1. Dr Helen Kaufmann, Oriel College (University of Oxford)
Intercultural Communication in Higher Education through Reflective Dialogue
Dr Helen Kaufmann, Oriel College (University of Oxford)

2. Intercultural Communication in Higher Education
Lecturer/Supervisor
from culture A
Student
from culture A
Student
from culture B
The Basic Model

3. Intercultural Communication in Higher Education
Lecturer/Supervisor
from culture C,
representing HE-culture A
Student
from culture A
Student
from culture B
The Advanced Model

4. Intercultural Communication in Higher Education
Lecturer/Supervisor
from culture C, grew up in culture D
representing HE Culture A
Student
from culture A,
dad from culture E
and mum from culture F
Student
from culture B, attended
school in culture G
The Real Model

5. Introductory activity
Aim: establish a real context for intercultural communication
Get together in pairs.
Present an intercultural communication challenge that you have experienced to your partner.
Take turns.
Note each challenge briefly on a post-it note.

6. Literature review I: From recipes to concepts
‚Recipes‘: e.g. Arkoudis (2007), McLean & Ransom (2005), Cortazzi & Jin (1997), Ryan (2000)
‚Concepts‘: e.g. ‚becoming more explicit‘ (Caroll, 2005), ‚meta-cultural sensitivity (Louie, 2005)

7. Literature review II: questioning the concepts
Most of the concepts used to discuss intercultural communication in HE have been criticised, e.g. ‚Confucian education/Western education‘ (Ryan & Louie, 2007), ‚culture‘ (Grimshaw, 2007; Piller, 2007), ‚intercultural communication‘ (Holliday et al., 2004; Holliday, 1999; Piller, 2007)
This criticism provides much insight, but goes against widely held perceptions. Are they all wrong?

8. Literature review: conclusions
Concepts, not recipes
Question the concepts, but continue the discussion with them.
Why should we prefer concepts to recipes and why should we question them?
Learning as an uncertain process (cf. e.g. Ramsden, 2003)
Postcolonialism vs. (neo)colonialism (cf. e.g. Fox, 1996)

9. Reflective dialogue (Isaacs, Scharmer)
Based on Bohm (1996).
Dialogue as a process in which participants move from representing their own interests to developing solutions for all through reflection of self and other.
Not designed for intercultural communication nor communication in Higher Education
Adaptability?

10. The four fields of con-versation (Isaacs, Scharmer)
Enacting emerging futures
4- Generative dialogue
Solutions are generated
Collective wisdom
Listening from one‘s future self
3- Reflective dialogue
Inquiry into assumptions
Reflection of self and other
Empathic listening
Dialogue
Rules are reflected
1- Politeness
Talking nice
Listening=projecting
Downloading
Rules are reenacted
2- Break-through
Power is contested
Talking tough (debate, clash)
Listening=reloading
Anger, frustration
Whole
Parts
Reenacting patterns of the past

11. ‚New capacities for behaviour‘ (Isaacs, 1996: 419)
Voicing
Speaking the truth of one‘s authority,
what one really is and thinking
Suspending
Suspension of assumptions,
judgement and certainty
Listening
Without resistance
or imposition
Respecting
Awareness of the integrity of another‘s position
and the impossibility of fully understanding it

12. Adaptability to inter-cultural communication in HE
May not work in large classes due to lack of time
Can work when working with individual students
Crucial transition from field 2 to 3
Western model, based on direct communication styles. Should/can /may we enforce direct communication when talking to people who seem to be used to indirect communication styles?

13. Direct communication for everyone?
Communication style preferences do not only depend on origin/culture, also on personality, speed of adaptation to other styles, etc.
Alternatives:
discussion of/activities around communication styles
written conversation
Mindfulness, knowledge, interaction skills (Ting-Toomey, 2004 and 2005)

14. An attempt at reflective dialogue (role-play)
Aim: apply reflective dialogue to an intercultural communication challenge
Find a partner for this role-play
Decide who will be the lecturer and who the student.
Take either one pair of role-cards (e.g. Lecturer A and Student A) or choose a real situation from the post-it collection.
There will be 3x5 minutes to practice fields 1-3 of the dialogue model. Your role-cards will give you instructions for 1 and 2 only, field 3 is up to you.

15. Between the 5 minutes slots for lecturer-student dialogue there will be 2x 5 minutes for lecturer-lecturer and student-student dialogue, to reflect how you are behaving compared to the model.
Alternative activities: look through intercultural communication activities (Stringer & Cassidy, 2009), engage in written conversation, exchange solutions to intercultural communication challenges.

16. Bibliography
S. Arkoudis, Teaching International Students: Strategies to Enhance Learning (Melbourne, 2006), URL: (accessed 15/06/11).
D. Bohm, On Dialogue (London and New York, 1996).
J. Caroll, ‘Strategies for becoming more explicit’, in J. Carroll and J. Ryan (eds.) (2005), Teaching International Students: Improving Learning for all (London and New York)
M. Cortazzi & L. Jin, ‘Communication for learning across cultures’, in D. McNamara & R. Harris (eds.) (1997). Overseas Students in Higher Education (London and New York)
Ch. Fox, ‘Listening to the other: Mapping intercultural communication in postcolonial educational consultancies’, in R. Paulston (ed.), Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social and Educational Change (London, 1996)
T. Grimshaw, ‘Problematizing the construct of ‘the Chinese learner’: insights from ethnographic research’, Educational Studies 33 (2007)
O. Gunnlaugson, ‘Generative dialogue as a transformative learning practice in adult and higher education settings’, Journal of Adult and Continuing Education 12 (2006) 2-19.
A. Holliday, ‘Small cultures’, Applied Linguistics 20 (1999)
A. Holliday, M. Hyde & J. Kullmann, Intercultural Communication: Advanced Resource Book (London, 2004).

17. W. N. Isaacs, Dialogue and the art of thinking together (New York, 1999).
K. Louie, ‘Gathering cultural knowledge: Useful or use with care?’ in J. Carroll & J. Ryan (eds.), Teaching International Students: Improving Learning for all (London and New York, 2005)
P. McLean & L. Ransom, ‘Building intercultural competencies: Implications for academic skills development’, in J. Carroll & J. Ryan (eds.), Teaching International Students: Improving Learning for all (London and New York, 2005))
I. Piller, ‘Linguistics and intercultural communication’, Language and Linguistics Compass 1(2007)
P. Ramsden, Learning to Teach in Higher Education (London, 2003; 2nd ed.).
J. Ryan, A Guide to Teaching International Students (Oxford, 2000).
J. Ryan & K. Louie, ‘False dichotomy? ‘Western’ and ‘Confucian’ concepts of scholarship and learning’, Educational Philosophy and Theory 39 (2007)
C. O. Scharmer, Presencing: Learning from the future as it emerges (The Conference On Knowledge and Innovation; Helsinki School of Economics, Finland, and the MIT Sloan School of Management, 2000).
C. O. Scharmer, Four fields of Generative Dialogue (Generative Dialogue Course Pack) (MIT, Cambridge, 2003).
D. M. Stringer & P. A. Cassidy, 52 Activities for Improving Cross-Cultural Communication (Boston and London, 2009).
S. Ting-Toomey, ‘Translating conflict face-negotiation theory into practice’, in D. Landis, J. M. Bennett & M. J. Bennett (eds.), Handbook of Intercultural Training (Thousand Oaks, 2004; 3rd ed.)
S. Ting-Toomey, ‘The matrix of face: an updated face-negotiation theory’, in W. B. Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing about Intercultural Communication (Thousand Oaks, 2005)