ICC 2020: Workshop Information

Presenters: Divya Chaudhry (Vanderbilt University), María Luján Stasevicius (Rice University), and Kevin Garcia Cruz (Sage Hill School)

This hands-on workshop will guide teachers to systematically design instruction focused on developing learners’ intercultural competence. Using sample lesson plans and activities from their classroom teaching, the presenters will demonstrate how different frameworks – Byram’s intercultural competence model (Byram, 1997; Byram et al, 2016), conversation analysis for second language acquisition (Barraja-Rohan, 2011), and project-based language learning (Larmer & Mergendoller, 2010) – can be used to identify instructional goals, generate teaching materials, create language-learning tasks, and develop assessment tools to enhance learners’ intercultural competence.

By the end of the workshop, participants will:

• raise awareness about their personal practices of teaching culture in the classroom through self -reflection and discussion with peers
• develop an understanding of teaching and testing of intercultural competence through specific examples from real educational environments,
• create a lesson plan focused on promoting learners’; intercultural competence
• get feedback from and collaborate with colleagues on their lesson plans, and design assessment procedures and access resources for further development.

The workshop is intended for second and foreign language teachers in K-12 and post-secondary education contexts seeking to explore new approaches to teaching culture in their classroom.

Presenters: Adrián Arroyo Pérez, Nadia Alvarez Mexia, and Suzanne Panferov Reese (University of Arizona)

Socioeconomic and political environments around the world have forced institutions to think outside the box and be creative in offering significant international experiences to students, faculty and staff. Short-term programs have become popular for internationalizing the curriculum and promoting intercultural exchanges. This workshop leads participants through a sampling of short customized programs managed by Study UA, and ways to create similar programs at their own institutions. It is intended for educators and higher education administrators interested in developing intensive short-term programs for domestic and international populations.

Study UA offers a variety of customized learning experiences in Tucson at the University of Arizona (UA) and delivers programs on-site for international students, faculty, and professionals, as well as unique programs for UA colleagues for more than 12 years. These programs are innovative, flexible, and allow students and professionals the opportunity to experience their field of study from a new perspective, helping them grow academically, professionally, and personally. These inclusive international experiences also provide participants with the tools they need to grow in their intercultural competence. Experiences vary greatly from research to projects in social entrepreneurship and musical opera. The program design is dynamic. Study UA adapts each activity to the needs of the participants’ higher education system of origin, while emphasizing the excellence of the world-renowned academic and research system of the UA.

The workshop leads participants through a sampling of these programs, a process for developing them and a rubric for evaluating impact, targeting intercultural reflection, high academic standards, and an emphasis on inclusion. Presenters will prepare a variety of case studies based on real short-term programs; each case will provide general information about type of institutions, participants, academic field, higher education systems and other details. Working in small teams, participants will analyze a short term program case study, and develop a program outline and a rubric for assessing program impact.

Presenters: Dianna L. Murphy (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Dan E Davidson (American Councils for International Education), Karen Evans-Romaine (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Maria D. Lekic (American Councils for International Education, Russian Overseas Flagship), and Stephen Tschudi (University of Hawai’i at Manoa)

The ‘intercultural turn’ in L2 education in the United States is evidenced by the 2012 release of the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Descriptions for Competence in Intercultural Communication and the 2017 publication of the NCSSFL-ACTFL Intercultural Can-Do Statements for Intercultural Communication, as well by recent book-length treatments of the topic for modern language educators that provide practical examples for classroom teachers as well as a discussion of conceptual frameworks and theories of (inter)cultural learning in the context of modern language education. Integrating intercultural learning into the curriculum remains an ongoing challenge for many L2 educators, however, especially for those who teach languages for which there are few, if any, interculturally-oriented instructional materials in their language to draw on.

This workshop introduces a model for facilitating the intercultural development of postsecondary L2 students that was developed by a team of educators through a collaborative, interinstitutional project funded by the Language Flagship. The project began with a 360-degree survey of the cultural preparation needs of Language Flagship students participating in overseas capstone programs in Kazakhstan and Morocco, followed by the creation of a series of scenario-based modules that promote students’ critical cultural awareness and intercultural development.

The workshop will present findings from the survey, then introduce the conceptual model and examples of scenario-based modules in Arabic and Russian designed for use prior to study abroad and in the context of “cultural roundtables” during study abroad. The interactive workshop will guide participants in the creation of their own scenario-based modules, following the model and using templates provided by the workshop facilitators. Although examples will be drawn from the Arabic and Russian modules, the workshop is designed for L2 educators of any language.

Presenter: Tim Jansa (Georgia State University)

The goal of this workshop is to introduce its participants to the foundations of motivational theory and allow them to apply the tenets of theoretical approaches to real-life L2 instructional contexts. Predominantly based on Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) Motivational Self System and the concept of a learner’s ideal L2 self, world language instructors at all levels will explore ways to (1) identify students’ intrinsic motivations; (2) demonstrate functional cultural competence in a context meaningful to their learners; and (3) leverage students’ desired self-image to introduce and discuss relevant cultural components in the classroom.

Participants will share personal experiences, explore these experiences collectively within the given theoretical framework, and develop concrete strategies and tools to engage their L2 learners. The discussion will incorporate critical discourse on language proficiency versus interculturally relevant knowledge and behaviors and encourage reflection on how the prospect of functionality and social integration in a “foreign” culture can overcome L2 anxiety in hopes of enhancing learners’ self- determination and learning outcomes.

