Foreign culture

Statement 14: I would like to know more foreigners.

Following the two categories of attitude towards English and feelings about FTAs’ class, the statements about students’ perception of foreign culture were also discussed. An average low score of 2 was given for this item in the first and the second questionnaire, which indicating that, towards the end of the year, fewer learners indicated interests in knowing English speaking people. The students’ low interests in knowing foreigners in the quantitative data could also be explained by the qualitative data which suggested that the learners were forming a negative perception of the foreigners at the end of the year. The following is an evidence of a student's detrimental impression of an FTA which was caused by the student's perception of the FTA's strict personality and the potential punishment they might receive.

“外師可以讓我們自己分組，問問題不要問太多，不要專找英文不好的 人一直問問題，因為他們旁邊沒有翻譯機，還有我覺得他不要太兇。

有時候我們上課時會小小開個小玩笑嘛，像是(跟同學)說：「你講錯了

~」，醬而已，外師就會”嘖” (顯露不能接受的表情) “Alex~”(假名)，然

後就將(同學的)名字寫下來(在白板上)，我覺得這樣有點抓太嚴了。導 師說我們要給外師很好的印象，上課不要吵鬧，不要在那邊 543，不 要被扣分，如果外師扣分就很嚴重囉，如果外師扣分的話，我們副班 長、風紀、班長會記，然後班導知道之後一個一個懲罰。”

(“The FTA can let us make groups by ourselves and not ask too many questions, particularly for low-achievers who are without reliable help of (LETs or peers). Also, I hope that the FTA is not so hard to deal with. My classmates occasionally play jokes on other peers when they say something wrong in English. During these moments, the FTA would have an

unaccepted facial expression and write down the naughty student’s name on the whiteboard. In addition, my mentor tells us that we need to impress the FTA with our good manners. We are not allowed to be boisterous in the class and have any points deducted by the FTAs; otherwise, we would be punished by the mentor.)(Elsa, June, 22, 2016)

In the beginning, according to the common understanding, EFL learners are usually interested in native speakers during initial encounter and want to further know them. Studies (e.g. Chun, 2014; Karakaş et al, 2016) have found that EFL learners tend to hold a positive stereotype toward NESTs’ personality traits, such as open-minded, enthusiastic, and fun. As time went by, however, the students’ perceptions continue to be reinforced by interactions with FTAs. They were likely to develop a negative stereotype of FTAs after largely perceiving their actual personal

characteristics within a year. This changed perception of FTAs was the possible reason why the students did not want to know more about foreigners after a school year, while the presence of decreased liking for foreigners was not because students truly understood FTAs but because they did not know FTAs well enough and interpreted FTAs’ actions by themselves.

On the other hand, one of the interviewees said that sometimes he felt under the pressure when the FTA suddenly asked too many questions.

“我平常遇到外師時會和他打招呼，多半外師都會做一件事情…(先說)

“Hi~ Edward ~”，然後他就會一直用英文(問我問題)，我還沒回答喔，外 師一下子丟給我十幾個問題之後，(我心裡就會想)他剛剛問了什麼？很 好…我忘記了…我要轉身離開時，外師會喊我的名字 “Edward~”，這時 候我會希望有其他同學可以過來救我。”

(“I usually greet the FTA outside the classroom, and the FTA greets me back with a friendly “Hello! Edward~” and then, all of a sudden, asks me lots of questions in English. But I don’t have the time to answer all of them and my mind just go blank. I totally forgot what the FTA asked. At that moment, I just wanted to run away when the FTA called on my name, “Edward~.” I hoped my friends could come to help me.”)(Edward, June, 22, 2016)

When FTAs ask too many questions all of the sudden, students might not easily respond to it. Also, students’ current language abilities and introvert personalities might result in not being able to deal with the situation of being asked too many questions by FTAs. In addition, during the classroom observations, FTAs usually asked students lots of questions in order for students to communicate in English.

