to read (or sections), but it is do-able. Just wish introductory terms were focused on first, and then go into more of the contextual issues later. But I also recognize, each curricula is organized by an Instructor's own preferences; and I may try to use the organization of this text for my class, is possible.

I enjoyed being able to click on citations or other images to discover more; very useful for an online textbook. I do wish there was a way to "highlight" specific things you like in the text that students can see, basically the Instructor telling students what is most important to read (I've seen this in other platforms and really enjoyed that).

No grammar issues.

Inclusive book to all types of identities and communities related to cultural competence in the United States in today's modern age.

Overall, this book is perfect for any course on cultural competence or diversity, equity and inclusion. It covers all the major groups/communities in the US; however, it could use more research and discussion on other diversity issues: ageism, body size issues and neuro-diversity.

Table of Contents

  • CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Intercultural Communication
  • CHAPTER 2: Social Categorization, Stereotyping, and Discrimination
  • CHAPTER 3: Beliefs, Values, and Cultural Universals
  • CHAPTER 4: Introduction to Race and Ethnicity
  • CHAPTER 5: The Impacts of Social Class
  • CHAPTER 6: Gender and Gender Inequality
  • CHAPTER 7: Socialization and Human Sexuality

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Intercultural Communication examines culture as a variable in interpersonal and collective communication. It explores the opportunities and problems arising from similarities and differences in communication patterns, processes, and codes among various cultural groups. It explores cultural universals, social categorization, stereotyping and discrimination, with a focus on topics including race, ethnicity, social class, religion, gender and sexuality as they relate to communication.

About the Contributors

Shannon Ahrndt , University of Missouri-St. Louis

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What are Intercultural Communication Activities and Their Importance for Students?

  • by Dan Pieraccini
  • June 29, 2023

Students participating in Intercultural Communication Activities

We all want our students to improve their intercultural communication skills, become empathetic global citizens, and communicate skillfully. However, our virtual exchange can often highlight that even the most worldly and cosmopolitan of our students need practice with intercultural communication. With a clear understanding of effective communication across cultures, we educators can, through our telecollaboration classroom activities, present them with safe but instructive learning moments.

What is Intercultural Communication?

Above all, students should look beyond their interpretation of the world around them; in other words, remind them that their customs, practices, privileges, and in some cases, laws, and moral proclivities, may not be universally shared. While this may seem obvious at first, it never ceases to be a wonder to educators how much of a cause for bewilderment cultural differences can become to their students. Don’t forget, awe and surprise are kind of the goal here, and ultimately, we want our students to feel some degree of delight at discovering new ways of thinking and experiencing the world. It’s how they engage with these revelations that makes all the difference.

Intercultural communication happens at its best in activities where there is always an undertone of genuine, innocent curiosity and interest. That’s why so many of Level Up Village’s modules prompt students to talk about what they know—their immediate surroundings, their family, and their community. When students practice healthy intercultural communication, they broadcast their interests, passions, and beliefs in their sharing; in so doing, through their ardor and affection for what is uniquely and culturally theirs they will fascinate and intrigue their international partners. And this genuine amusement with one another will guide their intercultural communication to its healthiest and most rewarding register.

Activities for Intercultural Communication

What are intercultural communication activities for students that can get them sharing earnestly with one another in healthy, respectful ways? If we’re asking them to start with what they know, you’ll need to prompt them to advocate and represent the cultural touchstones and artifacts of their world. Your students are never too old for a little Show and Tell. Whether the topic is history, the environment, music, stories, or science, your students are bright enough that if you asked them to present an object with significant value to their virtual exchange partner, they’d no doubt surprise you. Perhaps it’s an old guitar from Maui, or a street sign in their town that shares their last name, their 23 and Me results, or a website they made. The possibilities are endless, and whatever this Macguffin is that gets them talking, it will encourage both them and their partner and start some wholesome conversation between them.

Another great activity is engaging in healthy debate, whether you’re discussing politics, questions of equity and inclusion, or climate change, there’s always going to be differences of opinion. Instead of having them enter some sort of interlocutory struggle of ideas, what if you asked your students to summarize two or three different ways of seeing the issue—theirs, as well as other predominant and opposing viewpoints. This way, they and their partner now begin to appreciate the many voices in a dialogue, and it’s less about arguing their point of view and more about reporting the complexity of the conversation at large. Enroll your students in a cultural exchange program today!

About Dan Pieraccini

Dan Pieraccini was born in Northern Italy, but was moved to the United States at the age of 6. Dan’s B.A. in English and M.A. in Italian literature have opened the door to over a decade of teaching high school and college students a second (and in some cases a first) language. It is likely that having traveled through 82 countries, 48 U.S. states, and three disputed territories somehow factored into the decision to make Dan Delbarton School’s first Director of Global Programs. In his spare time, he manages events at his local Elks Lodge, helps feed the hungry at a handful of food pantries, writes and performs rock and roll songs with his band Forget the Whale, plays in a Dungeons and Dragons game, and occasionally goes out to brunch.

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Home » Blog » Free Training Games & Activities » Soft Skills » Intercultural Communication Quiz Training Activity and Game

Intercultural Communication Quiz Training Activity and Game

Page Updated on March 9, 2023

This FREE activity is one you are welcome to include in your course planning and it is excellent for using in workplace training including for onboarding new hires , for providing intercultural communication training , but also as an ice breaker to get people talking and working together to answer the quiz questions.

Page Contents

What You Need for This Activity

All you really need for this communication and ice breaker activity is a copy of the culture quiz questions and answers and these are listed lower down on this post.

You can choose to print off the questions as a handout, or for an environmentally more friendly option, you can create a PowerPoint PPT slide and have the questions on a projector in the classroom.

Intercultural communication lesson plan quiz

Activity Timeframe & Group Sizes

It depends on if you are running a short course i.e. 1 or 2 hours or a full-day training session but I suggest allowing 10 minutes for people to get into groups of 2 or 3 to do this activity and then 5 minutes for a class round of and a brief discussion on the task.

If you wish to though, you can ask participants to work on this task individually although this is a task that, if done in pairs or bigger groups, provides the additional option of helping the participants to get to know each other.

The only risk of participants doing this task together is that one person might be very well-traveled and know all of the answers and not give others a chance to answer.

Suitability for Offline vs Online Training?

This activity is designed such that it can be used in a classroom in person or in virtual classrooms (using breakout rooms ).

  • Online teaching: When using this activity for online teaching , we recommend sharing the questions on a digital document before the class i.e. by email. A PDF called ‘Classroom activities’ or ‘Students Activities handbook’ can be suitable and ask the participants to open but try to avoid looking at the activities before-hand.
  • Offline in-person Teaching: You can have the questions displayed via a projector (saves on printing) or print a copy of the questions for each group ( email us if you need a copy).

How This Communication Activity Works

For this exercise, participants can work in pairs or in small groups.

If you run this exercise in groups, you can organize it as a competition and give a small prize (such as a box of sweets) to the winning group.

Give each pair or each group of participants a copy of the ‘Quiz’ handout and give them 5 minutes to answer the questions.

After 5 minutes, give them a copy of the ‘Quiz answers’ handout and go through the answers with them for about 5 minutes.

The aim of this exercise is to start introducing participants to intercultural communication topics, such as:

  • use of gestures and touch
  • colors symbolism
  • general etiquette
  • perception of time
  • languages and power distance.

If you are using this quiz as part of the Intercultural Communication training , you can explain these concepts, later on, you can return to the questions from the quiz and connect them with the concepts you will cover.

The Quiz Questions

1. when conducting business in germany, is it best to:.

  • Buy local beer and take it to a meeting as a gift?
  • Not waste anyone’s time; be punctual and direct?
  • Give out your business cards to everybody?

2. Is the OK sign offensive in Japan?

3. you have arrived at a business meeting in south korea and you are meeting the company’s president. you should:.

  • Look him in the eye and extend your hand for a handshake?
  • Nod your head slightly?
  • Bow and wait for him to initiate the handshake?

4 – In which of these countries is it expected that you always raise your glass lower than your senior manager?

  • South Korea?

5. A prospective client, in Japan, gives you her business card. You should:

  • Receive it with both hands and carefully study its details before putting it away?
  • Take it with one hand and quickly put it away in your wallet or pocket?
  • Copy the information and leave the card on the table?

6. During a business meeting in Thailand, you avoid:

  • Wearing black?
  • If you are a man; crossing your left ankle over your right knee?
  • Pointing to a statue of Buddha?
  • Having silent pauses during a conversation?

7. What color is best for business cards in China?

8. when meeting someone in a business context in france, what should you avoid doing.

