CHAPTER FOUR
B: To discover other perspectives on interpretation of familiar and unfamiliar phenomena both in one’s own and in the other culture’s and cultural practices
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Figure 12. Ben’s question lists
Also, the same student, after he got the answers in the short talk section; during the interview, he reflected on the incident:
19. I felt the teacher is a persistent teacher; he loved Taiwan and learned Taiwanese culture and tried hard to become a certified teacher in Taiwan. I want to be like him. (Benson, interview)
B: To discover other perspectives on interpretation of familiar and unfamiliar phenomena both in one’s own and in the other culture’s and cultural practices
Another persistent theme running through the data was that students also showed their curiosity and willingness to explore the target culture. Furthermore, Because of their inadequate knowledge, they discussed about the issues and exchanged the information; in the interview, students discussed that the lessons did correct their misconception toward the target culture. One interesting topic was about the
celebration of Christmas. Students used to have the idea that Christmas should be in winter because of Christmas falls in the month of December in the northern
hemisphere, which is winter; however, in Australia December is summer. The followings are some examples of students’ opinions:
20. “In my opinion, Christmas should be celebrated with snow but Australians celebrate Christmas with sunny days” (Jason, interview)
21. “Australian Santa Claus wears shorts and people do the barbecue and take sun
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bath on the beach. According to my previous experience, Christmas should be celebrated with snowman.” (Kyle, interview)
Another hot topic student expressed was about the Australian wildlife; they
discussed about kangaroos in the interview. More than one student indicated that they thought kangaroos are as cute as dolls. However, in the short talk section, the
Australian teacher showed them how sharp the feet of the kangaroo are. After the lesson, several students said that kangaroos are not as cute as the ones shown on the textbook and they even would fight with people.
Besides, students understood more about their own culture through cross-cultural comparison including identifying similarities, and differences when they tried to complete the worksheets of Double Bubble Map. Students did their research on Taiwanese local culture and Australian culture and they finally chose food, animals, and buildings as the topics. Take the food topic for example; blood rice cake was used to compare with the Lamington cake in Australia. They did the research on their selected topic and found the blood rice cakes in Taiwan had different flavors because of the locations. Students mentioned the topic in the interview, which is shown as follows:
22. After the project, I realized that blood rice cake can be eaten with barbecue sauce and peanut powder. I asked my parents, they told me the flavor of the recipe is from the north part of Taiwan. However, the rice dumplings have different flavors because of locations. (Chloe, interview)
23 This is my first-time eating blood rice cake with barbecue sauce and peanut
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powder. I saw the food stand in the night market, but I did not know they are selling different flavors of blood rice cake. (Kyle, interview)
Furthermore, they showed the strongest curiosity and interest in the foreign teacher’s point of view toward the same phenomenon. In the short talk section, the Australian teacher replied to the students’ question on his perception of the blood rice cake. He mentioned that it was his first try on the pig blood rice cake with barbecue sauce and peanut powder. Usually, he saw them as the ingredients for the hot pot or in the oden broth. He showed his appreciation on students work and they made both meals together in class. During the interview, more than one student said that they would like to bring more food to introduce to the foreign teacher.
Finally, most of the students did extra reading and research work towards the target culture. They shared their information in the interview section; one student shared he read a book called The Adventure in Australia and it’s a comic book with various topics about Australia. Another student who was in the baseball team checked the differences between the baseball and the Australian cricket. He mentioned in the interview that he would like to use the Double Bubble Thinking Map to compare the Taiwanese baseball and Australian cricket. Moreover, after this semester, all students showed strong willingness that they would like to step out of their comfort zone and learn more information about other countries.
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Skills of Interpreting and Relating
The third area in which the participating students showed their development of intercultural competence is the domain of skills of interpreting and relating. The skills in this domain, according to Byram (1997) refer to one’s ability to interpret a
document or event from the target culture and to relate it to that of one’s own culture.
Only one theme was found in the data that showed students’ development in this area, which is explicated below.