Maybe from the FTAs’ point of view, they were trying to get the students engaged in the lesson instead of just lecturing them like in the LETs’ classes. But, perhaps students were not used to that kind of teaching style because their normal LETs’

classes were mostly lecture-oriented and more controlled. They just had to passively learn and did not have to speak so much. When overly treated with questions, students might get exhausted and not get used to it. Compared native and non-native speaking teachers’ different teaching behaviors in teaching their students to communicate in English, the observations from Á rva & Medgyes (2000) showed that NESTs tend to keep pushing their students to speak and non-NESTs are prone to using step-by-step

approach to interact with the students. As a result, cultural differences in teaching styles could be another possible reason for students’ less interests in knowing foreigners at the end of the school year.

Statement 15: I feel I understand American culture.

Following students’ perception of foreigners, their attitude towards American culture was examined. Statement 15 showed an average low score of 2 in the first and the second questionnaire which implied that students did not seem to understand foreign culture concepts at the end of the year. One possible reason why students did not have a better understanding of American culture after a school year could be related to the unfamiliar cultural learning experiences that they have learned. During classroom observations, aside from familiar with typical and well-known holiday activities such as Thanksgiving (e.g., the history of Thanksgiving, writing a thank you card, cook mashed potato, design a poster for their mashed potato) and Christmas (e.g., Christmas story, Santa Claus origami, Christmas song competition), students were exposed to unique cultural practices such as St. Patrick’s Day which the local English textbooks do not seem to cover. The students also had the opportunity to learn more about the state of Kentucky because it was an FTA’s hometown. However, when FTAs introduced more unfamiliar and actual America cultural information, it probably became less accessible and comprehensible to Taiwanese students.

An example of the students’ less responsiveness to an FTA was when the FTA introduced St. Patrick’s Day. Since there are more Irish living in the USA than in Ireland, now it is a common celebration of Irish culture in the USA. The FTA

incorporated this holiday with the sentence patterns “I have/has…/ I like/likes…” as a thematic lesson. The FTA firstly shared the cultural information. However, at that time, some students frowned and had confused facial expressions, which could be speculated that they did not understand the information. Compared with the American

culture, the Irish culture in the United State is seldom introduced in Taiwan. The students are probably not familiar with Irish-Americans and wonder why people on St. Patrick’s Day wear green and celebrate many saints. Also, the origin of the holiday is likely to be unclear and difficult for the students to figure out in a short time.

Moreover, if the holiday is irrelevant to the students’ life experience, they might experience overloaded information. Therefore, due to much more intricate aspects of cultural learning instead of usual and familiar holiday celebrations, the students need to take times to understand all the new information and might result in their feeling of less comprehensible to the American culture at the end of the year.

Statement 16: I would like to learn more about a foreign culture.

After discussing the students’ attitude towards foreigners and American culture, students’ desire to learn foreign cultures was analyzed. An average high score of 3 was given on this item in the first questionnaire, but in the second questionnaire, an average lower score of 2 was obtained. The declined scores as seen in the second questionnaire suggested that the students developed less interest to learn a foreign culture. The result of the change in perception perhaps reflect that students were experiencing multidimensional culture learning. As Paige et al (2003) defined culture learning as follows:

“Culture learning is the process of acquiring the culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures. It is a dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which engages the learner cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively (p.7).”

They proposed that culture learning not only included the knowledge about surface-level culture (e.g., food, clothing) as well as deep-surface-level culture (e.g., values, beliefs) but also aroused multifaceted impacts on learners all at the same time.

The complexity of culture learning process could be interpreted as the

participants’ changed perceptions phenomenon. At the beginning of the school year, the students were in the initial stage of excitement about any new cultural information that the FTAs brought to them and had a positive motivation toward culture learning.

With the learning continues, the students gradually noticed difficult or abstract cultural concepts that they had unknown. In that case, they might experience overburdened cognitive information and result in mental exhaustion so that they perceived a declined motivation toward foreign culture learning by the end of the school year.

In general, comparing the initial and the end-of-school-year motivation, the students presented less interests in knowing about foreigners and foreign culture. But, they reported they enjoyed FTAs’ class and experienced the practical opportunity to interact with FTAs in English. This distinct phenomenon showed that the students seemed to be somewhat do not know the foreigners well enough, not get accustomed to cultural differences in teaching styles, and encounter multifaceted culture learning so that they had decreased liking for foreigners and foreign culture. Perhaps an ongoing investigation can be done to explore whether students are more acquainted with foreigners and more accessible to the in-depth cultural information.