  • Using first names, if meeting someone for the first time?
  • Making eye contact?
  • Asking about family?

9. Which of these should you avoid in China?

  • Silence during conversations?
  • Touching and physical contact?
  • Speaking about family?

10. In Dubai (in the United Arab Emirates):

  • Coffee is served at the beginning of the meeting?
  • The exchange of business cards is simultaneous: you offer yours with your right hand and receive that of the other with your left hand?
  • Your meeting may be interrupted for prayer?
  • Your host will be very attentive to your remarks, without any distraction?

11. When delegating tasks to an Indian colleague, s/he responds to all your questions with a ‘yes’. This means:

  • s/he is showing respect?
  • s/he understands completely?
  • s/he will do as you ask?

12. Slurping your soup loudly is NOT considered rude in:

  • The United Kingdom?

13. In which country you should never eat all the food on your plate, as it implies that the host did not provide enough food?

14. in south korea, you should never write people’s names in which color, 15. in which country does nodding your head up and down mean ‘no’, 16. you are speaking at a business meeting and the japanese delegate closes his/her eyes. what does this mean.

  • S/he is tired, maybe suffering from jet lag?
  • S/he is disengaged?
  • s/he is concentrating and listening hard?

17. In which country is the number 4 considered unlucky?

18. when talking with members of your team who do not speak your language as your first language, what do you do.

  • Speak more loudly and slowly than usual to avoid misunderstandings?
  • Speak naturally but avoid using jargon, colloquial language and idioms that may be difficult to understand?
  • Find someone who speaks their language and ask them to translate?

19. You are meeting clients in Latin America, where you understand they have a relaxed attitude to time. When do you aim to arrive for your meetings?

  • A few minutes early, as you would at home?
  • Half an hour late, as this is what you experienced when these clients visited you in your home country?
  • Five to ten minutes late?

20. In which country is it considered offensive to leave a tip after a meal?

Quiz activity answers, other activities you might want to use in your lesson planning.

  • Both sides of the fence icebreaker
  • The big lottery win training activity
  • Positive vibes training game

Intercultural communication training course materials

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Very informative contents. Easy to understand. Encourage follow-up reading.

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Intercultural communication for university classrooms

intercultural communication assignments for students

Culturally diverse classrooms can pose specific challenges for university professors. Highlighting ideas from the field of Intercultural Communication, this lecture focuses on cultural differences that instructors can expect to see among international students, which can lead to miscommunications and other challenges in the context of American Higher Education.

Keep reading below for a summary of the video.

Tips for better classroom communication with international students

  • Try to see the positive potentials of cross-cultural perspectives rather than focusing only on the challenges of intercultural communication. This includes encouraging international students to share their unique insights.
  • Be careful of your wording in lectures, especially when giving instructions. Avoid slang expressions and try to use clear, explicit language.
  • Say things in various ways and anticipate misunderstandings, as many international students will be very reluctant to speak up and ask for clarification.
  • Repeat ideas and, when possible, make lessons and reference lists available for students.
  • Use a multimodal approach to convey information — words, images and gestures.
  • Communicate your expectations clearly, for example, punctuality and due dates. Some international students mistake the casual style of some US professors for leniency.

Advice for group work

  • When designing group work activities, it is good to take into account that group work is unfamiliar to many international students. When international students are put into groups with domestic students, they will often have a hard time participating and this can be from cultural assumptions about leadership.
  • When assigning group work or organizing group discussions, include instructions regarding turn-taking. For example, have groups begin discussions by requiring each student to contribute to the conversation. This simple strategy has been shown to even out participant contributions among diverse groups.
  • Appoint roles in group discussions. Some cultures find the egalitarian style of group work in the US disorganized and alienating.
  • In peer feedback activities, model and teach polite uses of language and encourage the use of the pronoun ‘I’ instead of ‘you’ which can be used in a confrontational way.

Expectation about leadership roles

In activities requiring group decision-making involving both American and East Asian participants, East Asians reported feeling less included in the decision-making process than their American counterparts. This difference was attributed to the different expectations about leadership roles.

Americans reported valuing “decisive and task-oriented” leadership, while East Asians tended to value and expect leadership qualities like “involves others in decision making” and “status-conscious and procedural” and “modest and compassionate” (Artitz & Walker, 2014). Briefly put, Americans (especially males) show a preference of a directive style of leadership whereas East Asians preferred a more cooperative styles of leadership and value benevolence, harmony with others and self-restraint in leaders. These are especially important qualities for people from Confucian-influenced cultures.

While you probably can’t change your students’ culturally-based views about leadership and group work, the tips listed can mitigate some of the communication and participation problems that are often reported by teachers.

This lecture is part of the The University of Idaho Global Student Success Program Spring 2019 Lecture Series. For more information about this lecture, please contact [email protected] .

  • Aritz, J., & Walker, R. C. (2014). Leadership styles in multicultural groups: Americans and East Asians working together. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(1), 72-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488413516211.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Integrating intercultural activities into teaching mandarin for international students in china.

\r\nNa Liu

  • School of Foreign Languages, Jinchu University of Technology, Jingmen, China

This study explores the intercultural activities in teaching Mandarin to international students in China. A sample of five Mandarin teachers with rich experience in teaching international students within Chinese universities. Data were collected through classroom observation, teachers’ interviews and reflective journals and analyzed through thematic analysis using the framework of Byram’s notion of intercultural competence in language teaching and learning. The results show that intercultural activities can effectively promote Mandarin teaching for international students. The findings also suggest Mandarin teachers can provide more opportunities for international students to share their values and opinions and adopt more activities to teach cultural knowledge. Accordingly, recommendations on preparing intercultural competence are concluded and put forward, which might support future teaching.

Introduction

Mandarin learning has been booming worldwide in the past few decades because of the increasing number of international students. With this boom, the subject of teaching “Chinese as a Second language” (CSL) has been gradually attracting scholars’ attention and has become a research hot spot, forming a new discipline ( Dong, 2012 ). Mandarin classes for international students in China usually emphasize intensive training before the study to lay a foundation ( Ji, 2016 ).

According to the previous research on Mandarin education for international students in China, different people may have different goals in studying in Chinese universities. Still, the primary educational expectations of international students in China are to learn Chinese, understand Chinese society and culture, and gain personal development opportunities ( Ding, 2010 ; Liu et al., 2013 ; Yu and Cao, 2015 ). To assist international students in understanding and adapting to Chinese culture, it is of great necessity to develop students’ intercultural competence by implementing intercultural teaching and systematically incorporating Chinese culture content in Mandarin education. In other words, besides basic Mandarin teachings such as words, phrases, and grammar, Chinese culture teaching is an essential part of the classroom teaching for Chinese-learning international students in China ( Ding, 2010 ; Huang and Chen, 2020 ).

Taking the Belt and Road Initiative as an opportunity, colleges carry out intercultural education for international students in Mandarin education to serve the national strategy. Liu and Liu (2020) concluded that Chinese cultural education falls into three categories: types of regional culture, the teaching of regional culture, and curriculum design. Feng and Shi (2019) researched talent-training modes for International Students in city-based and application-oriented universities. The importance of intercultural activities in language teaching is explicitly stated and highly valued for developing learners’ intercultural competence ( Byram et al., 2002 ; Liddicoat, 2008 ; McHugh, 2012 ; Moeller and Nugent, 2014 ). However, most language researchers or teachers are concerned about how to foster intercultural competence of EFL learners in China, while the development of international CSL students’ intercultural competence has not received enough attention ( Karabinar and Guler, 2012 ). Ding (2010) illustrated the kinds of education that international students needed. Dong (2012) conducted comprehensive research on international student education in China. Liu and Liu (2020) made a summary review of the studies on the classroom teaching of Chinese culture to improve international students’ intercultural competence. Nevertheless, there is very little evidence of the inclusion of intercultural activities in Mandarin teaching.

The present study attempted to investigate intercultural activities in Mandarin classes, teaching the international students from the lesson proper and activity period. This study focused on integrating intercultural activities in Mandarin teaching in China.

Literature review

Intercultural competence.

The notion of intercultural competence can be traced back to Hymes’s theory of communicative competence ( Hymes, 1972 ). It extends Chomsky’s linguistic competence as the ideal speaker/listener and emphasizes the aim of being an intercultural speaker mediating between different cultures. It considers real-life communication and requires individuals’ competence in a culture that empowers them to know what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately in a given situation ( Gardner, 1985 ; Byram, 1997 ; Byram and Wagner, 2018 ).

