The IntlUni Principles for Quality Teaching and Learning in the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space
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Introduction
In the development towards the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are facing challenges formerly unknown to them: Students and lecturers alike form much more heterogeneous groups than ever before, speaking a wide spectrum of languages and representing a wide spectrum of cultural backgrounds in what may be termed the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space (M&MLS). Work Package 4 of the IntlUni project has produced a set of guiding principles for the quality of teaching and learning in the multilingual and multicultural learning space (MMLS).
In the MMLS, as in any educational environment, certain conditions for learning must be in place for the students to meet the intended learning outcomes of the courses taught. However, the MMLS is distinguished by the use of an academic lingua franca and by students with different knowledge systems and diverse ethnic, academic, disciplinary and linguistic backgrounds. The IntlUni Principles recognize that the diversity of the actors in the MMLS poses special challenges to learning, as well as rich opportunities for enhancing learning and intercultural competence. These challenges and opportunities have resulted in a wide variety of innovative and sustainable strategies, and substantial evidence of these strategies can be found in the examples of good/successful practices provided by the project partners (see section 3). However, it is apparent that these examples of good practice are often localized or ad-hoc solutions produced by individual teachers or programme managers, which very often do not extend across institutions (with notable exceptions).
We believe that these good/successful practices deserve greater and more explicit attention from all stakeholders, and that the implementation of such practices needs to be embedded in policy at ‘institutional level’ and supported by adequate funding. However, we recognize that this project includes participating institutions from across Europe, and that the contexts in which these institutions operate vary enormously. This has two consequences for the future implementation of such principles. Firstly, every institution needs to make its own ‘local’ definition of the stakeholders involved in the educational process, and then ensure that these stakeholders are involved in making meaningful local interpretations of the principles in each specific context. Secondly, we cannot prescribe the means for implementation of these principles because every institution has its own organizational and decision-making structures. Needless to say, implementation and funding will depend on the support of the individuals, committees and other bodies that make the decisions in each institution, and this is what we mean in this document when we refer to ‘institutional level’.
In section 2, the principles are described in detail. Then, in section 3, we provide illustrations of the principles in the form of specific measures undertaken by the partner institutions.
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The IntlUni Principles
The IntlUni Principles are derived from an ongoing process of data collection and consultation in the group of IntlUni project partners. At the partner meeting in Lausanne (May 2014), the work package leaders presented a draft document outlining an initial set of principles based on 89 examples of actual institutional and classroom practice provided by partner universities from across Europe. These examples of good/successful practices illustrate a wide variety of innovative and sustainable strategies aimed at addressing the potential challenges of the MMLS, as well as at generally enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. A revised set of principles has now been produced, incorporating feedback from partners as well as further examples of good practice. These principles are organized in three dimensions in Table 1 below.
Table 1: The IntlUni principles for quality teaching and learning in the multilingual and multicultural learning space.
Each of the above dimensions has an impact on the learning of students in all disciplines across the curriculum. The approach to culture adopted by this project is illustrated by the following model for culture in the internationalization of higher education, which was highlighted during Work Package 3.
http://intluni.eu/uploads/media/Culture_in_the_international_HE.pdf
Based on Räsänen, A. (2011) International classrooms, disciplinary cultures and communication conventions: a report on a workshop for content and language teachers. Quality Assurance Review for Higher Education, Bucharest: ARACIS, Vol.3, Nr.2, September 2011, p. 155-161. Flowerdew, J. & L. Miller (1995) On the notion of culture in L2 lectures. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 29/ 2, 345-373.]
This broad, multidimensional concept of culture encompasses the different practices and underlying assumptions and attitudes that lecturers and students bring to the international classroom. This broad understanding of culture applies throughout the text below.
Dimension 1: The learning environment/context
Focus: Providing a safe and supportive learning space
Principle 1.1. Providing institutional support for learning-conducive environments
To establish the necessary conditions for learning in environments that are characterized by diversity, all stakeholders in the institution (including those responsible for management and administration and those responsible for teaching) must cooperate to provide a safe and supportive, learning-conducive environment. Strategies for ensuring this kind of environment include providing the teaching staff with appropriate didactic training in how to deal with diversity and how to teach in international settings, clearly communicating standards and expectations to all students, and linguistically and culturally preparing relevant administrative staff, lecturers and students to function well using an academic lingua franca in a multilingual environment.
Above all, to ensure the successful implementation of the MMLS, institutions should develop an inclusive and enabling language and culture policy, in which the role of an academic lingua franca, other languages and cultures is clearly defined. Such policy decisions need to be supported with communication and training initiatives for all teaching and non-teaching staff, so that they are made fully aware of the MMLS and its implications for their daily work.
It is important that institutions guarantee and monitor the implementation of such a policy by ensuring that all students have the requisite language and academic communication skills to commence studying in international programmes. Students need support in developing their study skills, including academic language training. They also need support in the discipline-specific language that they will use to communicate in their future careers. As well as the regular classroom, students should be provided with virtual and other digital learning spaces that allow them to learn while making wider connections.
Principle 1.2. Integrating students, managing and leveraging diversity
Institutions and lecturers must also aim towards integrating all students in the learning environment. This involves not only managing but also leveraging the diversity to help students develop intercultural competence, empathy and knowledge of the effects of cultural diversity. This can be achieved through promoting interactive learning, using the cultural diversity of the students as a resource, and openly discussing cultural differences and cultural expectations.
