English teaching, intercultural competence, and critical incident exercises

Abstract

Critical incident exercises (CIEs) are increasingly used in English courses, and there seems little doubt that in addition to providing English practice opportunities CIEs also help learners build intercultural competence. The question is: What precise aspects of intercultural competence do CIEs help learners build? This article introduces an open-ended variety of CIE called an ‘encounter exercise,’ and explores the aspects of intercultural competence regular use of such exercises helps learners build. Drawing on recent literature about dual-process views of thinking, this article argues that encounter exercises are valuable for helping learners build the following habits of thought: (1) being consciously aware of the interpretation process in intercultural communication situations, (2) consciously considering multiple interpretations of puzzling or problematic intercultural encounters, (3) paying conscious attention to factors that may affect how one interprets problematic intercultural encounters, especially factors that affect feelings or interpretation rules, and (4) paying conscious attention to the ‘benefit-of-the-doubt’ question.

越来越多的英语课使用关键事件练习(critical incident exercise). 毫无疑问这种课堂活动能够提供很多练习英语的机会给学生，也帮助他们提高跨文化交际能力。但是，问题是：这种练习活动到底帮学生提高跨文化交际的那一方面？本文章介绍一种开放性的关键事件练习 – ‘初次接触陌生人练习’ (encounter exercise), 阐述这种练习活动的学习目标。基于心理学界‘双思维方式’理论，本文章认为这种练习活动在以下四个方面帮助学生提高跨文化交际能力：1）提高他们对跨文化交际过程里面的理解过程的觉悟； 2）帮他们养成一个考虑多可能性的习惯； 3）提高他们对一些经常影响跨文化沟通的因素的认识与觉悟； 4）教他们更有意识的处理‘是否往好处想别人’这个决定。

Keywords:

• intercultural competence
• critical incident exercises
• intercultural communication
• interpretation
• dual-process thinking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Don Snow has an MA in English (TESOL) from Michigan State University and a PhD in Chinese from Indiana University. He has taught language, culture, and linguistics for over two decades in China and is currently Director of Language and Writing Programs at Duke Kunshan University. He has written on language teaching and learning and also researches the history of social roles of languages, focusing especially on diglossia, and on written forms of East Asian vernaculars.