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write comments, the students realized that it was acceptable to observe and imitate others’ communicative strategies. They started to take other students’ comments as references. For example, Teresa said sometimes she would take Daphne’s comments as reference because she thought Daphne’s questions in her comments were very inspiring. “I think Daphne’s questions are very good because I never thought of these questions before,” Teresa said (Interview#2, October 30, 2008). She told the
researcher that she felt less stressful to write comments because she got some inspiration from other local students’ comments. Through observing other students’
blog posts and comments, the students learnt the techniques of interacting with other people.
Presumptions, challenge and new finding
From Phase 2 to Phase 5, as the students became more and more familiar with designing multimedia materials for introducing their own school life, the process of their presumptions being challenged also helped the students develop a deeper understanding of the other culture and their own culture. Before the project, the students already developed certain presumptions about their international partners’
school life and these presumptions appeared as they designed multimedia cultural materials for their partners. For example, they all believed that what their international partners learnt from their textbooks were very different from theirs.
(1) I thought they did not need to do much homework and my teacher told me that their math is much easier than ours.
(Reflection journal #1 by Ryan, October 30, 2008) (2) I knew from books that they can go home [from school] very early [every
day].
(Reflection journal #1 by Teresa, October 30, 2008) It showed that the source which the students acquired cultural information from were their teachers, parents or books. At Phase 2, in order to introduce their school life and learning courses to the international partners, some of the students made PPT
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slideshows introducing their class schedules and the content of their textbooks in order to present the situation in which students in Taiwan had to work very hard because of the tight schedule and having many courses to study.
I think it was interesting to make a slideshow about our class schedule because they [the international partners] could know how busy we are!
(Interview#2 with Ryan, October 30, 2008) And some students made the videos of their Mandarin class and PE class. The reason why they chose these two classes was that they thought that their international partners did not have the chance to take a Mandarin class, and that PE class was the students’ favorite class, which they hoped to share with their partners (Teacher’s log, October 1, 2008). One of them said, “I like PE class. I hope they [the international partners] can know we have PE class, too” (Reflection journal #1 by Larry, October 30, 2008). In other words, there are two main purposes for the students to design multimedia resources: One is to show “the differences,” and the other is to share their own interests. They thought the cultural differences and similarities would raise their partners’ curiosity and motivation for follow-up discussions.
Although the students’ slideshows and videos about Mandarin and PE classes, as had expected, got their partners’ attention, their assumptions as to what their partners learnt in school was challenged. Contradicting the students’ presumption, their American partners said that they had a lot of homework and tests and that their teachers taught many mnemonic aids to help them learn math. Some of the American partners said that they learnt Chinese in school and detailed what they did in the Chinese class. The international partners’ responses made the students surprised. They found their partners were not so “different” as they had believed. Brian stated, in his reflection, “Through this blog, I know the similarities of learning in school between our partners and us. I thought their math should be easier, but now I think their math ability may be good,” (Reflection journal #1 by Brian, October 30, 2008).
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Besides, the students also had new findings and interpretations about the
international partners’ school life. They found that what the American partners learnt in school was not only knowledge but also the skills and abilities developed through various projects, as revealed in the excerpt below:
(1) When they do projects, they need to develop self-expression abilities.
(Reflection journal #1 by Ben, October 30, 2008) (2) Because they have to do projects, they must learn how to solve problems.
(Reflection journal #1 by Teresa, October 30, 2008) (3) They learn not only how to do projects but also how to work with other
classmates and apply what they’ve learnt to the real life situation.
(Reflection journal #1 by Daphne, October 30, 2008) The cycle of presumptions, challenge and new finding happened perpetually in the following phases as well. At Phase 3, the students discussed school lunch with their international partners. Based on their assumption, the students believed that their partners must love their lunch because pizza and hamburgers must be on the table every day. The students decided to show their partners a video about how terrible their own lunch was. However, again, their partners’ comments about their school lunch were not what they had presumed. Some of the international partners mentioned that they did not like their lunch at all because their pizza was too greasy. This comment surprised the Taiwanese students a lot as some of them said they could not believe that the lunch could be so bad. “It’s impossible! Their slideshow (introducing the school lunch) looks so delicious!” Larry said (Teacher’s log, November 21, 2008). In addition, most of the students mentioned their new finding in the reflection journal that they and American partners do many similar things during lunch time.
It is interesting to know that just like our own class, American partners had to line up before they take their food and behave well. I thought they could do anything they want (Reflection journal #2, November 28, 2008).
Another similar even happened at Phase 4 when the students presented the slideshows about their graduation trip and sports day activities since they believed
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their partners did not have these activities at school. Again, as they presented the differences to their international partners, the Taiwanese students found that although their partners did not have graduation trips, they actually played similar games and activities during recess.
They are just like us. They all played sports and sometimes like to hang around.
Their “Walking Wednesday”, was similar to our walking around the playground after the morning rally on Thursdays.
(Interview#4 with Daphne, December 23, 2008) Finally at the last phase: introducing the school rules, the students found more similarities between them and their partners. They found their American and Italian partners also have such school rules as “Don’t run in the hallway,” “No passing notes,” “No talking in class,” and others.
Their school rules are the same as ours. We can’t run on the runway. We can’t talk. We can’t talk when the teachers are talking. We all have to learn the importance of safety and show respect to others.
(Reflection journal #4 by Larry, January 19, 2009) Additionally, the students also found that the cultural differences existed in not only different countries but also their own school. When their American partners said one of their school rules was “No spitting,” Ryan and Brian found it hard to imagine someone would “spit,” because nobody in their classes did so.
(1)Who wants to spit? I mean, spitting is disgusting!! Do you think that rule is weird? (Blog comment by Ryan on “A day at my school”, January 13, 2009) (2)Why would you need to spit? I don’t think anyone would spit in our school
without this rule.
(Blog comment by Brian on “A day at my school”, January 13, 2009) Ryan and Brian’s comments immediately got other students’ attention and joined the discussion about “Spitting” on the blog. Daphne and Larry said in their class some naughty boys did some crazy things like spitting just for fun.
(3)But there are some naughty boys in our class will break the rules.
(Blog comment by Daphne on “A day at my school”, January 13, 2009)
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(4) Some people in our class spit! Because they think that is fun. (Only me and Ben think so.)
(Blog comment by Larry on “A day at my school”, January 14, 2009) This conversation made the students aware of the diversity of “Class cultures” in their own school. Daphne said:
I find we have many cultures. Our school culture is quite different from our international partners’ but actually we also have different class cultures in our own school (Interview #5 with Daphne, January, 19, 2009).
While discussing the school rules with other local students, they got the chance to reflect on their school culture. Some of them noticed cultural differences were no longer limited to country boundary but existed in their daily life. That meant they got new findings not only about their partners’ but their own school life. According to Damen (1987), this is fundamental for developing intercultural understanding.
To sum up, the process of communicating with the international partners motivated the students to ponder on their presumptions not only about the
international partners’ cultures but also their own cultures. In their reflection journals, most of them mentioned that after interacting with their partners, they noticed there were so many similarities between them and their international partners, which were what they had never thought about. Brian said, “I never thought we had so many things in common” (Reflection journal#4 by Brian, January 19, 2009). It is evident that the students started to reflect on the similarities and differences between and within cultures, which is what Byram (2007) advocated as an important component for the development of intercultural understanding.