A: To identify the significant references to question within and across cultures and elicit their significance and connotations.
After discussion, many students learned to give the explanation and establish the relationship of similarities and differences between both cultures. In the short talk section, one student named Kyle asked the Australian teacher, “I felt surprised that Australians eat kangaroo meat. Will they eat their organs as well? In my impression, foreigners are not used to eating organs or blood.” Then, the Australian teacher tried to help the students to modify the misunderstanding by giving them examples. He told the students it depends on cultural customs. He mentioned the used of Foie Gras in French dishes and used another example like blood pudding in the Caribbean to show students that in foreign countries people eat organs and blood as well. One student showed her appreciation of the teacher for getting involved and learning to be more
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opened minded. The students gave her comments during the interview:
24. In the short talk discussion, the examples made me realized that some foreigners did eat organ and blood just like what we have. Jeff told us though in Taiwan, people used many different organs comparing to Australia; he is willing to try new flavors such as pork intestine soup, blood rice cake and so on. I thought he really got involved into Chinese dishes. (Iris, interview)
Another reference showed that one student tried to identify his own perception and interpret it creatively by putting two cultural dishes together.
25. The teacher showed us the Lamington cake which looks like blood rice cake.
He told us it was his favorite home dessert; however, I thought it was too sweet to eat. In the class, I tried to put blood rice cake with little chocolate and coconut powder. It is weird to do the combination. Jeff shared with us the special sauce Vegemite. Maybe it could go together better with blood rice cake. (Ben, interview) Another reference showed students’ ability to give the explanation by comparing the same phenomena in different backgrounds. One student mentioned in the interview:
26. Australian teacher showed us the special traffic sign, “Do not bump into kangaroo or koala on the street with your car,” which means these are common phenomena for locals. However, in Taiwan we only can see them in the zoo.
(Lydia, interview)
Another statement showed the similar comments between two countries. One student participant commented, “I was surprised that Jeff said he can see the parrots in his backyard. Instead, we need to go to the zoo.” (Bob, interview)
The Student’s Perceptions of the Cultural Project
This section answers the second research question about students’ perceptions of
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the cultural project. Based on the findings from the group interviews (the questions shown in Appendix H), almost all students held positive feedback towards the cultural project. Also, over half of the students mentioned that they would like to have the course for the next semester. In addition, participants still met some challenges and gave some suggestions for the teacher to revise the cultural course next time. Table 4 shows the students’ perceptions in five areas: positive feedback towards the project, their clarification of misunderstandings and dealing with the culture shock, their curiosity towards the world, the problems and challenges encountered, and their suggestions for the project. These results are presented in the sections below.
Table 4
An Overview of the Result on Students' Perceptions of the Cultural Project -Positive feedback toward the project
- Clarification of misunderstandings and dealing with the culture shock - Interests and curiosity toward the world
- Problems and challenges encountered during the project -Suggestions for the future cultural courses
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Positive Feedback towards the Project
Questions 1 to 5 of the group interviews were about the feedback for the cultural project. All students showed positive attitude and wanted to learn about other country through cultural project for the next semester. Many students expressed that it is a cool and interesting way to learn English. One essential theme that presented from the data is that the participants’ comment on the most impressive lesson: Making
Lamington cake with the Australian instructor. Over two thirds of the students indicated that this was their first time to learn about Australian dessert. One student said,” I did it and ate it on the spot so that I won’t forget the experiences” (Patty, Interview). Another student said, “I won’t forget the word Lamington in my life because I did it by myself “(Tim, Interview). Still others talked about the comparison between Taiwanese food blood rice cake and Lamington cake. Jason also said” I would like to dip my blood rice cake into the chocolate to taste how it tastes like.
Once I did it, some of my classmates did it, too. Surprisingly, Jeff did not go crazy and asked us to stop. He opened a space to let me try new things. Moreover, he highly recommended eating Vegemite instead of chocolate. I am looking forward to having more classes with him.” (Jason, interview)
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Clarification of Misunderstandings and Dealing with the Culture Shock
Another important theme came out from the data was that most students experienced culture shock during the fourth lesson of the project: Cross-cultural communication. They showed their culture shock for the facts of kangaroos. The results showed nearly all the students had an adorable impression about kangaroos.
