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[Abstract] this study, using Chen and Starosta’s intercultural Sensitivity Scale based on their theories on intercultural communication competence. It’s a 24-item, 5-likert scale with 5 sub-scales, expores the relationship between intercultural sensibility and EFL achievement, and compares the findings of a bilingual class with a normal class in Guangzhou medical college. Results show that intercultural sensitivity of bilingual class is slightly stronger than normal class; and two scales out of five scales of intercultural sensibility in the bilingual class appear statistically significant.
[Key words] intercultural sensibility EFL SLA
1.literature review
1.1 Definition of Intercultural sensitivity
Because theorists and practitioners bring their own experiences and perspectives to it, the definition of intercultural sensitivity has many vrsions.Generally speaking, intercultural sensitivity is a well-acknowledged component of intercultural competence. The term of intercultural sensitivity has considerable theoretical and practical significance for the study and training of intercultural communication. According to Bennett(1993),intercultural sensitivity is the construction of reality as increasingly capable of accommodating cultural sensitivity refers to one’s intuitive sensitivity to cultural differences, one’s desire to “acknowledge, appreciate, and accept cultural differences” (Fritz, Mollenberg, and Chen2002) or a “positive drive to accommodate, understand, and appreciate cultural differences in promoting and appropriate and effective behavior in intercultural communication”(chen&Starosta,1998).Song(2004)argues that this dimension of intercultural competence includes self-esteem, self-monitoring ,empathy,open-mindedness,nonjudgmental and non-evaluative attitude,etc.From the psychological perspective, intercultural sensitivity is how we respond to differences. It consists of three responses, namely, affective response (how we feel about and evaluate people who are different), behavioral response (how we behave toward people who are different from ourselves and how we exercise power, the assumptions people make about power and privilege), and cognitive response (how we think about people who are different from ourselves).
So the working definition of intercultural sensitivity for this study is the sensitivity to the importance of cultural diversity and cultural similarity in every aspect of culture as well as the ability to accept, appreciate and adapt to other cultures. Thus, intercultural sensitivity is necessary in order to understand that one’s own preferred way of doing things is but one of several possible approaches and that other cultures may have different perspectives and preferences.
1.2 Characteristics of Intercultural sensitivity
1.2.1 Being Developmental
Many researchers (Bennett, 1993; Hanvey, 1979) believe the intercultural sensitivity is a developmental process. They divide the dynamic process into different levels and stages. According to Bennett (1993), the first three The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) stages are ethoncentric, meaning that one’s own culture is experienced as central to reality in some way: Denial of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture (or an adopted culture)is experienced as the only good one. Minimization of cultural difference is the state in which elements of one’s own cultural world views are as follows: Acdeptance of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as just one of a number of equally complex worldviews. Adaptation to cultural difference is the state in which the experience of another culture yields perception and behavior appropriate to that culture. Integration of cultural difference if the state in which one’s experience of self is expanded to include the movement in and out of different cultural worldviews.
1.2.2 Being measurable, Acquirable and learnable
Because the stages of intercultural sensitivity are quantifiable, they can also be easily assessed and expressed in terms of grades or numbers. Many researches have been carried out in order to measure people’s intercultural sensitivity training; professionals designed the models and instrument to evaluate the trainee’s achievement and the effectiveness of intercultural sensitivity training.
1.2.3 Being Irreversible
Awareness is difficult to reverse; that is, once one becomes aware, it is difficult to return to a state of unawareness, and even though one may try to deceive oneself, the self knows of the deception.
1.2.4 Research Questions
This study is set to answer1) how students in both bilingual class and average class employ the fives elements of ISS scale in SLA.2) are there any differences in the level of ISS between a bilingual class and an average class?
2. Method
2.1Participants
Table 1.Information of the Participants
ClassGender Male Female Total
Bilingual 15 32 47 (43valid)
Non-Bilingual 18 35 53 (48valid)
Total(valid) 30 61 91
All the participants in this study are sophomore majoring clinical medicine and they are at their end of second-year study in college when conducting this survey. All the participants are taught with same textbook, same teaching style. Of 91valid questionnaires collected, 47 are from participants of the bilingual class while the rest 53 from the control group.
By bilingual, it means the class in which English is used as part of the instructions given to students when they are learning their major subject contents other than in their EFL course (in this case, English is used in medicine subject courses).In bilingual class, besides instructions, the textbooks the students use are written in English and the examination papers are composed in English with some Chinese explanations.