Researchers have proposed various definitions and taxonomies of intercultural competence, such as intercultural communication competence, cultural competence, intercultural sensitivity and global competence ( Bennett, 1991 ; Byram, 1997 ; Fantini, 2000 ; Spitzberg, 2000 ; Deardorff, 2006 ; Hunter et al., 2006 ; Barnett and Lee, 2007 ). The most widely known version of intercultural competence stems from the work of Byram. He makes a distinction between intercultural communicative competence and intercultural competence and insists that the former includes the latter. He defines intercultural communicative competence as the ability “to ensure a shared understanding by people of different social identities, and [the] ability to interact with people as complex human beings with multiple identities and their individuality” (p. 5). In his model, intercultural competence is composed of five elements: attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness ( Byram, 1997 ; Byram et al., 2002 ). Chen and Starosta (1998) hold an opinion that intercultural competence as the ability to effectively and appropriately execute communication behaviors to elicit the desired response in a specific environment, encompasses three interdependent aspects, the affective perspective for developing intercultural sensitivity, the cognitive perspective for developing intercultural awareness, and the behavioral perspective for developing intercultural adroitness ( Chen and Starosta, 1996 ; Gong et al., 2018 ). Fantini (2000) assumes the four dimensions of intercultural competence are knowledge, attitude, skills, and awareness. According to Wiseman (2002) , the three vital ingredients to develop or accomplish intercultural competence are self-knowledge/awareness, experience and knowledge about a particular culture, and positive change or action for successful interaction with the identified culture. In other words, knowledge, motivation, and skills are essential requirements to interact effectively and appropriately with members of different cultures. Intercultural communicators require having a deep understanding of the similarities and differences in the way of thinking and living in other cultures, broadening horizons, and developing flexible communication skills that can adapt to various social and cultural environments ( Beamer, 1992 ; Scarino, 2009 ).

Intercultural activities in language teaching

Combining language teaching with intercultural activities in language classroom plays a critical role in cultivating language learners’ intercultural competence ( Byram et al., 2002 ; Robatjazi, 2008 ; Barrett et al., 2014 ; Güven, 2015 ; Gu, 2016 ). Traditional language teaching has focused on improving language learners’ linguistic competence in the last two or three decades ( Larzén, 2005 ). However, with the trend of globalization and the development of information technology, people from various regions and cultures are getting closer and having more interactions with each other in the global village. Thus, language educators have been involved in cultivating language learners’ intercultural competence and emphasizing the role of culture in language classrooms, which prepares them for interaction with people of other cultures ( Byram, 1997 ; Aguilar, 2008 ; Irimia, 2012 ).

Culture is the central part of language learning, furthermore, intercultural teaching and learning process for international education, which needs to involve more than one language and culture ( Crichton and Scarino, 2007 ). Intercultural activities integral to language teaching and learning focus on the relationship between languages and cultures ( Byram et al., 2002 ; Larzén, 2005 ; Crichton and Scarino, 2007 ; Liddicoat and Scarino, 2013 ). The cultural “content” in intercultural teaching and learning is not just a body of cultural knowledge and information to be introduced and memorized; more importantly, it lies in comparing different cultures and analyzing and reflecting on how culture influences what people think, say, and do ( Byram et al., 2002 ; Crichton and Scarino, 2007 ). Moreover, intercultural teaching encourages sharing knowledge and discussing values and opinions ( Welikala and Chris, 2008 ; Svenja and Kerstin, 2019 ).

Integrating intercultural activities into language teaching may benefit those who interact with people of other cultures and help avoid the stereotyping that accompanies perceiving someone through a single identity ( Byram et al., 2002 ). Some practical activities typically used in intercultural teaching are student exchanges, e-mails, project works, and films, allowing students to contact and interact with other cultures and experience cultural differences ( Irimia, 2012 ; Constanza et al., 2018 ). Those activities are applied in language education and included in the teaching process to ensure that learners from different cultural backgrounds can be communicated smoother and non-conflicting ( Willis and Willis, 2002 ; Larzén, 2005 ).

As practitioners of intercultural teaching, language teachers are not just those who teach knowledge about a foreign culture; but those who help learners gain a positive attitude toward people with different social identities in intercultural contexts. The ‘best’ language teacher is the person who can allow learners to understand relationships between their own and other cultures and acquire an interest in curiosity about ‘otherness’ and a critical awareness of themselves as well as others ( Byram et al., 2002 ). For example, Breka and Petravić (2015) suggested foreign language teachers teaching in primary schools should cultivate their intercultural competence for the initial education and professional development. Freitas (2019) developed young learners’ attitudes of respect by conducting intercultural education in the second language teaching context.

Some researchers struggled to develop intercultural competence among language learners by implementing intercultural teaching in different contexts. For example, Cheng (2012) explored the intercultural competence and pedagogical practices of five Taiwanese EFL teachers through interviews, and the research revealed that pedagogical practices should reflect not only the interconnected world but also the local contexts and actual needs of students and teachers. Soomro et al. (2015) illustrated that cultural communicative teaching had not been attached enough attention in a large number of settings in Pakistan and Iran and suggested colleges and schools could make the integration between cultural awareness and language teaching processing. Others paid attention to developing native learners’ intercultural competence. Rehman and Umar (2019) conducted experimental research with 50 eighth-grade Pashtun students to examine the pragmatic intercultural influence on their reading comprehension. They suggested source and target cultures should be included in the English curriculum, and intercultural pragmatics should also be included in training programs. Vera and Ulrike-Marie (2016) implemented a problem-based intercultural learning unit in four secondary schools (grades 9–12) and varieties of teaching approaches (analytical/affective-experiential) and the language of instruction (German/English). The two approaches of analyzing film clips (analytical focus) and participating in simulation games (affective-experiential focus) can improve intercultural competence.

Some factors that affect intercultural competence have been explored in language education, such as language proficiency, intercultural awareness, and attitudes. For example, Piatkowska (2011) found that there was a close relationship between language proficiency and specific cultural awareness. Betty (2009) emphasized the importance of intercultural engagement in the curricula for native and international students. Güven (2015) investigated the Turkish university EFL learners’ attitude toward in-class learning of intercultural competence. The results revealed that the EFL learners’ intercultural competence might positively vary with attitude, motivations, and integration. Byram and Wagner (2018) argue a close relationship exists between the notion of culture, the language-culture nexus, and intercultural competence.

Based on previous research on intercultural competence, intercultural activities address linguistic competence education and intercultural teaching ( Byram et al., 2002 ; Willis and Willis, 2002 ; Sharan and Elizabeth, 2016 ). A wealth of research on intercultural competence development is conducted in the field of language education, ranging from primary school to higher education, from the teachers’ attitudes to pedagogical practices, from the improvement of language proficiency to target culture instruction in the language curriculum ( Yan, 2014 ). However, most of these studies are concerned with intercultural competence development of native language learners, while research on international students’ intercultural competence development is inadequate, especially in the Chinese context ( Zhu and He, 2015 ; Zhu, 2017 ; Zhang, 2018 ; Yang et al., 2019 ).

This study centers on the research on intercultural competence development of international students in the Chinese context. It delves into the process of implementing intercultural competence within the context of teaching Mandarin to international students in China, exploring teachers’ perceptions of teaching intercultural competence in Mandarin language classrooms and revealing how intercultural activities are integrated into the classroom language teaching. The data types for this study include classroom observations, teachers’ interviews and reflective journals. To achieve the research purpose, the study addresses the following research questions:

(1) How do Mandarin teachers integrate intercultural activities into cultural teaching?

(2) How do Mandarin teachers integrate intercultural activities into language teaching?

Methodology

Participants.

The present study was conducted in Mandarin courses for international students within Chinese universities. The sample included 5 Mandarin teachers with rich experience in teaching international students., aged 29–45. Of the total, 2 (40%) were lectures, 2 (40%) were associate professors, 1 (10%) was professor. Furthermore, the participants were recruited based on the following criteria: (1) having more than 1-year international student teaching experience, and (2) at least 6 months of overseas experience. The five Mandarin teachers’ personal information is listed below (see Table 1 ).

www.frontiersin.org

Table 1. Information of interviewees.

Data collection

Three types of data were collected in the study: classroom observation, teachers’ interviews and reflective journals. Most importantly, all procedures of data collection were permitted by every participant and consent forms were collected.

