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PME 801 Problem Brief Guiding Questions, Suzanne - We can look at cross…

- - - - Mitch: I agree with you Max. This is often the case, and teachers make a big impact on their students ability to adjust to a different culture. Often foreign teacher abroad stick to their small cultural groups and I noticed a lot of my Chinese students do this too. The students who want to be more open to another culture with be more willing to not be around those with the same culture.
        
        Amy - my students think its so weird that I'm friends with some of the Chinese staff & hang out with them. Sadly, we get curious looks even when we're out for dinner.
  - - - Amy - we have a social committee that tries to organize staff events. The committee last year was made up of 8 people (4 foreign staff including the chair person and 4 Chinese staff). Upon reflection I can see that as the foreign staff we really were the ones to make decisions and voice opinions. Chinese staff rarely attended social events outside of work hours. The one event the Chinese staff organized was attended by most of the Chinese staff & 2 foreign staff.
        This year our committee is much smaller (5 people). I am the only foreign staff on the committee and am co-chairperson. I have found the need to be a better listener and to ask questions. Our first event was this past week and it was well-attended by all staff.
        
        Suzanne - We have a large program group but that is broken down into small SME groups (Subject Matter Expert) where there is one leader who essentially does ALL the class set-up for the semester. There is very little to do other than the mechanics of setting it up so the collaboration is lost and the cross-cultural grounded experience between professors is lost. Amy I love the sounds of your group and their process!!
        
        Suzanne- Adding here: "A Manual for Structured Experiences for Cross-Culutral Learning". Weeks, William H., Ed.; And Others
        Fifty-nine structured exercises to facilitate crosscultural learning are described in this publication. The exercises are divided into clusters that pertain to the following topics: participant introduction and initial group experience, dynamics of communication, clarification of values, identification of roles, group processes, recognition of feelings and attitudes, community interaction, brainstorming tasks and problems, and the promotion of meaningful cross-cultural encounters
      - Amy - in my school grade levels are expected to collaborate for planning. I work with the other Grade 2 English teacher once a week to plan English instruction and before every unit (approximately every 7 weeks) to plan for our Unit of Inquiry with both English and Chinese departments.
        Our next unit we've planned a joint summative assessment where students can choose within their groups what language they will demonstrate their learning in.
        As a team we're excited to see how our collaboration across cultures/language will impact students' attitudes and learning.
        
        Mitch: In my chinese school all instruction is done in English, students have Chinese head teachers that act as liaisons between parents, students, and teacher.
        Do you think it is good for cultural understanding and learning for foreign teachers to punish and ban Chinese to be spoken in the classes? Often, these "international" or Canadian curriculum schools ban maternal languages from the classroom under the guise of aiding English language acquisition.
        
        Amy - I've been on a journey with this, Mitch. Right now I ask my students to try their best to use English as they only have 80 minutes of English instruction a day so practicing it is important. HOWEVER, if they need to have a conversation with a friend or request translation support from our para-educator then that's completely fine. It's working for our classroom.
        
        Mitch: Right Amy, and it shows understanding and respect for their culture. Sometimes I think the no language othe than English rule can lead to disconnect amongst the kids and teacher.
        
        Max - The school that I was teaching at in Vietnam had a mix of Vietnamese, Korean, Russian, Indian, and Canadian. Since I'm not solely an English teacher, I think it's important for the students to use their native language as well. So I didn't mind them speaking in their native language when they were with their same language friends. But my rule was that if there was at least one person in the group that spoke a different language, then they had to use English, so no one felt excluded.
        
        Amy - I like that rule, Max! I just had to talk to 2 of my students t2 weeks ago because I kept hearing my name in a conversation but they wouldn't tell me what they were saying. We talked about how it might make someone feel & they understood. It ended up they were commenting that I had 2 earring holes in each year & they thought it was 'cool' but didn't know if it was appropriate to tell me. It was a good conversation for all of us.
        
        We have a huge language issue ! There are very few profs who speak one of the 65 dialects from India. The students though will use their language when speaking to not allow Prof to understand them and they give each other the answers sometimes and as profs we can't really prove it or stop it. I agree they should be using their own language as well as ours. I am not confident as to how to do that yet.
        
        Suzanne -Another issue is that some Profs mark the grammar, spelling , citations, etc. International students the same as the domestic students yet we all know the grammar and speaking in English is soo difficult. I choose not to mark for that at all. I find it very unfair!
        