The only standard of dividing clinical medicine majoring students into bilingual class and normal class is their EFL achievement, to be more specific; those students who have been absorbed into bilingual class are top 60 students among all the 760 clinical medicine students of same grade in a proficiency English test
2.2 Instrument
I use the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale Instrument (ISSI) that was developed and validated by Chen & Starosta (2000), to evaluate the intercultural sensitivity of a sample of students and study the way that the evaluation results may be related to students’ EFL achievement. The items that are included in the ISSI are grouped into five factors that represent the major parameters of intercultural sensitivity:
Factor 1. Interaction Engagement,
Factor 2. Respect for Cultural Differences,
Factor 3. Interaction Confidence,
Factor 4. Interaction Enjoyment,
Factor 5. Interaction Attentiveness.
2.3 Data collection and analysis procedures
In class time during their English course at the end of the second semester, students were asked to fill out the questionnaires. Before this, I assured them that their participation was voluntary, their responses would have nothing to with their final grading of the English course and that they need not write down their names on the questionnaires. After students finished filling in their answers they turned in all the questionnaires within twenty minutes in class. A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed and 97 of them were returned with 91 valid ones (the invalid 6 pieces are those leaving one or more item unfinished).Data were input and processed using SPSS12.0 for window. Findings were expressed by mean and standard deviation, and draw into bar chart. Statistical differences of intercultural sensibility were examined by means of independent sample T-test. The questionnaire consists of 22 items representing respectively one of the fives factors that decide intercultural sensibility (see table 2).So the situation of each factor of intercultural sensibility can be analyzed by examining the sum of the corresponding items. Because the rating scales in the questionnaire are 5-point Likert scales ranging
from “totally agree” to “totally disagree” and items represent positive experience(see Appendix 1),the higher the scores the more the amount of students’ intercultural sensibility.
Table 2 structure of the ISS
factor Name of factors items
1 Interaction Engagement 6(1,5,9,11,20,22)
2 Respect for Cultural Difference 4(2,4,6,8)
3 Interaction Confidence 4(3,7,14,17)
4 Interaction Enjoyment 4(10,12,18,21)
5 Interaction Attentiveness 4(13,15,16,19)
Besides the general descriptive analysis, a t-test was applied to the data to find out any difference in each individual factor of the five factors of intercultural sensibility between the bilingual class and the normal control group.
2.4 Findings and interpretations
Table3T-Test Findings of intercultural sensitivity in the
comparison between bilingual class and non-bilingual class（）
Graph 1
First, let’s look at if there is any difference among the five scales of intercultural sensibility. From Graph 1, we find out that students both bilingual and non-bilingual are almost equally good in each scale, and the difference of intercultural sensibility between the two levels of class is also subtle.
Second, let’ see each scale of intercultural sensibility and compare the results between the bilingual class and the normal control class. Although the statistics in all five scales show that the bilingual students perform better (with less mean scores), the “T” values of three scales do not appear statistical significance with confidence level at 95 %( DF=87, t0.05/2>1.980). Although two Scales, respect for cultural difference (scale2) and interaction confidence (scale3) are not obviously reflected their differences of the two classes judging from Figure1,scale2 shows its statistics with t=2.031，P=0.045 (P＜0.05) ,scale3 shows its statistics with t=2.262，P=0.026 (P＜0.05). The total scores of intercultural sensibility demonstrate its statistics with t=2.612，P=0.011(P＜0.05).So scale2, scale3 and total scores of intercultural sensibility are statistically significant, namely, students of bilingual class have a stronger respect for cultural difference and a stronger sense of interaction confidence,Intercultural sensitivity of bilingual class is slightly stronger than normal class.
3.Limitations and Implications to teaching
In this study, a relatively small sample has been surveyed in order to assess the intercultural sensibility in my college, and the survey was carried out only in a quantitative manner. So, in the following research, I’ll increase the sample size enormously. Further research is still needed searching for more factors that contribute to intercultural sensibility, for instance ,the relationship between intercultural sensibility and gender, family background, birth place etc.Also,I’m supposed to formalize the ways questioning the participants, and reduce the numbers of invalid questionnaires. As I have illustrated in the information of the participants, of 100 questionnaires distributed, I collected 97 questionnaires, including 91 valid questionnaires and 6 invalid questionnaires, the rate of valid is 91%. Of the 6 invalid questionnaires, 4 participants give incomplete answers, 2 participants miss personal information (gender).Those demerits indicate that I should improve my research in the following two points. First, distribute questionnaires at reasonable time, avoid the period when class is going to be over, in this case, students will be impatient and slipshod.Secondly, I should explain the requirements of filling in the questionnaires more apparently.