Although this workshop is designed for world language educators, anyone with an international background and limited experience in learning non-English languages is invited to attend. The strategies developed and discussed will be applicable, for example, to professionals who prepare individuals to go abroad without substantial language training component and who will benefit from additional tools to enhance their training programs and create pathways to intercultural understanding.

Presenters: Kris Aric Knisely and Janice Mcgregor (University of Arizona)

Educational discourses about intercultural competence (ICC) tend to value and reward its application, though these same discourses are regularly nebulous, fragmented, and reductive. In addition to definitional ambiguity, ICC is often conflated with associated concepts (e.g., intercultural communication, cultural competence, and cross-cultural competence, to name a few), owing in part to its interdisciplinary nature and to the various theoretical orientations of scholars working on this construct. As a result, ICC can be hard to understand and apply in both formal and informal learning contexts. This workshop thus aims to help educators, including classroom teachers and other educational professionals, elucidate core elements of ICC in order to make ICC happen at their learning sites.

Workshop participants will first engage in a practically-oriented discussion of the challenges associated with defining ICC through the presenters’ own process of developing of a public-facing definition of ICC. Participants will come to understand the ways in which ICC’s chaotic representations and definitional ambiguity pose challenges to making concrete pedagogical changes that serve to foster ICC. In and through the activities and discussions in this workshop, participants will work with a framework that helps them to apply a specific definition of ICC to their own local contexts, in the spirit of ICC itself. Participants will leave this workshop having created locally relevant products (e.g., assignments, assessments, program evaluations, and/or other materials), practices (e.g., strategies for learning, teaching, and/or advising both within and outside of the classroom), and procedures (e.g., strategies for embodying ICC in all interactions with learners and colleagues) that help them foster both their own and others’ abilities to communicate effectively, appropriately, and ethically with individuals and groups whose cultures are different than their own.

Presenters: Anne Tiballi (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) and Teresa Gimenez (University of Pennsylvania)

This workshop will provide a theoretical overview and real-life examples of successful object-based activities in the language classroom. Participants will be supported in creating their own Object-Based Learning (OBL) lessons and provided with guidance on how to access OBL opportunities at their home institutions.

Traditional cultural teaching is often disconnected from context and lacks direct experiences with the target language and culture. The lack of training, appropriate teaching materials and of a real cultural context, that enables interactions with the target culture, are some of the major challenges to the successful combination of foreign languages and intercultural education. Therefore, it becomes essential to look for new learning approaches and spaces where intercultural interactions can take place. Frequently employed in museum education, OBL is the use of physical objects to facilitate the discovery and transfer of complex knowledge across learning domains. This approach forefronts active and experiential learning where objects, not facts, are the focal point from which everything proceeds: learning tasks, exploration, critical observation, critical thinking, discussions and active inquiry. Ultimately, OBL “is much more than facts and concepts, and includes changes in attitudes, beliefs, aesthetic understandings, identity, etc (Dierking 2002).

This workshop is anchored in an interdisciplinary perspective that moves towards post- structuralist approaches to teaching and learning and a critical view of interculturality. In this workshop presenters provide a pedagogical approach that is real, concrete, and embodied. The workshop is targeted for instructors of any foreign language or professionals interested in learning the skill of providing transformative intercultural experiences through objects. Drawing from extensive collaborations between the UPenn Spanish department and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, participants will engage in hands-on activities that demonstrate the effectiveness of object-based, culturally-specific lessons. After reflecting and discussing the example activities, participants will be provided with a sample objects from the Museum’s teaching collection and they will be invited to build their own OBL activity, suited to their target language and educational goals. The workshop will conclude with a session of discussion and feedback about the activities.

Presenter: Yerko Antonio Sepulveda-Larraguibel (Texas Tech University)

Globally, there is an increasing co-existence of the cultures of the different races represented in the 21st-century classroom as well as new scenarios offered by an interconnected world. Promoting the development of intercultural competence requires an understanding of who the students are, their sociocultural background, their linguistic profiles, as well as the teaching skills necessary to educate this population. Also, it requires a critical view of the curriculum and the necessary changes to promote an intercultural mindset and prepare the students for a complex and unknown world.

Different disciplines have offered varied theories to explain sociocultural relationships in and outside the classroom; however, more practical teaching strategies should be further developed to facilitate learning and prepare students for the complex cultural and linguistic landscapes created through globalization.

In this workshop participants will use different thinking routines, associated with the Visible Thinking framework to look critically at content (e.g. art, writing, cultural artifact, etc.) explore its complexities, and find opportunities to enact change while bringing students’ perspectives and representation to the center of the learning process. Three main capacities will be explored to develop intercultural competence: looking closely, exploring the complexity and finding opportunities. The thinking routines can be applied in different subject-areas and grade-levels (K-16) since they offer multiple and adaptable ways to facilitate critical and creative thinking. Participants will receive supplemental material to bring home implementation procedures.

Presenters: Lisa Adeli and Clea Conlin (University of Arizona)

Organized by outreach professionals from two National Resource Centers in different world areas (the Middle East and Latin America), this three-hour workshop is designed as a program for college educators to learn about and share ways to add international content into a variety of undergraduate courses. Attendees will be asked to bring a laptop, tablet, or smart phone to enable a more active participation in the program.

The workshop will begin with presentations from the two outreach coordinators who will share information on web-based curricular materials, educational resources, and professional development opportunities for community college educators. Participants will then engage in activities to share their best practices for curriculum internationalization and to generate ideas for new programs or collaborations. The goal is for educators to leave the workshop with practical information on classroom-ready materials, concrete plans for integrating international content into their own classes, and contact with other globally minded educators.