by Ziyun Chen
While many international students go abroad to study English or study a profession in English, the majority of students are not sufficiently equipped in the domain of cultural competence to feel at ease in the classrooms of English-speaking countries. I believe that ESL teachers have a significant role in assisting ESL students with acquiring cultural competence. It is important to be patient with students and understand that many of them may be having a hard time adjusting to the new cultural environment.
Shapiro, Farrelly, and Tomaš (2014) outline an excellent summary of intercultural communication issues relevant to success in the U.S. classroom. It would be beneficial for ESL students if teachers could acknowledge these aspects of cultural differences gradually during their course:
- Intellectual Ownership/ Creativity/ Innovation (p. 12-14): Intellectual ownership occupies a central value in the U.S. classroom which is manifested in a number of ways. First, students are encouraged to express their individual voices in class discussion or in writing assignments. It is expected that students should present their own views and classmates should engage with those views by building on each others’ ideas and critically examining the points others make. Second, students are responsible for borrowing ideas properly, which is especially crucial in written assignments and public presentations. Third, U.S. academia values one’s creativity and innovation. The course and assignment design tends to leave students enough freedom to express their own ideas, even if the ideas challenge the academic authority.
- Informality and Egalitarianism (p. 14-15): In some cultures, there is an absolute hierarchy between students and the teacher. For example, students in some countries should never address the teacher by first name. They rarely have close physical contact (for example, hugging) with their teachers, either. In the American classroom, however, students often call the instructor by first name, and the instructor may also act very casually in class. Students who are not familiar with this type of academic environment may regard the class of a casually behaving instructor as not only informal but also less important.
- Efficiency and Directness (p. 15-16): In the U.S. academic culture, it is expected that the writer will present the main idea directly, up front or at least in the early part of an essay. Such rhetorical differences among various cultures may give students a hard time in the process of learning to write and comprehending expectations for assignments.
- Learner-centered Instruction (p. 16): Learner-centered instruction encourages students to seek new and additional materials outside the classroom and, with the help of the instructor, build up knowledge based on what they have found. Students who are not used to individual-centered instruction or who lack assertiveness in learning may find such instruction difficult.
Some ESL students come to America with a certain level of English study in their own countries, but their prior English instruction may not adequately prepare them for how they should study in the American academic culture. ESL students at all language proficiency levels would benefit from opportunities to acquire intercultural competence on their way to reaching their language goals.
References
Shapiro, S., Farrelly, R., & Tomaš, Z. (2014). Fostering international student success in higher education. Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press.
Ziyun Chen is an international student from Jingdezhen (Jiangxi, China). She holds a BA in English Literature and is pursuing a Master’s degree in English in the TESOL track at Missouri State University.