A classroom observation is watching a teacher’s performance in their classroom or learning environment. Classroom observation can effectively camera-record teacher behavior. According to Creswell (2003) , “qualitative researchers seek to understand the context or setting of the participants through visiting this context and gathering information personally.” In this study, the researcher observed and videoed the five Mandarin teachers’ class activities in CSL teaching to obtain natural and first-hand materials about teachers’ classroom design concerning intercultural activities. When performing classroom observations, the researcher adopted the technique of narrative descriptions to document teachers’ teaching process and students’ reactions, especially intercultural activities; simultaneously, the video recordings of classroom performances were collected so that the researcher can further check the paper recordings and supplement more details by referring to video recordings. Altogether, the researcher conducted six 45-min classroom observations. The classes’ transcripts were checked and named as C1, C2, C3…… C6.

Moreover, to complement the findings of class observation, a semi-structured interview was utilized to explore teachers’ perceptions of teaching intercultural knowledge in Mandarin classes and what kind of teaching activities they prefer to choose, as well as how they handle the difficulties in developing intercultural competence in Mandarin teaching with the international students. The interview included four open-ended questions. In the first question, the participants were asked whether they had any difficulties with Mandarin teaching international students. The second question was addressed to participants to find out the restrictions in Mandarin teaching. The third question was posed to participants to determine how they deal with international students’ stereotypes and prejudices in class teaching. The last question was to explore how they handle intercultural education from their life experience. Interviews were carried out in Chinese with the selected five teachers face to face in their offices when they felt free. Each interview lasted 45 min, and the researcher asked for teachers’ permission to record the interview. Five recordings of interview were collected and then transcribed. Meanwhile, the researcher named the five interviews as T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5.

In addition, the participants were asked to keep a 4-week reflection journal about integrating intercultural activities into teaching Mandarin to international students and. In the reflective journal, the teacher narrated their teaching practices and students’ responses and expressed their views on intercultural teaching. Each teacher was asked to submit three reflection journals and fifteen reflective journals were collected and named J1, J2, J3, and J15.

Data analysis

In qualitative research, a thick description is essential in presenting the original story and experience of the participants. Analysis of qualitative research starts when the data collecting begins and is an ongoing process ( Creswell and Tashakkori, 2007 ). There are two main approaches for thematically analyzing qualitative data: inductive thematic analysis and deductive thematic analysis. Inductive thematic analysis is data-driven and themes are identified from the content of data; deductive thematic analysis is a top-down approach and the coding process is driven by some pre-existing theoretical concepts and ideas ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). This study’s qualitative data were class observation, teachers’ semi-structured interviews, and reflective journals. The data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis to identify themes relating to intercultural activities; simultaneously, deductive thematic analysis was adopted to explore aspects of intercultural competence development by referring to Byram’s (1997) intercultural competence framework.

The overall process of thematic analysis is as follows: First, the transcripts were analyzed using open coding. After completing open coding, the researcher categorized the intercultural activities in Mandarin teaching and identified the evidence of intercultural competence development by referring to Byram’s intercultural competence framework. Next, the main themes and sub-themes were determined related to the implementation of intercultural activities and the development of intercultural competence. The researcher and two foreign language teachers participated in the coding task. To increase the credibility of thematic analysis, they coded the same two materials together at first to understand and familiarize the coding method and framework before they began formal coding, respectively. After coding all the materials, the three coders compared, checked and discussed their coding results to reach consistency in interpreting and analyzing the data.

Inductive thematic analysis

To investigate what and how intercultural activities were implemented in Mandarin language classroom, inductive thematic analysis was performed on the qualitative data and the results are shown in Table 2 .

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Table 2. Coding results of inductive thematic analysis of cross-cultural activities.

Through class observation, semi-structured interviews and the participant-teachers reflection journals, this study shows evidence of how Mandarin teachers involve intercultural activities in cultural teaching. It can be noted from Table 2 that Mandarin teachers attempt to present some culture-specific activities during their cultural teaching. For example, they introduce some typical Chinese cultural activities, such as how to greet each other, how to celebrate moving to a new house, how to celebrate the Spring Festival and how to see a doctor in China.

The methods teachers used to carry out intercultural activities include double translation, comparison, setting situations and role play (see Table 2 ). Firstly, double translation means the teachers use English as mediation for teaching Mandarin in the classroom. As the textbook’s content is written in Mandarin, the teachers explain it in English so the students can understand and translate it into their native languages. Secondly, the comparison activity is directly used to compare the similarities and differences between students’ cultures and other cultures. Thirdly, teachers apply the situation setting method to help students understand cultural diversity and how to deal with culture shock by encouraging students to imagine if they meet the situation and what they should do.

Deductive thematic analysis

The study conducted deductive thematic analysis of the collected data to explore evidence of developing intercultural competence in CSL teaching using Byram’s intercultural competence model as coding framework which assumes intercultural competence comprised of attitudes, knowledge, skills of relating and interpreting, skills of discovery and interaction, and awareness. The results of deductive thematic analysis are presented in Table 3 .

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Table 3. Deductive thematic analysis on aspects of intercultural competence.

Table 3 shows intercultural competence development in five dimensions and indicates what aspects of intercultural competence are addressed by Mandarin language teachers in CSL classroom. As shown in Table 3 , intercultural competence is developed in the following aspects: Firstly, intercultural attitude development includes having openness toward other cultures, avoiding stereotypes or prejudice, and showing curiosity about foreign cultures. Secondly, the improvement of knowledge dimension includes learning more about Chinese culture (e.g., food, greeting, festival, etc.), other foreign cultures (e.g., food, festivals, and verbal and non-verbal communication in India, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries), and learning about one’s own culture. Thirdly, the skills of interpreting and relating are fostered in understanding and explaining events and behaviors in other countries, and comparing Chinese culture with one’s own culture. Fourthly, the skills of discovery and interaction can be enhanced in learning new knowledge by communicating with classmates, and interacting with local people. However, there is no evidence of developing critical cultural awareness in Mandarin teachers’ CSL teaching.

According to Byram (2002) , language teaching aims to help learners acquire linguistic competence when they need to communicate in speaking or writing. Moreover, it should also develop language learners’ intercultural competence, such as formulating what they want to say or write in correct and appropriate ways to talk with people from different cultures. Therefore, a language teacher should help learners improve their intercultural and linguistic competence. They should also help the language learners understand and accept people from other cultures as individuals with different distinctive perspectives, values, and behaviors and encourage the students to interact with people of other cultures in the language classroom ( Deardorff, 2004 ; Zhang, 2007 ; Gu, 2016 ).

Intercultural activities in Mandarin teaching

By analyzing the qualitative data, the study finds that teachers have a positive attitude toward Chinese cultural knowledge teaching to international students from different situations. Some evident cultural teaching examples can be seen in intercultural activities, such as the dialect of “儿” from Beijing culture, greetings in China, the celebration of Spring Festival in China, the celebration of moving to a new house, traditional Chinese clothes and the traditional treatment of diseases in China in the class observation. These activities are implemented using the methods of double translation, comparison, situations setting and role play.

Double translation

As international students are from different countries and have different native languages, they might not communicate with each other in their mother tongue. Therefore, English is the bridge language when the teacher teaches Mandarin in the classroom. In other words, since the textbook’s content is in Mandarin, the teacher is supposed to explain them in English first, and the students can receive the information in English. Still, they may translate English into their native languages to comprehend the knowledge and then ask and answer questions in Chinese or English.

Example 1: “请” (Please, treat, Excuse me)

T: 请客, that means treat somebody. You can say person A请person B 客. For example, 今天我请客, that means today I will treat you.下次我请你的客, that means I will treat you next time.请坐, that means, please sit down. 请问that means Excuse me.我请你去我家, That means I invite you to my house.

Example 1 shows the different usages of “请” in the phrases. Double translation was considered an exciting way of language processing for practicing Mandarin instead of simply translating from Mandarin to English or vice versa, which may be beneficial for arousing students’ intercultural interests in language learning by understanding some pragmatic functions as the content of translation between English and Mandarin.

The comparison activity is directly used to compare the similarities and differences between students’ own culture and other cultures, as seen in Example 2. from the class observation that the teacher taught the greeting ways in China.

Example 2: Greetings in China

T: As you know, “Have you eaten?” is a frequent greeting in China. When a Chinese asks you, “Have you eaten your dinner?” it does not refer to their want to treat you to dinner but as a usual greeting way as “Hello” or “How are you?”

When teaching about the text of greetings, the teachers introduce the traditional Chinese ways of greeting and teach students how to do it in Mandarin. After preparing the Chinese greeting, the teacher asked the students to show their own countries’ greeting ways and encouraged other students to learn with them. After that, students formed into pairs to make presentations based on exploring the similar and diverse ways of greeting in different countries.

