The implementation phases of the current research lasted for 15 periods, from mid-May to mid-June of 2018, including four topics. In period one, the participants filled out the pre-questionnaires for the teacher-researcher to understand the starting point of their intercultural awareness. Some open-ended questions were also given to the participants and they were encouraged to share their past experiences on culture learning. From period two to period thirteen, the intervention was carried out, and the participants were engaged in the culture learning program designed by the teacher-researcher. Each topic lasted for three periods. The participants were required to keep learning journals as each topic ended. The qualitative data could be used for the teacher-researcher to better understand the participants’ inner thoughts of the lessons.
For the last two periods, the post-questionnaires as well as the semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect more detailed data from the participants. Figure 1 shows the time schedule of the study.
Figure 1
The Time Schedule of the Procedure of the Study
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Pre-test
The purpose of the pre-test was to examine the participants’ knowledge of the culture content. Some multiple choices were designed by the teacher-researcher as the pre-test questions. Before the intervention of each topic, the participants were asked to answer the pre-test questions. There were four sets of pre-test questions in total. In addition to the pre-test questions, the teacher-researchers also asked the students to fill in the pre-questionnaires in order to understand the participants’ intercultural
awareness in the first period.
Intervention
There were four topics in the culture learning program, and each of the topics lasted for three periods. Therefore, the intervention lasted for 12 periods in total. The teacher-researcher designed the learning program based on the participants’ textbooks as well as their interests. And the design of the lessons followed the techniques and recommended activities by Dai (2011). For each topic of the culture learning program, the teacher-researcher incorporated the techniques and activities into the lessons to guide the participants. In each lesson, the participants formed groups and cooperated with each other to perform the tasks assigned by the teacher-researcher. The details of the four topics of the culture learning program are described below. Table 1 showed the introduction of each of the topics in the culture learning program.
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Table 1
The Introduction of the Topics of the Culture Learning Program
Schedule Topic Aim Procedure
Period 2-4 Life and Death (Festival)
The students are able to understand the meaning of
The students are able to know some New Year customs of other cultures.
Period 8-10 The Human Library (Life Experience)
The students are able to learn about the two target countries. Also, they interact properly with people from other cultures.
Period 11-13 Hello School (School Life)
The students learn about the school lives between Taiwan and USA.
In the first topic, the teacher-researcher started from the reading material about Halloween, which learners felt quite familiar with. The participants were required to read the article first. After that, they were guided to think about two similar festivals in Taiwan and to compare these festivals. Then the teacher-researcher introduced another festival, Day of the Dead. The teacher-researcher played the movie clips of the animation, Coco, and then guided learners to know more about the Mexican festival. As the participants gained some background knowledge about this festival, they were required to compare it with the former ones. Some open-ended questions were provided for the participants to brainstorm on a group basis.
In the second topic, the focus was on what people around the world do to keep away back luck and to have good luck during the New Year. The teacher started from the participants’ own culture (Chinese New Year) and then related to what people from other cultural backgrounds do to have good luck in the following year. The
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participants needed to discuss and to think about the similarities and differences between these customs. Moreover, the learners moved beyond the surface of the festivals and tried to discover in-depth norms underlying these different cultures.
Before class, the teacher-researcher assigned two countries/regions to each group and the participants were asked to search for the New Year customs of the target
countries/regions on the Internet. In class, the participants did presentations and introduced these customs to the peers from other groups with supplementary video clips or pictures for better understandings. The participants were required to took notes when listening to their peers present. The teacher also led the learners to discuss and to compare these customs.
In the third topic, two foreign exchange students were invited to class to share their life experiences with the participants. The participants were guided by the teacher-researcher to do some simple research on the target countries before the speakers came to the class. After the participants finished searching for some information of the target countries, they were asked to do a brief presentation on a group basis. Furthermore, the teacher-researcher guided the participants to think of some questions for the two speakers with their group members. The two speakers introduced their countries and shared their life or school experiences in class. The speakers also introduced some of the key customs or traditions in their countries to the participants, and then the participants posed some questions at the end of the lesson.
As for the last topic, the students had the opportunity to compare their school life with that of American high school students. Video clips of an American movie were utilized as a way for the students to have a clearer picture about school lives in other countries. Furthermore, the teacher-researcher provided some discuss questions in the worksheets to help the learners better understand the target cultures and cultivate their intercultural awareness through these lessons. The participants were required to keep
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a learning journal at the end of each topic, and the teacher-researcher would collect the qualitative data to examine the participants’ inner thoughts, special ideas, or advice for each topic.
Post-test
After the intervention of each topic, the students were given post-test questions.
Four sets of post-test questions were included in total. As the whole culture learning program came to an end, the participants were asked to fill out the questionnaires again as the post-test. In addition to answering the questions, the students also wrote down what they liked and what they disliked in the learning program. Those who showed particular interests or feedback on the questionnaires or in the learning journals would become candidates of individual semi-structured interviews. A total of four further questions were raised for the students to express their viewpoints of the learning program in the present study.