Nevertheless, the implications from this study to teaching are self-evident.First, in the past; teachers attach more importance to the input of vocabulary, sentence pattern. Now the focus should shift to the input of western culture more. No matter you introduce new words or new text, teachers should have a lead-in part, that’s to say, background information or related cultural points are needed to introduce.Secondly, teachers should enhance the cultural differences between east and west by letting students know different nationalities exist in the world, people have the right to keep their own life style and value system. Last but not the least, improving the intercultural confidence of non-bilingual students’ from the dimension of psychology should be stressed as it plays an especially important role in L2 learning.
4.Conclusion
In this study, I have surveyed two classes of students, one of which is a bilingual class in my college, in an attempt to assess students’ intercultural sensibility between bilingual class and non-bilingual class. Results show students of bilingual class have a stronger respect for cultural difference and a stronger sense of interaction confidence, Intercultural sensitivity of bilingual class is slightly stronger than normal class. In the end I also pointed out some limitations, directions for further research and some positive implications to teaching.
References:
[1] Bennett (1993), T.Second Langue Vocabulary acquisition [M].Cambridge University Press.1997.
[2] Bennett, M.J.1994.A development model of intercultural sensitivity. Perry Network Newsletter.16(1),6-7.
[3] Chen, G.M, &Starosta, W.J.2000a.The development and validation of the intercultural sensitivity scale. Human Communication, 3, 1-15.
[4] Chen&Starosta, 1998.A review of the concept of intercultural awareness. Human Communication.2, 27-54.
[5] Chris Rose.IC Learning http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/intercultural1.shtml.
[6] Deng Yanchang,Liu Runqing.Language and Culture. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1991.
[7] Hudson, (1997), W.J.Foundations of Intercultural Communication.[M]Allyn and Bacon.USA .1998.
[8] Han, Baocheng.Statistics in Foreign Language Teaching and Research [M].Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000.
[9] Hanvey. The study of Second Language Acquisition.Shanghai:Shanghai foreign language education press.1997.
[10] Peng Shiyong. The comparison of Undergraduates’ intercultural sensibility from all aspects [J]. Journal of Xi’an International studies university.
[11] Shi Jiawei.Intercultural Sensitivity and Second Language Acquisition [J] Chinese Teaching in the world.2000. (3).21-23.
[12] Yang Chaomei,The comparison of Chinese and American Mainstream Culture and Strengthening the Intercultural Sensitivity[J].Henan Social Science.2001.(5).34-36.
[Key words] intercultural sensibility EFL SLA
1.literature review
1.1 Definition of Intercultural sensitivity
Because theorists and practitioners bring their own experiences and perspectives to it, the definition of intercultural sensitivity has many vrsions.Generally speaking, intercultural sensitivity is a well-acknowledged component of intercultural competence. The term of intercultural sensitivity has considerable theoretical and practical significance for the study and training of intercultural communication. According to Bennett(1993),intercultural sensitivity is the construction of reality as increasingly capable of accommodating cultural sensitivity refers to one’s intuitive sensitivity to cultural differences, one’s desire to “acknowledge, appreciate, and accept cultural differences” (Fritz, Mollenberg, and Chen2002) or a “positive drive to accommodate, understand, and appreciate cultural differences in promoting and appropriate and effective behavior in intercultural communication”(chen&Starosta,1998).Song(2004)argues that this dimension of intercultural competence includes self-esteem, self-monitoring ,empathy,open-mindedness,nonjudgmental and non-evaluative attitude,etc.From the psychological perspective, intercultural sensitivity is how we respond to differences. It consists of three responses, namely, affective response (how we feel about and evaluate people who are different), behavioral response (how we behave toward people who are different from ourselves and how we exercise power, the assumptions people make about power and privilege), and cognitive response (how we think about people who are different from ourselves).
So the working definition of intercultural sensitivity for this study is the sensitivity to the importance of cultural diversity and cultural similarity in every aspect of culture as well as the ability to accept, appreciate and adapt to other cultures. Thus, intercultural sensitivity is necessary in order to understand that one’s own preferred way of doing things is but one of several possible approaches and that other cultures may have different perspectives and preferences.
