Transcript Caught in the Tower of Babel

Caught in the Tower of Babel
University lecturers’ experience
with internationalisation
By Hanne Tange
Dept. of Language & Business Communication
Aarhus School of Business/University of Aarhus
Mail: [email protected]
Contents
• Background to the issue
- current debates over internationalisation
• The current investigation
- why focus on university lecturers?
• Theme 1: the language issue
• Theme 2: cultural diversity
• Some preliminary conclusions
Background to the issue 1
- the international debate
• What is international education about?
- intercultural learning vs. ”knowledge in
the marketplace”?
• What does international education mean
for the actors affected by the process (e.g.
students, lecturers)?
• What kind of learning and teaching
practices does international education
request?
Background to the issue 2
- the Danish debate
• How does the expansion of international
programs affect Danish universities?
• What is the present and future status of
Danish as a medium for teaching and
research?
• What happens when non-professional
language users are asked to communicate
expert knowledge in English?
The present inquiry
• Motivated by personal experiences from
working with lecturing and administrative
staff within a college of engineering.
• The investigation asks for lecturers’
experiences, aiming to develop a model
for experiential learning.
• Currently at the mid-way point of my
research, I have performed a total of
twenty interviews at three institutions.
Why lecturers?
• Because university lecturers are at the interface
between institutional demands and student
expectations.
• Because only little research has focused on the
lecturers, which is unfortunate given their role in
the socialisation of foreign students.
• Because there appears to be a knowledge gap
between very experienced lecturers and those
who are new to international education.
The international classroom
- from a lecturer’s perspective
Theme 1: language
• Linguistic imbalance: lecturers may possess a
sophisticated terminology in relation to their
subject area, but only a limited repertoire for
casual exchanges or small-talk; as a result,
certain types of messages go missing in the
international classroom.
• Improvisation & variation: the fact that teachers
and learners work in a second language limits
the scope of their communication; even
proficient lecturers may have to cut out
messages because they require a linguistic
register that the students lack.
Example 1:
linguistic imbalance
This is what makes it so absurd – that you are
able to discuss inflation and unemployment and
issues like that, using the correct terms for this,
and yet you are unable to tell someone you
meet at a conference about your skiing holiday
because you have no clue as to what a ski
binding may be called in English. So you
develop a very uneven vocabulary.
(lecturer, business studies)
Example 2:
variation & repertoire
Normally, when I teach in Danish, I will maintain
eye contact with the students in order to check
whether they understand what I am saying. And
if I estimate that too many of them look tired, I
will try to explain it in a different way. And as I
told you in the beginning, this is where I find I am
contained in some way because this will require
my moving outside the terminology we have
established, the words I used to describe the
phenomenon in the first place. So it would end
up as black talk, leaving them none the wiser.
(lecturer, life sciences)
Implications of the language change
• Lecturer’s self-image:
from good teachers to
bad communicators
• Student feedback &
benchmarking: what
are the consequences
of ”bad” English?
Theme 2: cultural diversity
• Diversity as a problem: in the international
classroom lecturers are confronted with strange
behaviours, different academic backgrounds and
new learning traditions. Many are overwhelmed
by such diversity.
• Diversity as a resource: know your students and
make sure that they contribute their particular
cultural insight and experiences; then the
international classroom may be transformed into
a platform for intercultural learning!
Example 1:
stepping back to earlier times
I guess I found it was like going back to the days
when the lecturer would run the classes. Not a
lot of discussion and not a lot of asking: what do
we do next, improvising our way through [a
lesson]. In addition, their backgrounds are so
different, which also means that it becomes
more difficult to involve the students, which I find
very hard. I guess this was a bit like reversing a
development that we had been pushing forward
for years. (lecturer, life sciences)
Example 2:
- applying a global outlook
We have certain types of courses which aim to provide
[students] with some very particular skills . . . . It can be
difficult for us to get them to work in an English-speaking
context, where you will have to take into account the
foreign students, for all of a sudden you need to move
one level up and talk about principles instead, referring
perhaps to some Danish cases. But you can no longer
go on and on about the most important kinds of animal
stocks in Denmark . . . . for you will have students there
from Nepal, who speak only English, and who really
don’t need this kind of information. (lecturer, life
sciences)
Implications of student diversity
•
•
New frames of reference:
examples and jokes that
include the international
students.
New teaching practices:
lecturers play an active
role in the socialisation of
international students into
the Danish university.
Preliminary conclusions
• A general consensus that the change into
English has affected the quality and dynamics of
classroom communications negatively.
• Some disgreement with regard to cultural
diversity; whether this represents an opportunity
or an obstacle in the international classroom.
• A call for expert knowledge and institutional
support; so far, lecturers have been left to
develop new teaching practices on their own.
Thank you!
– any questions or comments?