Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China
This paper presents research on the potential of classroom dialogues to facilitate greater intercultural communication between undergraduate home students in the UK studying Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and Master’s level students from China. The project put both cohorts together to discuss...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Castledown Publishers
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Intercultural Communication Education |
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| Online Access: | https://www.castledown.com/journals/ice/article/view/1110 |
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| _version_ | 1841549942265479168 |
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| author | Hsiu-chih Sheu Laura Manzie |
| author_facet | Hsiu-chih Sheu Laura Manzie |
| author_sort | Hsiu-chih Sheu |
| collection | DOAJ |
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This paper presents research on the potential of classroom dialogues to facilitate greater intercultural communication between undergraduate home students in the UK studying Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and Master’s level students from China. The project put both cohorts together to discuss culture-related topics in Mandarin Chinese. Nine CFL students and 18 international students from China participated in the study. Five meetings were arranged, with the discussions being led by the students. The data collection includes videos of the group discussions and recordings of individual student reflections obtained after each discussion. Byram’s intercultural competence framework was used to analyse the data. The findings indicate that social interaction enables the participants to demonstrate intercultural competence in several dimensions (attitudes, knowledge and skills of discovery and interaction), with skills of interpreting and relating and critical cultural awareness being more limited. The reflections also showed that the participants expressed varying degrees of anxiety about the discussion. CFL students reported their foreign language anxiety, and Chinese students were mainly concerned about potential prejudice against China. Intracultural competence was also discussed in this study.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-96131475c8d745c882872b9009239fa8 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2209-1041 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Castledown Publishers |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Intercultural Communication Education |
| spelling | doaj-art-96131475c8d745c882872b9009239fa82025-01-10T11:32:50ZengCastledown PublishersIntercultural Communication Education2209-10412025-01-017110.29140/ice.v7n1.1110Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from ChinaHsiu-chih Sheu0Laura Manzie1Nottingham Trent UniversityNottingham Trent University This paper presents research on the potential of classroom dialogues to facilitate greater intercultural communication between undergraduate home students in the UK studying Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and Master’s level students from China. The project put both cohorts together to discuss culture-related topics in Mandarin Chinese. Nine CFL students and 18 international students from China participated in the study. Five meetings were arranged, with the discussions being led by the students. The data collection includes videos of the group discussions and recordings of individual student reflections obtained after each discussion. Byram’s intercultural competence framework was used to analyse the data. The findings indicate that social interaction enables the participants to demonstrate intercultural competence in several dimensions (attitudes, knowledge and skills of discovery and interaction), with skills of interpreting and relating and critical cultural awareness being more limited. The reflections also showed that the participants expressed varying degrees of anxiety about the discussion. CFL students reported their foreign language anxiety, and Chinese students were mainly concerned about potential prejudice against China. Intracultural competence was also discussed in this study. https://www.castledown.com/journals/ice/article/view/1110intercultural competence intracultural competencecommunication strategiesclassroom dialogues Mandarin Chinese learning |
| spellingShingle | Hsiu-chih Sheu Laura Manzie Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China Intercultural Communication Education intercultural competence intracultural competence communication strategies classroom dialogues Mandarin Chinese learning |
| title | Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China |
| title_full | Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China |
| title_fullStr | Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China |
| title_short | Closing the gap: Intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the UK and international students from China |
| title_sort | closing the gap intercultural dialogues between undergraduate home students in the uk and international students from china |
| topic | intercultural competence intracultural competence communication strategies classroom dialogues Mandarin Chinese learning |
| url | https://www.castledown.com/journals/ice/article/view/1110 |
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