1.2 Characteristics of Intercultural sensitivity
1.2.1 Being Developmental
Many researchers (Bennett, 1993; Hanvey, 1979) believe the intercultural sensitivity is a developmental process. They divide the dynamic process into different levels and stages. According to Bennett (1993), the first three The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) stages are ethoncentric, meaning that one’s own culture is experienced as central to reality in some way: Denial of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture (or an adopted culture)is experienced as the only good one. Minimization of cultural difference is the state in which elements of one’s own cultural world views are as follows: Acdeptance of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as just one of a number of equally complex worldviews. Adaptation to cultural difference is the state in which the experience of another culture yields perception and behavior appropriate to that culture. Integration of cultural difference if the state in which one’s experience of self is expanded to include the movement in and out of different cultural worldviews.
1.2.2 Being measurable, Acquirable and learnable
Because the stages of intercultural sensitivity are quantifiable, they can also be easily assessed and expressed in terms of grades or numbers. Many researches have been carried out in order to measure people’s intercultural sensitivity training; professionals designed the models and instrument to evaluate the trainee’s achievement and the effectiveness of intercultural sensitivity training.
1.2.3 Being Irreversible
Awareness is difficult to reverse; that is, once one becomes aware, it is difficult to return to a state of unawareness, and even though one may try to deceive oneself, the self knows of the deception.
1.2.4 Research Questions
This study is set to answer1) how students in both bilingual class and average class employ the fives elements of ISS scale in SLA.2) are there any differences in the level of ISS between a bilingual class and an average class?
2. Method
2.1Participants
Table 1.Information of the Participants
ClassGender Male Female Total
Bilingual 15 32 47 (43valid)
Non-Bilingual 18 35 53 (48valid)
Total(valid) 30 61 91
All the participants in this study are sophomore majoring clinical medicine and they are at their end of second-year study in college when conducting this survey. All the participants are taught with same textbook, same teaching style. Of 91valid questionnaires collected, 47 are from participants of the bilingual class while the rest 53 from the control group.
By bilingual, it means the class in which English is used as part of the instructions given to students when they are learning their major subject contents other than in their EFL course (in this case, English is used in medicine subject courses).In bilingual class, besides instructions, the textbooks the students use are written in English and the examination papers are composed in English with some Chinese explanations.
The only standard of dividing clinical medicine majoring students into bilingual class and normal class is their EFL achievement, to be more specific; those students who have been absorbed into bilingual class are top 60 students among all the 760 clinical medicine students of same grade in a proficiency English test
2.2 Instrument
I use the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale Instrument (ISSI) that was developed and validated by Chen & Starosta (2000), to evaluate the intercultural sensitivity of a sample of students and study the way that the evaluation results may be related to students’ EFL achievement. The items that are included in the ISSI are grouped into five factors that represent the major parameters of intercultural sensitivity:
Factor 1. Interaction Engagement,
Factor 2. Respect for Cultural Differences,
Factor 3. Interaction Confidence,
Factor 4. Interaction Enjoyment,
Factor 5. Interaction Attentiveness.
2.3 Data collection and analysis procedures
In class time during their English course at the end of the second semester, students were asked to fill out the questionnaires. Before this, I assured them that their participation was voluntary, their responses would have nothing to with their final grading of the English course and that they need not write down their names on the questionnaires. After students finished filling in their answers they turned in all the questionnaires within twenty minutes in class. A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed and 97 of them were returned with 91 valid ones (the invalid 6 pieces are those leaving one or more item unfinished).Data were input and processed using SPSS12.0 for window. Findings were expressed by mean and standard deviation, and draw into bar chart. Statistical differences of intercultural sensibility were examined by means of independent sample T-test. The questionnaire consists of 22 items representing respectively one of the fives factors that decide intercultural sensibility (see table 2).So the situation of each factor of intercultural sensibility can be analyzed by examining the sum of the corresponding items. Because the rating scales in the questionnaire are 5-point Likert scales ranging
from “totally agree” to “totally disagree” and items represent positive experience(see Appendix 1),the higher the scores the more the amount of students’ intercultural sensibility.
Table 2 structure of the ISS
factor Name of factors items
1 Interaction Engagement 6(1,5,9,11,20,22)
2 Respect for Cultural Difference 4(2,4,6,8)
3 Interaction Confidence 4(3,7,14,17)
4 Interaction Enjoyment 4(10,12,18,21)
5 Interaction Attentiveness 4(13,15,16,19)
Besides the general descriptive analysis, a t-test was applied to the data to find out any difference in each individual factor of the five factors of intercultural sensibility between the bilingual class and the normal control group.
2.4 Findings and interpretations
Table3T-Test Findings of intercultural sensitivity in the
comparison between bilingual class and non-bilingual class（）
Graph 1
First, let’s look at if there is any difference among the five scales of intercultural sensibility. From Graph 1, we find out that students both bilingual and non-bilingual are almost equally good in each scale, and the difference of intercultural sensibility between the two levels of class is also subtle.