Moreover, students felt shocked about the fact that kangaroos are eatable. The following quotes further illustrated how students mediated their culture shock by asking further questions and being willing to take actions during the interview:
27. In the short talk, I realized that kangaroos are not as cute as dolls. Kangaroos can be dangerous and kick people (Tim, interview).
28. It’s unbelievable that Australian eat kangaroos. In Australia, they have kangaroo hamburger, I want to ask the teacher how it tastes like. (Bob, Interview)
29. I am surprised that Australians can buy the kangaroos meat in the local supermarket. I want to go to Australia and try it. (William, Interview)
As for the misunderstandings about Kangaroos, they thought the color of kangaroos should be brown. For instance, one student said, “I learned kangaroos have different species, colors and names. This is my first time to see the picture of a white kangaroo.
I thought kangaroos should be always brown (Emily, interview).”
Interests and Curiosity towards the World
Applying the cultural project in the classroom not only raised students’ interests
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towards learning but also their curiosity towards the world. Students pointed out that they searched and noticed the news about Australia after the lessons. Nearly all of the students indicated that they wanted to explore other countries. One group in the interview had the consensus that they wanted to explore the world together. Even more, they discussed what countries they wanted to know for the future. The following excerpts show these students’ opinions.
30. I would like to know more about Vietnam because my mom is from there. I can invite my mommy to our kitchen class to teach how to do the spring roll. (Shawn, interview)
31. I would like to learn more about Egypt because after the teacher introduced the leveled booked about Australia and introduced us some resources about Australia in the library, I borrowed a comic book about Australia treasure hunt and the secret of Egypt. (Iris, interview)
Problems and Challenges Encountered during the Project
As for the questions 6 and 7 of the interview, the data revealed two major challenges. The first problem that students encountered was that they lacked English ability to complete the worksheets such as the one about My County Study. Another reason that most students pointed that it was one of the most challenging activities because the worksheet contained too much factual knowledge. The following quotes describe their difficulties:
32. It was very difficult for me; my English is too limited to finish the worksheet (Jay, Interview).
33. We need to write so many words and I can’t remember all of them (Ben,
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Interview).
It seems that students’ language problems occurred during the cross-cultural communication as well. Although students felt excited to have the short talk with the Australian teacher, some indicated that they could not understand what the teacher was talking about.
Another problem arose when that students tried to make a video and did the recording as the oral practice for the short talk section. Several participants’
frustration was related to the lack of communication skills. Many of them said that they really wanted to talk to their Australian teacher, and it took time to practice what they wanted to say in the short talk section. The following quotes were illustrative:
34. In the short talk section, it is difficult for me to communicate with the teacher without my question script; I practiced several times to get the work done. (Emily, interview)
35. Although I wrote the narration by myself, I found it difficult to say it out loud in front of everybody and the Australian teacher. It needed time and practice. (Jenny, Interview)
Suggestions for the Future Cultural Courses
Based on the students’ responses to Question 8, the participants had three suggestions for the future courses. First, most students suggested adding some hands-on learning activities instead of informative learning worksheets. The students’
opinions were shown as follows:
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36. Doing the pig blood rice cake and Lamington cake was my favorite class. I wish we would have more similar classes like this since our school have kitchen classroom.
Secondly, the students enjoying in communicating with Australian teacher and they hope to have more chances to have the Australian teacher’s classes.
37. Comparing with writing the worksheets and doing double-bubble map, I liked the short talk section. Although my English is not good enough, I liked Jeff’s Australian story and we talked about food and animals. (Lydia, interview)
Third, it was student’s first time to do the double-bubble thinking map in English.
Usually, they used bubble map in their Chinese class. The Australian teacher in the extra classes demonstrated a different thinking map. They wish they could use different kind of maps to demonstrate different topics.