MULTICULTURAL/CROSS-CULTURAL/INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE

LEARNING

INTRODUCTION

It is deliberate for English major who have not had much contact with the field of
intercultural communication. However, many of these teachers have had some personal
experience of functioning in more than one culture, for example as an EFL teacher in a
foreign country, or of dealing with students from cultures other than theirs. This is the case
in almost every EFL classroom nowadays: even French native speakers teaching English in
French schools have have students of foreign origin or of mixed background.

Terminology: cross- or inter-?

The only possible adjunct for this field is “intercultural”, where in English we have both
“intercultural” and “cross-cultural”. A lot of English speakers are favor in “cross- cultural”,
others are almost evade “intercultural” as if it where case of vocabulary intervention with
French. Others use the terms interchangeably.

In our usage, “cross-cultural” applies to something which covers more than a particular
culture. For example “a cross-cultural study of education in Western Europe” would be a
contrast of chosen aspects of education in other places, but would consider each country or
region separately and would not suggest any interaction between the different kinds of
educational ways.

In another hand ,the phrase “intercultural” that has an involvement of interaction. From an
intercultural, it would be possible to study the experiences of students or teachers who move
from one educational system to another, or to examine the interactions of students from
different countries enrolled in a specific class or program. “Culture shock” and “cultural
adaptation” are thus intercultural notions.
“An intercultural that deal with language teaching

An intercultural approach are also goes beyond lists of “Dos and Don’ts” and does not
purport to give students tricks or recipes they can apply whenever they communicate with
people from a given culture
Meaning of a Culture

Culture has many definitions, that is why it is important to rule out those that are not
appropriate in behalf of intercultural communication.
BODY

Multicultural and Intercultural learning is all about or studying a society which have cultural
beliefs and ethnic groups and having an interaction with people from different cultures. It
deals with a collation of interactions among people from same culture in another culture. By
describing and embracing communities despite of diversity, there would be a deep
understanding

Interulturalist are frequently attentive of lists of “Dos and Don’ts” conceive for people who
are planning to travel or work in other cultures. A lot of English-teaching course books
written a years have passed. Contains lists like this, often in the form of a quiz, which can
actually be a lot of fun for students to talk about. Most of the trivia they include is funny and
surprising. For example, the warning about which way to hold your hand in Britain, when
you order “two beers” to avoid insulting the bartender with a vulgar gesture. Or the fact that
you should not show the sole of your shoe in an Arab country, or maybe the French students
shouldn’t need rush to kiss their English-speaking hosts on both cheeks at the airport.

Major areas of difference:

The fact that people are not aware of having learned their cultural behavior, they tend to
assume that their group’s way of thinking or acting is human nature. Hence their shock or
anger when other people behave in ways they interpret as illogical, unreasonable, or impolite.
Before jumping to this conclusion, and placing the conflict or misunderstanding on an
interpersonal level, it is often helpful to look at the situation from an intercultural point of
view.

Sometimes, people are not aware of how much their culture shapes their attitudes despite
time, space, and interpersonal communication.

How do people conceptualize it, and what significance was given to the past, the present, and
the future? (Cultures do not necessarily see these as existing along a timeline.) What is the
organization of the year, and the day? What does it mean to be “on time” in different
situations?

If you will ask any group of students whether they feel it is important to be “on time”, you
will get a random of answers corresponding to different psychological or personal profiles.
Clearly if you are doing business with people from another culture, you may want to find out
what time they really expect you to arrive at the meeting, in order to avoid offense on all
sides.

Concerning space: In any culture the distance we have from another person varies depending
on our relationship to them and the place where we find ourselves, but these beliefs vary from
culture to culture. Things become complicated when people from different cultures interact.
That means that in an intercultural situation one person might want to stand closer than the
other, and will move in, where upon the other person will pull back. The first person that
perceive the other as cold or “standoffish” (note the term), where the second person will
probably think his interlocutor is pushy or “in his face”.
Concerning body language: Expressing people’s body language is an important skills.
Difficulties may arise when we “decode”. The body language of people from other cultures
as if they were members or they are belong.