The purpose of the comparison activity is to enable students to understand their own culture better and acquire knowledge of other cultures, which is consistent with the knowledge part of Byram’s intercultural competence model ( Byram et al., 2002 ). Based on their attitudes of openness and curiosity, students are interested in searching out knowledge that is different from their own culture.

Situations setting

To help students understand cultural diversity and how to deal with culture shock, the teachers always encourage students to imagine if they meet the situation and what they should do.

Example 3 : AA 制 (Go Dutch)

T: Different countries may have different ways of treatment. But in China, the difference between the treatment and Go Dutch. Imagine if your Chinese friend helped me a lot to pass your Mandarin examination, you want to show your gratitude to her by treating a dinner, you may pay all the bill, but if you go to the cinema with your cinema, you may pay the bill separately, that we called it AA制

The teachers always set up different situations for the international students and asked them how to deal with them both in their own country and mainly taught them how to handle it to avoid cultural shock under the Chinese culture situation. Through this activity, teachers allow students to use Mandarin in different situations while experiencing cultural differences, which means students are motivated to practice their interactive skills and discover new knowledge when communicating with people from different cultural backgrounds like the teachers have to find the rule of starting conversations with “Have you eaten?” in China. In other words, it also means that students need to develop the ability to adapt, which indicates that one needs to quickly adjust to a new cultural environment and find the right way of communication and behavior ( Deardorff, 2004 ). In addition, students began to relate these cultural differences to their own cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors. At the same time, they also accumulated knowledge of different cultures in the process of learning. Finally, openness to other cultures has always been the foundation of successful interactions ( Byram, 2008 ; Díez-Bedmar and Byram, 2019 ). In general, using different intercultural situations enables students to behave and communicate appropriately in multicultural situations based on knowledge, skills, and attitudes ( Deardorff, 2004 ).

Role play is an engaging activity for students and is commonly used in regular teaching. Mandarin classes are always designed to help international students understand the cultural differences between China and their own countries. For instance, to make the students master the dialogue from the textbook, the teacher always asked the students to perform the roles.

During the process, the students are required to use Mandarin phrases as much as possible. This way, knowledge of one’s own culture and other cultures can be acquired. Also, in this role play activity, language teachers need to encourage students to be open and curious about Chinese culture, which is consistent with Byram’s one of the standards of the “best teacher” ( Byram et al., 2002 ). What is more, when imagining themselves as Chinese, students were able to be curious about Chinese culture and form ethnic relativism and empathy. In addition, as a person from a different country, evaluating the experience of Chinese culture from different perspectives is conducive to cultivating students’ critical cultural awareness ( Byram, 2012 ).

Teachers use different methods such as double translation, comparing, situation setting and role play in cultural teaching, which may be implemented in different teaching stages. The double translation is the presentation stage in which the teacher presents students with language and cultural information, such as vocabulary lists, grammar points, or basic cultural knowledge. During the presentation stage, students passively receive information ( Richards and Renandya, 2002 ; Sobkowiak, 2016 ). At the practice stage, the goal is to help students fully reinforce and internalize new knowledge, just like situation setting and comparing. Learners at the production stage can “integrate the newly learned language items into the previously learned ones on both receptive and productive levels” ( Zhu, 2013 ). For instance, teachers employ role-play activities to encourage students to build new dialogues based on the textbook with the knowledge they have just learned and checked how much they have understood. Although the learners could master the required target cultural knowledge and skills through the different teaching activities which under the teacher’s close control to reinforce learners’ Chinese cultural usage, some problems still exist, such as the teacher’s inadequate input of cultural knowledge in advance, the unclear directions, and not leaving enough time for students to prepare.

Intercultural competence development in Chinese as a Second language teaching

According to Byram et al. (2002) , intercultural activities in language teaching aim to develop learners as intercultural speakers or mediators who can engage with complexity and multiple identities and avoid stereotyping.

Language teachers need to improve students’ attitudes, including certain characteristics such as curiosity, openness, and readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and beliefs about one’s native culture ( Byram, 1997 ).

From the interview, we can happily find that the teacher participants always use different ways to evoke the language learners’ interest in learning about a different culture. According to Teacher Chai’s opinion:

The main problems to make intercultural communication may be the lack of target language cultural knowledge and the regional problem. Therefore, she always uses the teaching methods to cope with those problems, such as (1) watching videos relating to culture (2) personal presentations about the students’ cultural experience (3) recommending some websites/books related to cultures (4) group brainstorming on some topics referring to cultures. (T1)

As different people may have different perspectives on intercultural communication part, teacher Ye suggested in the interview:

Stereotypes and prejudice are common in intercultural communication. I do not think it as an unsolved problem, but rather as the starting point for students to explore on them own. I always ask my students to do an assignment, coursework or presentation explaining such thing. It is actually very interesting to do so. (T4)

Based on the class observation, semi-structured interviews and the participant-teachers reflection journal, the research coded the teachers’ teaching activities to develop students’ attitudes. It can be easily noted that the teachers tried every means such as making friends with the local people, sharing different country’s eating habits and enquiring about different countries communication styles to encourage international students have an open attitude to accept the different cultures, accept and avoid stereotype.

According to Byram (1997) , intercultural knowledge means that individuals know their own and the interlocutor’s culture as they emerge in the course of social interaction. Except for the words or grammar teaching, the teacher recognized cultural teaching as an essential part of Mandarin teaching and designed some activities to help international students know more about cultures in the target language and their own cultures, as well as similar knowledge in other countries.

According to Byram (2005) , intercultural dimensions in language teaching aim to develop learners as intercultural speakers or mediators who can engage with complexity and multiple identities and avoid the stereotyping that accompanies perceiving someone through a single identity. Therefore, as shown in Table 3 , it is essential to note that Mandarin teachers try to improve students’ intercultural knowledge which refers to their own and the target language culture as they emerge in the course of social interaction. It is impressive that most participant-teachers used vivid examples to teach Chinese culture, such as the celebration of moving to a new house and the traditional Chinese treatments for diseases.

Meanwhile, the participant-teachers also ask international students to share their own culture with five local students on campus, which is beneficial to developing international students’ understanding of their own culture.

As a Mandarin teacher, Wang has taught native speakers in America for 1 year and he spent every period initiating “Chinese culture presentation” and drawing attention to encouraging students to experience Chinese culture vividly:

The most way I used in the intercultural class is lecturing. I let the international students have some cultural experience. And then have some cultural lessons like paper cutting, making Chinese knots, doing some Chinese fans dance, playing the Tai Chi and writing calligraphy. (T3)

This result is congruent with Irimia’s (2012) study that intercultural language teaching is the organic combination of language teaching and cultural teaching. It is significant to note that the interviewee respondents revealed that they consider the development of international students’ knowledge important in language teaching.

Skills of interpreting and relating

As a matter of fact, except intercultural knowledge, the other part of the skills cannot be neglected to make the language learners deal with the intercultural situation successfully. Skills of interpreting and relating deal with the ability to interpret events or documents from another culture, explain them, and relate them to events and documents from one’s own culture ( Byram, 1997 ). Regarding the analysis, the participant teachers tried to give students opportunities to develop their skills of interpretation, as one of the participants shared the latest event from some students’ countries and asked the other students to express their interpretations and views on the event and gain a deeper understanding of the event through classroom discussion.

The teachers hold the importance of improving students’ skills of interpreting and relating. According to the teacher interviewees, they consider one person who has language ability cannot succeed in cross-cultural communication. Because interaction is the most of intercultural communication, which is expressed respectively by T1:

Mastering language is not enough to have a successful cross-cultural communication. They do only communicate superficially, such as the daily greeting but cannot go further in communication which may cover the cultural aspects. I always encourage my students to explain the different behavior or the events in their own culture and compare them with other cultures. (T1)

Similarly, from the point of Aguilar’s (2008) viewpoint, teaching language without culture is the best way to cultivate a fool with fluent spoken language. And language teachers should keep trying to improve the language learner’s interpreting and relating skills in class teaching.

Skills of discovery and interaction

There is no doubt that language learners are the main targets and participants of class education; developing their skills is the critical point ( Welikala and Chris, 2008 ). According to this study, teachers try to encourage students to interact more with different countries and ask them to write a reflection journal about finding the differences among other countries.

