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Sustaining the Effects of Cross-Cultural Orientation: Cross-Cultural Seminar in the Intensive English and Orientation Program (IEOP) at Iowa State University
Mary Barratt mbarratt@iastate.edu
MIDTESOL Conference 515-294-5628
October, 2004
Independence, MO
International students may be unfamiliar with what is expected of a person living and studying in the U.S. Students in IEOP often miss or forget important cross-cultural adjustment information they were given at the beginning of a term. After the students have had some time to settle in and now need to address the reality of cultural shock and adjustment, we offer a one-day Cross-Cultural Seminar. This seminar revisits and reinforces the information those initial sessions presented.
Students attend three seminar sessions: Cross-Cultural Adjustment, which reviews the stages of cross-cultural adjustment; the students explore their own feelings, their own stage of adjustment, and discuss adjustment with their instructors and peers; Cross-Cultural Relationships, which explores normal, acceptable ways of interacting with Americans and learning how Americans interact with each other; and Academic Matters, which describes university instructors’ expectations of students and acceptable student behavior. We also screen the video "Cold Water", which shows interviews with several international students and with experts in cross-cultural adjustment.
In the Cross-Cultural Adjustment session, students discuss what they remember learning in the cross-cultural session they attended during orientation week.
The instructor reads a number of statements (both negative and positive) made by international students. S/he asks which of them were made by people undergoing cross-cultural adjustment. Since, if fact, all of the statements were made by people undergoing cross-cultural adjustment, the point is made that adjustment goes up and down; sometimes people feel great, other times they feel bad. The students easily relate the statements to the stages of adjustment.
The session is personalized when students answer questions about their own adjustment in order to identify their own position on the cross-cultural adjustment continuum.
Finally, the group discusses ways to make cross-cultural adjustment smoother.
The opening activities of the Academic Matters session are designed to engage students in a discussion of politeness and manners in an American academic setting. They also discuss classroom behavior, assignments, and general university information.
The instructors present a skit demonstrating what students should not do when they have an appointment with an academic advisor. In the skit, both the student and advisor are frustrated and annoyed by the interaction. The goal of the presentation and discussion is to allow students to figure out what the appropriate behavior in such a situation would be. Discussion questions are used after the skit to talk about what went wrong during the appointment, what the expectations of both the professor and the student were, and how the student should have prepared for the appointment.
The Cross-Cultural Relationships session has been presented in a number of ways. A very successful technique is to present several skits, each showing the wrong way (usually exaggerated by the actors) of doing or saying something in the U.S. As the skit progresses, another person steps in and says, "stop" in order to begin discussion of the problem and solution (a better way) in each interaction. After the discussion, the skit is rerun with the solution in place; American students lead small-group discussion.
Suggested topics for skits are greetings, eye contact, phone manners, balancing the use of English with the use of one’s native language in social situations, safe and unsafe conversation topics or topics that tend to make Americans uncomfortable.
An alternative activity is to group students and have them discuss questions about friendship, space, and customs. They compare their own notions about these topics with what they believe Americans feel, then discuss situations in which they might react differently from Americans.
To end the seminar we show the video "Cold Water", which presents international students and their views on cross-cultural adjustment in the United States. International student advisors and other experts regarding the subject are also interviewed.
The students discuss issues raised in the movie as well as aspects of American society that may be unfamiliar to them, e.g., openness and directness, privacy, competitiveness vs. cooperation, and informality in classroom behavior. They discuss the comments made by students in the video, effective ways of resolving intercultural stress, and where to go for help or just someone to listen to their concerns. This seminar session reinforces students’ understanding that the emotional stages they may go through in adjusting are normal, predictable, and to be expected.
The session closes after any student questions have been answered by the instructors and assistants who are present.
The Cross-Cultural Seminar is self-standing conference-like event in which IEOP students are required to participate. It offers timely and useful information. Student evaluations of the seminar have been very positive.
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Updated 03-16-2005
