Intercultural Sensitivity and Cultural Othering in English Language Pre-Service Teachers

Sthephanny Moncada Linares
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Developing intercultural communicative competence has become an inevitable need within 21st-century demands, mobilizing global efforts to promote unity through diversity. However, within the Colombian context and supported by an economic interest in bilingualism, most English language teaching programs still advocate educational practices that reaffirm cultural homogenization and legitimation. This presupposes a challenge for pre-service language teachers, who may not be interculturally prepared to overcome their ethnocentrism, and yet have to face a language classroom. The study explored the intercultural sensitivity level of a group of 50 pre-service English language teachers from a Colombian private university, its influencing factors, and explained its relationship with the representation of the Other. A two-stage explanatory sequential mixed-method design was employed, involving, in the first stage, quantitative data from a self-awareness intercultural sensitivity questionnaire and in the second stage, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and two in-class observations. Findings indicated that the participants demonstrated ethnocentric intercultural sensitivity arising from a traditionalist culture teaching approach, misleading artificial means to culture learning, and limited overseas cultural experience, which led them to perpetuate Cultural Othering, a social representation materialized through mechanisms of overgeneralization, cultural pride, and cultural underestimation. The conclusions and implications are further discussed.
英语职前教师的跨文化敏感性和文化他者化
发展跨文化交际能力已成为21世纪需求的必然要求,动员全球努力促进多样性中的统一。然而,在哥伦比亚的背景下,在双语经济利益的支持下,大多数英语教学项目仍然提倡重申文化同质化和合法化的教育实践。这对职前语言教师来说是一个挑战,他们可能没有跨文化准备好克服他们的种族中心主义,但却不得不面对语言课堂。本研究探讨了哥伦比亚一所私立大学50名职前英语教师的跨文化敏感性水平及其影响因素,并解释了其与他者表征的关系。采用两阶段解释顺序混合方法设计,第一阶段采用来自自我意识跨文化敏感性问卷的定量数据,第二阶段采用来自半结构化访谈和两次课堂观察的定性数据。研究结果表明,由于传统的文化教学方式、人为的文化学习方式和有限的海外文化经验,导致参与者表现出种族中心主义的跨文化敏感性,从而使文化他者(一种通过过度概括、文化骄傲和文化低估机制实现的社会表征)得以延续。进一步讨论了结论和意义。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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