From the interview of participant-teachers, they consider one person needs to discover the differences among different cultures and be eager to interact with the different cultures people:

Language is a skill for people to communicate with others, but culture, is another thing. People may face the difficulties if they don’t communicate with the native speakers. So I would like to encourage my students to talk with local people. For example, I ask my students to make five interviews with local Chinese people and write the reflection journal to compare the differences between their own country and Chinese culture (T2)

Similarly, a female teacher who has more than 4 years Mandarin teaching experience also holds an opinion about the importance of interaction:

Cross-cultural communication includes so many aspects in different fields. I am afraid that only language ability cannot succeed in perfect communication and I believe language ability should have a cultural base to utilize appropriately. Asking my students to discover the differences among different countries is the main teaching method in my Mandarin classes. (T4)

Therefore, language teachers, especially in higher education, need to encourage students to pay attention to the inter-culture and outer-culture ( Wahyudi, 2012 ).

Critical cultural awareness

Byram (1997) holds that individuals need have a critical cultural awareness to evaluate ideas, products and practices in their own and other cultures from multicultural perspectives. Some researchers advocate that intercultural speakers must become aware of their own values and those of other countries ( Byram, 2002 ; Wiseman, 2002 ; Tan, 2020 ). Whereas from the data analysis, most of the participant teachers rarely paid attention to improving international students’ critical cultural awareness, and most have no clear idea of how to operate it. Significantly, from the teacher-participants interview, some have a very vague perspective about developing students’ critical cultural awareness.

Mostly, I always encourage my students to have an open attitude to accept the other cultures and they need to avoid stereotypes. If I ask my students to have a critical cultural awareness, it means they need to judge other cultures from your perspective. Therefore, I seldom highlight this point. (T2)

From the interview, we find that the teacher participants also have the similar doubt to evoke the language learners’ critical cultural awareness of learning a different culture. According to Teacher Zhou’s opinion:

I am keeping asking my students to avoid stereotypes and prejudice in intercultural communication. And I always offer great opportunities to students to interact with different countries people appropriately, if I ask them to keep a critical attitude towards the other cultures, they may feel puzzled and do not know how to deal with it. (T5)

A similar result is acquired by Soomro et al. (2015) , who suggested college level and schools could make an integration between cultural awareness and language teaching processing.

The influence of intercultural activities on intercultural competence development

In Mandarin language classrooms, teachers have an awareness to improve the international students’ intercultural competence, design various cultural topics, and organize different forms of intercultural activities for students to practice their intercultural competence. Cultural knowledge, like other scientific knowledge, also has its scientific system. Language teachers should reasonably arrange different stages of cultural learning content, choose the suitable ways for students’ cognitive characteristics and the law of development of thinking, and follow the logical order to master the basic structure. The cultural part of classroom teaching design and the arrangement of the teaching activities should consider the effects of various factors on the learners ( Yang and Li, 2017 ). It should also pay attention to the specific knowledge of the target language learning, and learners should also have a good understanding of the native language and the native culture and a positive attitude toward the target culture and other cultures.

The results of the deductive thematic analysis indicate that double translation, watching the videos, comparing, situation setting, and role-play are the effective and useful activities that the teacher adopts to improve the students’ intercultural competence. This is congruent with previous studies that language teachers attach importance to intercultural teaching in language classes ( Cheng and Hong, 2014 ; Freitas, 2019 ). Learners’ intercultural awareness can be enhanced by comparing native cultures with the target culture and other cultures ( Yu and Cao, 2015 ). For example, the activities of double translation regard English as the medium for instruction when the teacher teaches Mandarin in the classroom and the method is beneficial for improving students’ intercultural competence by adding cultural knowledge as the content of translation between English and Mandarin. It helps learners to acquire knowledge of culture- specify information and sociolinguistic awareness which are the distinctly important part for the students ( Deardorff, 2004 ); especially, this method ensures the students correctly understand the content to be expressed and connect it with the target language and culture when introducing or translating a new word or phenomenon. During double translation, students can view their culture from a different perspective, which is conducive to promoting critical cultural awareness ( Baker, 2016 ). Comparing is another activity that is directly used to compare the similarities and differences between students’ own culture and other cultures. This activity enables students to have a better understanding of their own culture and acquire knowledge of other cultures, improving students’ intercultural knowledge ( Byram, 1997 ). After acquiring the knowledge and practice of their own culture, Chinese culture and other cultures concerning the same topic, students can discover new information and relate their own culture to others by comparing Chinese culture with those of other countries ( Gu et al., 2010 ).

Intercultural activities in language teaching help learners understand and accept people from other cultures as individuals with different distinctive perspectives, values, and behaviors ( Byram, 2002 ). To diversify classroom teaching activities, teachers should pay attention to the combination of didactic and experimental teaching methods, which can be arranged as lectures and explanations that focus on language and cultural knowledge, as well as role-playing, simulation activities, and visits that can cultivate language learners’ behavioral ability.

The study explores the incorporation of intercultural competence in language education and investigates how Mandarin teachers facilitate international students’ intercultural competence. The findings suggest that integrating cultural topics closely related to real life and intercultural activities in the form of double translation, comparison situation and role play into Mandarin teaching and learning is beneficial to developing language learners’ intercultural competence, expanding their understanding of diverse cultures, developing their positive attitudes toward Chinese culture and others cultures, fostering their skills of comparing different cultures and skills of interacting among varying contexts, and increasing their critical cultural awareness.

The findings of the present study have the following implications. Firstly, integrating intercultural activities into Mandarin teaching has played an enlightening role in Chinese teaching. Secondly, it helps foreign language teachers have a new perspective from the combination of cultural and language teaching. Thirdly, it contributes to the innovation of international students teaching. Fourthly, it equips teachers and educators with the new dimensions to conduct relevant intercultural studies.

However, this study has some limitations. First, the subject of the study is limited, and more participants could yield more reliable findings to conduct the study. Second, this study paid attention to explore the perspectives of teachers and observers, but data from students’ perspectives were rarely collected (such as intercultural competence self-rating scale, student interviews, etc.). Third, the observation only lasted 4 weeks. Extending the time of the study would lead to in-depth and more detailed findings. Therefore, the results could be tentative for exploring the role of intercultural activities and their overall effects on developing learners’ intercultural competence.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent from the patients/participants or patients/participants legal guardian/next of kin was not required to participate in this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author contributions

NL devised the project, the main conceptual ideas and proof outline, worked out almost all of the data collection and technical details, performed the data analysis, and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.

This study was supported by the Intercultural Communication Research Team of Jingchu Institute of Technology (TD202102), the Philosophy and Social Science Research Project of Education Department of Hubei Province (20Y191), and the Education and Teaching Research Project of Jingchu University of Technology (JX2021-36).

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords : intercultural activities, Mandarin, international students, intercultural communicative competence, teaching

Citation: Liu N (2022) Integrating intercultural activities into teaching Mandarin for international students in China. Front. Psychol. 13:972733. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.972733

Received: 06 July 2022; Accepted: 10 October 2022; Published: 10 November 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Na Liu, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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As part of the series on the Summer Term Programme, in this week’s MicroCPD, Jane Sjoberg (BIA) discusses the Birmingham International Academy's ‘Intercultural Awareness’ workshops, designed for both home and international students.

If you would like to discuss how this workshop could fit into your Summer Term Programme, please contact Ian Martin (Academic English Insessional Programme Manager) for further details and to discuss your departmental needs.

Intercultural awareness is one the University of Birmingham’s graduate attributes in that, to become ‘natural collaborators’, students are expected to be able to work collaboratively , communicate with diverse audiences and remove barriers for people who are different from themselves. The full list of graduate attributes is available online.

For international students, especially those who speak English as a second or additional language, living and learning in a different culture can be both exciting and stressful. Building intercultural awareness can be an important way to deal with culture shock and the effects this might have on learning. It can also be part of a broader toolkit that prepares students for professional life in our globalised and increasingly interconnected world.

UKCISA (2018) Facing culture shock [Online] Available at: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/information--advice/preparation-and-arrival/facing-culture-shock [Accessed 18 January, 2024].

As staff, whether teaching, assessing or supporting students in other ways we no doubt all would like to enhance learners’ intercultural skillset, encouraging them to embrace and celebrate diversity in all its forms. This micro CPD mentions just a few key ideas that may be useful to bear in mind when attempting to do so in our everyday practice. The BIA can provide more structured forms of support for students in workshops that are detailed below.

Our interactive workshops have already been enthusiastically attended by students studying a range of disciplines at PG and UG level (e.g. Social Policy, Investments, Management, Public Health, Digital Media & Medical Sciences). In these sessions (which can be tailored to departmental needs or adapted to align with a specific group-based assessment), we aim first of all to help students understand the benefits of working with people from other backgrounds. We examine different aspects of intercultural group working, including group assignments, discussions, and everyday conversations. We help students to reflect on their own backgrounds and ways of communicating, and think about the reasons behind some of the different approaches people can experience when working across cultures. Students come away from our sessions with practical language, strategies, and ways of thinking that they can apply to get the most out of group-based activities, particularly those that require students with different degrees of oral and written English confidence to collaborate and work effectively together, for example on a group project or presentation. Topics covered in a session might include: dealing with misunderstandings, expressing disagreement, and politeness strategies as well as tips on how to de-escalate situations when communication breaks down. We also typically explore ways in which different cultures are accepting or disapproving of overlapping voices in a discussion; cultural attitudes to physical space or conventions about taking turns in a discussion.