Concerning conversation : What is the pattern of turn-taking, in other words how much
overlap is there between speakers? What rituals are expected? What topics are avoided?
How much information is transmitted explicitly, and how much is suggested indirectly?

Here are the simple way of making students aware of these areas of differences is enough to
suggest other interpretations than those that would be the most obvious in one’s own culture.
For example, if Midwestern Americans in France are taken back by what they perceive as an
unsmiling, in-your-face debating style and frequent interruptions, should they necessarily
interpret it as they would in their own home town?

It will also be useful for students to realize that even if the teacher is a member of the “target
culture”, his or her reaction is not necessarily the only possible or even the most likely one
for that culture.

Culture of individuals

Most human beings speak more than one language, many of us “share” more than one culture
with different groups of people we interact with. When we applied to a society the term
“multicultural” can suggest a “mixed salad” and does not need to mean that each individual
belongs to many different cultures. On the other say “multicultural” and “bicultural”, when
you applied to an individual, suggest mixing or multiplicity, the ability to function in at least
two different groups.

This is possible to happen in many ways, and might even apply to the people in border
regions where two groups interact often. It can be the case of immigrants or anyone who
lives with members of another culture and assimilates aspects of their behavior. Other
individuals become bicultural through interaction with a mother and father from different
cultures, or with grandparents, stepparents, or caregivers. Yet another group, sometimes
called “third culture kids”, has lived briefly in many different cultures, usually due to their
parents’ professions, often military, diplomatic or business-related.

Many people believe in the dubious notion of a “perfect bilingual” with a native command of
two languages and no influence of one language on the other. Few people would expect this
lack of influence in the case of two co-existing cultures.

Objections: We are all the same…We are all different

There are many grounds on which people can object to intercultural research and analysis,
and two of the primary ones are apparent opposites: the argument that we are all basically the
same, or that we are all ultimately different.
We are all different

An objection to intercultural generalizations comes from those who maintain that we are all
unique. Since every human being is unique. Once again, this argument is true and impossible
to change.

Related to this fundamental notion is the fact that, due to all the variation in any group of
human beings, there will be many exceptions to any generalization. At the national level, for
example, it might seem ludicrous to generalize about a country like the United States, given
the important regional, racial and ethnic variation, in addition to socio-economic,political and
religious differences, on top of such variables as education, profession, age and sex.

The language of intercultural awareness

As English major, even if we do not teach intercultural awareness per se, the use of language
and attempting to help them make it more appropriate to their situation and goals. Just as
they need to know how to “moderate” their opinion as they increase in proficiency, and how
to be polite in various situations, they can also learn to appreciate the extent to which many
words and expressions are based on cultural norms.

No one would be surprised at the idea that “beautiful” and “delicious” can qualify very
different objects, depending on the personality and culture of the speaker. The same is true
for “logical”, “dirty”, “late”, “hypocritical”, “cold” and many other adjectives applied to
people and their actions.
Conclusion

Sometimes seems incredibly naïve to speak of acceptance, tolerance and empathy in a world
that seems increasingly marked by a return to radical tribalism and various aggressive
fundamentalisms which claim to have the moral and spiritual high road. I don’t believe that
people have to relinquish their moral code or consider that all morality is relative. I do
believe that there is more than one path to knowledge and truth, and that people who feel they
have found the one good way are frightening, no matter which way they have found.
References

Asselin, Gilles & Ruth Mastron. 2001 : Au Contraire! Figuring Out the French.
Intercultural Press.

Carroll, Raymonde. 1987: Cultural Misunderstandings : The French-American

Experience. Translated by Carol Volk. University of Chicago Press. (Originally Evidences
invisibles, Le Seuil).

Hall, Edward T. 1959: The Silent Language.

Trompenaars, Fons & Charles Hampden-Turner 1997: Riding the Wabes of Culture,
Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. (Second Edition) Nicolas Brealey.