Second, let’ see each scale of intercultural sensibility and compare the results between the bilingual class and the normal control class. Although the statistics in all five scales show that the bilingual students perform better (with less mean scores), the “T” values of three scales do not appear statistical significance with confidence level at 95 %( DF=87, t0.05/2>1.980). Although two Scales, respect for cultural difference (scale2) and interaction confidence (scale3) are not obviously reflected their differences of the two classes judging from Figure1,scale2 shows its statistics with t=2.031，P=0.045 (P＜0.05) ,scale3 shows its statistics with t=2.262，P=0.026 (P＜0.05). The total scores of intercultural sensibility demonstrate its statistics with t=2.612，P=0.011(P＜0.05).So scale2, scale3 and total scores of intercultural sensibility are statistically significant, namely, students of bilingual class have a stronger respect for cultural difference and a stronger sense of interaction confidence,Intercultural sensitivity of bilingual class is slightly stronger than normal class.
3.Limitations and Implications to teaching
In this study, a relatively small sample has been surveyed in order to assess the intercultural sensibility in my college, and the survey was carried out only in a quantitative manner. So, in the following research, I’ll increase the sample size enormously. Further research is still needed searching for more factors that contribute to intercultural sensibility, for instance ,the relationship between intercultural sensibility and gender, family background, birth place etc.Also,I’m supposed to formalize the ways questioning the participants, and reduce the numbers of invalid questionnaires. As I have illustrated in the information of the participants, of 100 questionnaires distributed, I collected 97 questionnaires, including 91 valid questionnaires and 6 invalid questionnaires, the rate of valid is 91%. Of the 6 invalid questionnaires, 4 participants give incomplete answers, 2 participants miss personal information (gender).Those demerits indicate that I should improve my research in the following two points. First, distribute questionnaires at reasonable time, avoid the period when class is going to be over, in this case, students will be impatient and slipshod.Secondly, I should explain the requirements of filling in the questionnaires more apparently.
Nevertheless, the implications from this study to teaching are self-evident.First, in the past; teachers attach more importance to the input of vocabulary, sentence pattern. Now the focus should shift to the input of western culture more. No matter you introduce new words or new text, teachers should have a lead-in part, that’s to say, background information or related cultural points are needed to introduce.Secondly, teachers should enhance the cultural differences between east and west by letting students know different nationalities exist in the world, people have the right to keep their own life style and value system. Last but not the least, improving the intercultural confidence of non-bilingual students’ from the dimension of psychology should be stressed as it plays an especially important role in L2 learning.
4.Conclusion
In this study, I have surveyed two classes of students, one of which is a bilingual class in my college, in an attempt to assess students’ intercultural sensibility between bilingual class and non-bilingual class. Results show students of bilingual class have a stronger respect for cultural difference and a stronger sense of interaction confidence, Intercultural sensitivity of bilingual class is slightly stronger than normal class. In the end I also pointed out some limitations, directions for further research and some positive implications to teaching.
References:
[1] Bennett (1993), T.Second Langue Vocabulary acquisition [M].Cambridge University Press.1997.
[2] Bennett, M.J.1994.A development model of intercultural sensitivity. Perry Network Newsletter.16(1),6-7.
[3] Chen, G.M, &Starosta, W.J.2000a.The development and validation of the intercultural sensitivity scale. Human Communication, 3, 1-15.
[4] Chen&Starosta, 1998.A review of the concept of intercultural awareness. Human Communication.2, 27-54.
[5] Chris Rose.IC Learning http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/intercultural1.shtml.
[6] Deng Yanchang,Liu Runqing.Language and Culture. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1991.
[7] Hudson, (1997), W.J.Foundations of Intercultural Communication.[M]Allyn and Bacon.USA .1998.
[8] Han, Baocheng.Statistics in Foreign Language Teaching and Research [M].Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000.
[9] Hanvey. The study of Second Language Acquisition.Shanghai:Shanghai foreign language education press.1997.
[10] Peng Shiyong. The comparison of Undergraduates’ intercultural sensibility from all aspects [J]. Journal of Xi’an International studies university.
[11] Shi Jiawei.Intercultural Sensitivity and Second Language Acquisition [J] Chinese Teaching in the world.2000. (3).21-23.
[12] Yang Chaomei,The comparison of Chinese and American Mainstream Culture and Strengthening the Intercultural Sensitivity[J].Henan Social Science.2001.(5).34-36.