Further reading/ further resources

  • Arslan, S. (2023). Intercultural Awareness and International Identities: Necessary Support and Preparation for Academic Staff. In T. Mammadova (ed.) Academic Mobility through the Lens of Language and Identity, Global Pandemics, and Distance Internationalization, London, Routledge, pp.107-117.
  • Baker, W. (2012). From cultural awareness to intercultural awareness: Culture in ELT. ELT Journal , 66(1), pp.62-70.
  • Barany, L. K. (2016). Language awareness, intercultural awareness and communicative language teaching: Towards language education. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies , 2(4), pp.257-282.
  • de Hei, M., Tabacaru, C., Sjoer, E., Rippe, R., & Walenkamp, J. (2020). Developing intercultural competence through collaborative learning in international higher education . Journal of Studies in International Education , 24(2), pp. 190-211.
  • Ippolito, K. (2007). Promoting intercultural learning in a multicultural university: Ideals and realities. Teaching in Higher Education , 12(5-6), pp.749-763.
  • Salih, A. A., & Omar, L. I. (2021). Globalized English and users’ intercultural awareness: Implications for internationalization of higher education. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education , 20(3), pp.181-196.

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Enhancing intercultural effectiveness in international virtual student teams: an exploratory study

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  • Volume 19 , pages 345–361, ( 2020 )

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Internationalisation of higher education implies the need to prepare students to work in a globalized and culturally diverse environment by developing adequate intercultural competences. The present study focused on the behavioural dimension of intercultural communication competence and investigated whether the short-term experience of working on a project assignment in a virtual multicultural team could produce an increase in students’ intercultural effectiveness. The study employed a single-group pre-test-post-test research design. The sample included 73 students representing 16 nationalities studying in Russian and Japanese universities majoring in business or economics. Students’ responses on the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (Portalla and Chen in Intercult Commun Stud 19(3):21–37, 2010) were collected before and after the project, and paired difference tests ( t test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test) were used for data analysis. Results indicate that that overall intercultural effectiveness of the students by the end of the project increased as compared to pre-test scores. Significant shifts were registered for five of the six dimensions of intercultural effectiveness: Behavioural Flexibility, Interaction Relaxation, Interactant Respect, Message Skills and Identity Maintenance. Findings suggest that virtual multicultural team assignments can contribute to the development of intercultural competence as a meaningful internationalisation outcome, and therefore may be an appropriate and cost-effective tool for enhancing internationalisation at home. Other implications for educators are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank Vice-President Kenji Yokoyama and Professor Phillip Pardo from Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University and Professor Yuri Sadoi from Meijo University for their continued cooperation on the project that provided the setting for the present study. We also thank all the companies who provided information for the project assignments, and Mitsuko Takahashi, representative director of Haa Baht Inc. and JETRO Russia business supporter in 2017, for her help with promoting this project in the business community. We also thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments helped improve and clarify this manuscript.

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Appendix: Intercultural effectiveness scale (Portalla and Chen 2010, p. 36)

Appendix: intercultural effectiveness scale (portalla and chen 2010 , p. 36).

I find it is easy to talk with people from different cultures.

I am afraid to express myself when interacting with people from different cultures.

I find it is easy to get along with people from different cultures.

I am not always the person I appear to be when interacting with people from different cultures.

I am able to express my ideas clearly when interacting with people from different cultures.

I have problems with grammar when interacting with people from different cultures.

I am able to answer questions effectively when interacting with people from different cultures.

I find it is difficult to feel my culturally different counterparts are similar to me.

I use appropriate eye contact when interacting with people from different cultures.

I have problems distinguishing between informative and persuasive messages when interacting.

With people from different cultures.

I always know how to initiate a conversation when interacting with people from different.

I often miss parts of what is going on when interacting with people from different cultures.

I feel relaxed when interacting with people from different cultures.

I often act like a very different person when interacting with people from different cultures.

I always show respect for my culturally different counterparts during our interaction.

I always feel a sense of distance with my culturally different counterparts during our interaction.

I find I have a lot in common with my culturally different counterparts during our interaction.

I find the best way to act is to be myself when interacting with people from different cultures.

I find it is easy to identify with my culturally different counterparts during our interaction.

I always show respect for the opinions of my culturally different counterparts during our.

Interaction.

Note. Items 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 are reverse-coded before summing the 20 items. Behavioral Flexibility items are 2, 4, 14, and 18; Interaction Relaxation items are 1, 3, 11, 13, and 19; Interactant Respect items are 9, 15, and 20; Message Skills items are 6, 10, and 12; Identity Maintenance items are 8, 16, and 17; Interaction Management items are 5 and 7.

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Petrovskaya, I., Shaposhnikov, S. Enhancing intercultural effectiveness in international virtual student teams: an exploratory study. Educ Res Policy Prac 19 , 345–361 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-020-09262-w

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Received : 25 September 2018

Accepted : 30 March 2020

Published : 10 April 2020

Issue Date : October 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-020-09262-w

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Intercultural Studies, B.A.

More than 3 billion people live in poverty. Students in the intercultural studies program develop a personal strategy to serve these underdeveloped communities around the world.

Program Intro

Students in CBU's intercultural studies program find where the world’s needs meet their passions, and professors show students how to translate their passion into something useful. The program provides a decidedly biblical worldview for the study of and engagement in culture and society through discipleship, evangelism, justice ministries and community development. 

Why Study Intercultural Studies at CBU?

Take part in immersion experiences.

CBU offers a number of opportunities to travel abroad. Locally, students visit religious centers and can participate in service projects like teaching English to refugees, serving in homeless ministries or playing sports with incarcerated youth. Our location in the Inland Empire provides access to diverse ethnic and economic populations where students are exposed to the world right in their backyard.

Gain transferrable skills

Students won’t just learn about cultures, they’ll learn how to communicate cross-culturally, how to problem solve and advocate for communities. These soft skills can be applied in almost any industry, especially in education, government and health. Some of our alumni found jobs with International Justice Mission, International Mission Board, various churches, and local homeless and refugee advocacy organizations.

Learn from faculty who care

The intercultural studies program is flexible enough for students to tailor it to their unique goals. Professors care about each student and will talk with them about what they want to do and guide them into the classes that will get them there. Some special-topic courses include ones on poverty, refugees and Islam in Africa.

What You'll Learn

Upon completion of the intercultural studies program, graduates will:

  • Have a biblical and theological understanding of the global context of the Christian faith.
  • Have a biblical and theological understanding of the gospel, discipleship, the kingdom of God, and the church.
  • Identify models of social engagement and strategies appropriate to the expected professional arena.
  • Understand the basic elements of culture and worldview.
  • Connect their knowledge of international political, social, and economic issues with biblical/ethical responses.
  • Experience integrated learning of content, skill, and character through an internship or study abroad.

Program Details

Ics 305: global christianity .

A general survey of the redemptive activity of God in the world—past, present, and future.

ICS 410: Global and Urban Ministries

This course studies the biblical and theological foundations of global missions alongside mission strategies applied in global and urban settings.

ICS 430: Intercultural Communication and Practice

This course will address principles and processes of communication from one culture to another. 

View All Courses

  • TESOL Concentration

intercultural communication assignments for students

Damon Horton, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Intercultural Studies Director, Intercultural Studies program

Office Phone: 951-343-4296 E-mail: [email protected] Office Location: YCTR B216

intercultural communication assignments for students

Amy Stumpf, Ph.D.