        Amy - I mark for grammar and spelling but I think it's really different because I'm teaching English. I feel that teachers always need to be clear on what exactly they are assessing. For example, if I'm assessing reading comprehension then I'm not assessing spelling & students should be able to demonstrate their learning/understanding the way that is most comfortable for them (as much as is possible).
      - Amy - I teach 2 sections of Grade 2. This means I see one class for 2 periods in the morning and then I see the other class for 2 periods + homeroom in the afternoon. My Chinese teaching partner has the opposite schedule to me.
        Last year I didn't interact much with my teaching partner for the first part of the year because of the language barrier - we ALWAYS needed translation. However, last February when everything went online our communication really improved because we used WeChat and could just translate each others' messages.
        
        Amy - this year my teaching partner has a goal of improving her English speaking skills so she uses me to practice with. We speak every day and are managing quite well to communicate. At times we need translation support if the matter is serious but we feel very proud of ourselves.
        We've had some pretty significant challenges this year within our 2 class but we've communicated well and have demonstrated to our students that we are a team that works together.
        I've realized that last year my students 'got away with' more because I wasn't communicating with their other teacher about behaviors, learning styles, abilities etc.
        This year because of communication amongst teachers I feel that students are being better supported and we're modelling collaboration and relationship cross-culturally.
        
        Amy - I think the next step is that Grace & I talk to our students together and speak together more in front of them to model this more directly.
        
        Suzanne - Amy I totally relate to this. Add being remote to the equation for me - it is impossible to maintain consistency for each class. I have started a Teams page for us to share but it is not kept up well!!
        
        Mitch: Hey Amy, I have noticed this too with Chinese students, they will test you until you reach out to head teachers or parents... After that they are usually angels. Different than Canadian students who usually smarten up with the threat of a phone call him.
        
        Amy - or even when you reach out to parents but the parents don't support the teacher! haha!
        
        I can be totally manipulated by the students as i know they are working full time whether they're here in Canada or in India; they are tired; shift work; so I tend to default to giving them a few chances until I can't anymore. I know some profs do not but i do not want to become jaded like they seem.
  - - - Amy - I think the difference in pay, recognition, benefits etc. does create animosity/division. How do staff who have no control over this help to overcome this barrier? Can we?
      - Suzanne: We have difficulties between part time , partial load and full-time faculty They often do not mix well. We also do not have socials or get-togethers so that doesn't help. With remote you are fully on your own.
      - Mitch: Oh for sure there is a lot of comparing that goes on.. at my school there is a bit envy because of much different salaries. The foreign teachers do have a much busier schedule however.
- - - - Amy - I found a research article "Promoting Students’ Intercultural Communicative Competence through English Literary
        Texts: Students’ Attitudes and Teachers’ Challenges" that I saved to our shared Google folder.
        This article might support our thinking around ideas for engaging students in better understanding different cultures and being able to develop cross-cultural relationships as a result of growing their intercultural competence.
      - Mitch: That is amazing to hear Amy, my Chinese students (Gr.10-12) are actually the opposite and I think they are actually afraid of foreign students and their non-Chinese methods of learning.
    - - Mitch: Great! I definitely think we can use it. I think we could factor in the 6 cultural dimensions part
- - - - Amy - I won't go further than this or even look into a research article to support because I want to see where we go in the discussion :o)
      - Mitch: I'll try to answer a couple of these:
        1.Is this top-down directed or come to collaboratively as a teaching community/staff?
        A: I think there needs to be some top down direction with regards to CI being effective. I don't think all teachers would be willing to participate if not directed to.
        
        Where does the time come from for staff to engage in these discussions and learning?
        A: This is also something I thought about and recognized it as a big problem. Staff are usually always too busy to spend time collaborating and finding time for each other. However if some time was spent in teacher education programs focussing on teacher collaboration and making it an everyday part of teaching, we may be able to make a change over time.
        
        Amy - I think school boards/schools/administration could also work at providing time for staff to collaborate together...that demonstrates value of both staff and collaboraiton.
        
        Yes definitely, it would be the only way teachers would agree!
- - - - Amy - it's so time consuming but any important conversations (staff to staff, teacher to student, teacher to parent) gets translated so there is less chance of misunderstanding. I think this values both cultures and shows a desire to communicate and understand/be understood.
- - - - I feel really strongly that this is an important piece missed in all situations.
        
        Amy - I think this is something we suggest as a solution - part of the foundation of supporting formal cross-cultural collaboration.