Strategies for integration include teaching the history and culture of the host country to all students and giving students the opportunity to present their own cultures. This can be combined with or support the teaching of the national/local language at all levels, as well as the discussion and acceptance of code-switching practices.
Dimension 2: Teaching-learning processes
Focus: Raising awareness about teaching and learning processes
Principle 2.1. Reflecting on teaching styles and negotiating learning processes
To further “level the playing field” and ensure that the knowledge and resources of all students are acknowledged, teaching staff should also take the time to discuss the teaching and learning processes in the international classroom. The teaching staff should explicitly communicate standards and expectations to all students. This involves being explicit about and discussing teacher roles, styles and expectations. It also involves adjusting and individualizing teaching styles and foregrounding differences between national/local and disciplinary academic cultures and knowledge systems.
This also involves a process of ‘negotiation’ or co-construction to ensure that the strategies of learners and teachers are compatible. This may also mean embracing a change in methodologies, such as team teaching (language and subject teachers), peer-tutoring, and tandem learning, as well as reflection on these processes. All of this should also entail an appropriate integration of technology into the teaching and learning process.
Dimension 3: The Learner
Principle 3.1. Raising awareness about cultural differences and linguistic diversity
Students should be given the opportunity to enrich their identities through awareness-raising about culture and language through a mutually supportive group process. This involves bringing linguistic and cultural diversity to the forefront by such activities as encouraging language learning in combination with reflection on identity, explaining cultural differences and discussing cultural and conceptual differences. For example, students may be explicitly asked to develop an analysis that is different to the one they would instinctively develop on the basis of their own culturally-embedded understandings. This also involves including open-mindedness and tolerance as teaching objectives, developing empathy, and integrating languages into the curriculum of all subjects.
Principle 3.2. Extending the contextual and intercultural knowledge base of learners
The knowledge base of students can be broadened by encouraging peer learning and extending course content and materials across borders. This results in the relation of learning outcomes to other, often less familiar contexts. In the MMLS, students are not only confronted with the cultures that other students bring with them but also with the contexts from which those students come. They learn that ideas or applications that are relevant in their own contexts may not work in other contexts for reasons of infrastructure, technology, geography, climate, etcetera. Students and their teachers need to take into consideration both the intercultural and contextual aspects of this ‘otherness’. Students from other countries become a resource in the extension of knowledge, but interaction needs to be designed purposefully so that this process is made explicit to all parties. Non-teaching staff also need to be aware of the impact of other contexts, for instance during the application procedures for students coming from abroad.
3. Illustrations of the the IntlUni Principles
The measures listed below derive from approx. 100 different examples of strategies for meeting a wide variety of challenges posed by the MMLS at the 38 partner universities in the IntlUni project. The numbers in parentheses following many of the measures refer to the partner universities that offered specific examples of these measures. In the final document, these references will be removed and a number of detailed descriptions of generic examples will be presented. It should be noted that in certain cases, no specific example is assigned to a measure, but the measure is inherent across practices at many partners e.g. structuring group/pair-work international/local students.
Dimension 1: The learning environment/context
Measures:
- setting language requirements for admissions
- addressing the language choice and language use openly
- explaining teaching methods and expectations
- improving the students’ or lecturers language and communication skills in the Lingua Franca
- extending the learning space by creating places (virtual and real) for learning and exchange
- developing students’ academic writing skills
- raising lecturers’ awareness about cultural differences and their impact on teaching in international settings
- deciding on an academic Lingua Franca
- teaching the national/local language at all levels
- using the L1s of students as a resource for the tandem learning within an academic language programme
- discussing teaching and learning-related cultural differences and cultural expectations openly
- promoting interactive learning i.e. in tandem and/or small groups
- using cultural diversity of students as a resource or the learning of teamwork skills
- making teaching methodologies more inclusive, interactive and less teacher-centred, which involves training lecturers in strategies for intercultural conflict management
- structuring group/pair-work international/local students
- discussing and accepting code-switching practices
- mediating between lecturer and learner cultures
Dimension 2: Teaching-learning processes
Measures:
- adjusting language usage
- adjusting and individualizing teaching styles
- discussing teaching styles
- encouraging peer-tutoring
- foregrounding the differences between national/local and disciplinary academic cultures
- changing methodologies, which involves encouraging team-teaching of language-subject teacher, language awareness of subject teachers and subject awareness of language teachers
- communicating the role of the lecturer and lecturer expectations
- encouraging learner autonomy
- providing structural time for all of this
- encouraging peer learning
- teaching the history and culture of the host country to all students
Dimension 3: Learner identity
Measures:
- encouraging language learning in combination with reflection on identity
- explaining cultural differences and discussing cultural conceptual differences
- including open-mindedness and tolerance as teaching objectives
- developing empathy
- integrating languages into the curriculum of all subjects
- encouraging students to develop the ability to deal with other contexts
- internationalizing contents and curricula
Authors:
Stacey Cozart, Aarhus University, DK
Kevin Haines, University of Groningen, NL
Thomas Vogel, Europa-Universität Viadrina, DE
IntlUni Work Package Leaders (WP4)
September 2014
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