Professor of Religion & Society

Office Phone: 951-343-4451 E-mail: [email protected] Office Location: James 278

Ashley

My major in intercultural studies prepared me for interacting with and living among a new and different culture. I was offered a job at ICS-Lima (Peru) as a second-grade teacher, and I recently signed a two-year contract to continue my time here. I often look back at my time at CBU and wonder where I would be if God had not led me there. Ashley Ramming '13 Fifth Grade Teacher, International Christian School of Lima Read Ashley's Story

Annabel Koher

I am a site manager of a family shelter where I case manage families to help bring stability in their lives. At CBU, I learned about practices in social change that have and haven’t worked. That is beneficial in going back to figuring out the best way to run a program. Annabel Koher '16 Site Manager, Family Shelter Services Read Annabel's Story

Amanda Kurowski

I chose my major because it brings me the closest to serving others. I hope to work for organizations that prevent human trafficking. I love that the professors here are very knowledgeable and that the program offers service trips. Amanda Kurowski '21

Kierra Jones

I chose my major because of my interest in social justice, fighting against human trafficking, and understanding the unique cultures around the world. The professors in the ICS department constantly amaze me in their knowledge, experience, and compassion for their students. They have taught me so much about God's purpose and the practical needs and solutions for the oppressed in our world. Kierra Jones '19

Career Possibilities

Graduates of CBU's intercultural studies program will be well prepared for various intercultural roles. Some careers listed below may require further education.

  • International Teacher
  • Social Justice Advocate
  • International Relations Specialist
  • Church Planter
  • Nonprofit Ministry Director
  • Church Outreach Director

Related Programs

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Philosophy, B.A.

Request more information.

Join our community. At CBU, you’ll be challenged to become an individual whose skills, integrity, and sense of purpose glorify God and distinguish you in the world.

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  1. 🐈 Intercultural communication topics. 100+ Communication Research

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  2. Chapter 4 talks about intercultural communication. This is an example

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  3. Intercultural Communication: Building Relationships and Skills

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  4. Intercultural communication assignment

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  5. Intercultural Communication: International/Local UCT Student Dynamics

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  6. intercultural competence: interpersonal communication across cultures

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  1. Intercultural Communication Assignment #1

  2. Intercultural Communication

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  4. Intercultural Communication Competence

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  1. Activities and Assignments

    K nowledge of Cultural Worldview Frameworks Assignment (.pdf) A ttitude of Intercultural Openness Assignment (.pdf) Skills of Intercultural Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Assignment (.pdf) A ttitude of Intercultural Curiosity Assignment (.pdf) Skill of I ntercultural Empathy Assignment (.pdf)

  2. Culture Learning: Simulations & Exercises

    Games are a fun and effective way to introduce issues of cultural awareness and intercultural communications to students. The information on this page, compiled by the Intercultural Studies Project, is a good place to start looking for specific cultural simulations and exercises and for ways to incorporate them into the curriculum.

  3. PDF Intercultural Learning Classroom Activities

    The activities The intercultural learning activities presented in the Toolbox are games, roleplays, debates, projects, energizers and simulations that are aimed at triggering reflection among the participants, i.e. the students, the teachers and the broader school community. The activities have been selected because

  4. Assignments

    This first assignment asks you to examine your own cultural identity - to describe how you define yourself as a cultural being - and to show how that affects your communication style. The following questions are to help you construct that definition.

  5. My Go-To Resources for Intercultural Learning Activities

    HubICL is a free online "Hub for promoting intercultural learning," developed by Purdue University. According to the website, "The HubICL is a collaborative space for intercultural specialists, teachers, and students to network, share information, and collaborate on research across institutions.". A major component of the HubICL is a ...

  6. Intercultural Competence Toolkit

    Resources ∕ Intercultural Competence Toolkit Intercultural Competence Toolkit Wondering how to engage students of vastly different economic, social, racial, and cultural backgrounds in the classroom? Interested in becoming more skilled at communicating across cultures?

  7. PDF Teaching the Communication Course: Intercultural Communication

    53 and value systems. Once students have a basic understanding of communication and culture in a global-ized world, they can begin to understand why the subject matter is important. As part of their foundational study, students need to understand how culture relates to group identity.

  8. Intercultural Activity Toolkit

    The lntercultural Communication & Training (ICT) Toolkit is a practical document that is meant to be applied. You may find it helpful to read it straight through, or you may skip around to where your interests lead you or as the need arises.

  9. 8 Strategies for Teaching Intercultural Communication through Film

    1. Promote Cooperative Learning Break with the traditional classroom setting and rearrange your classroom environment. Encourage students of mixed abilities to work together by promoting small group or whole class activities while watching and discussing the film or series clip.

  10. Intercultural Communication

    COMM 10 - Intercultural Communication . Course Objectives. In the process of completing this course, students will: Recognize and articulate how core values, worldview, and communication patterns shape cultural and individual identity. ... In this assignment, students watch a documentary, television series, or movie from a streaming platform on ...

  11. Intercultural Communication

    Intercultural Communication examines culture as a variable in interpersonal and collective communication. It explores the opportunities and problems arising from similarities and differences in communication patterns, processes, and codes among various cultural groups. It explores cultural universals, social categorization, stereotyping and discrimination, with a focus on topics including race ...

  12. Intercultural Communication Activities and its Importance

    by Dan Pieraccini June 29, 2023 We all want our students to improve their intercultural communication skills, become empathetic global citizens, and communicate skillfully. However, our virtual exchange can often highlight that even the most worldly and cosmopolitan of our students need practice with intercultural communication.

  13. PDF Incorporating Intercultural Communication Activities in English ...

    Intercultural Communication has become a relevant focal point within a variety of fields - science, psychology, politics, journalism, economics, and education, to name a few. Yet, current university students may not even be aware of Intercultural Communication's role in these fields, as well as their studies and future careers.

  14. PDF COM263 ELEMENTS OF INTERCULTURAL C

    key terms, concepts and theories of Intercultural Communication • Employ the dialectical perspective to synthesize new insights on intercultural communication. Required Textbook. Martin, J. & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th Edition). Boston: McGraw-Hill. The textbook is available in print as well as online.

  15. Intercultural Communication Quiz Training Activity and Game

    A PDF called 'Classroom activities' or 'Students Activities handbook' can be suitable and ask the participants to open but try to avoid looking at the activities before-hand. ... The aim of this exercise is to start introducing participants to intercultural communication topics, such as: use of gestures and touch; colors symbolism;

  16. Intercultural Communication

    Intercultural Communication introduces students to the cultural variables and factors in the communication process. Emphasis is given to communicating effectively in diverse social and professional environments. Focus is given to the analysis and comparisons of message perception, verbal and nonverbal communication, communication climates and language interpretation in interactions between ...

  17. PDF MMC5708: Intercultural Communications

    As the course progresses, we will use these perspectives as a lens to understand intercultural communication processes (for example: identity, language, nonverbal behavior) and ways they are applied (for example: assimilation, popular culture, relationships).

  18. Intercultural communication for university classrooms

    Tips for better classroom communication with international students. Try to see the positive potentials of cross-cultural perspectives rather than focusing only on the challenges of intercultural communication. This includes encouraging international students to share their unique insights. ... When designing group work activities, it is good ...

  19. Intercultural communication and US higher education: How US students

    Intercultural communication can be investigated and evaluated in a variety of contexts: in business (Ainsworth, 2013; Chitakornkusil, ... Finally, the participants reported that the university provides a variety of activities to help students have healthy campus lives, and one participant specifically noted that the student health center was a ...

  20. Promoting intercultural competence in study abroad students

    Promoting effective and appropriate behaviour and communication in intercultural situations (i.e., intercultural competence, Deardorff, 2011) is a key objective in a world characterized by increased mobility and social interaction within multicultural environments (Olson & Kroeger, 2001).Universities have been promoting internalization for a long time: The last 20 years have seen a raise in ...

  21. Integrating intercultural activities into teaching Mandarin for

    The main problems to make intercultural communication may be the lack of target language cultural knowledge and the regional problem. Therefore, she always uses the teaching methods to cope with those problems, such as (1) watching videos relating to culture (2) personal presentations about the students' cultural experience (3) recommending ...

  22. Developing Students' Intercultural Awareness

    We examine different aspects of intercultural group working, including group assignments, discussions, and everyday conversations. We help students to reflect on their own backgrounds and ways of communicating, and think about the reasons behind some of the different approaches people can experience when working across cultures.

  23. Enhancing intercultural effectiveness in international virtual student

    Internationalisation of higher education implies the need to prepare students to work in a globalized and culturally diverse environment by developing adequate intercultural competences. The present study focused on the behavioural dimension of intercultural communication competence and investigated whether the short-term experience of working on a project assignment in a virtual multicultural ...

  24. (PDF) Intercultural Communication of EFL Students with ...

    September 2020. Hery Rahmat. Intercultural communication normally occurs through interactions with individuals from another culture. English learners may experience it during speaking activities ...

  25. Intercultural Studies

    The intercultural studies program is flexible enough for students to tailor it to their unique goals. Professors care about each student and will talk with them about what they want to do and guide them into the classes that will get them there. Some special-topic courses include ones on poverty, refugees and Islam in Africa.