BUILDING CROSS – CULTURAL COMPETENCE TO IMPROVE ENGLISH EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

This paper is intended to expose the importance of cross-cultural competenc to improve English oral communication effectively. The background of this paper is due to my teaching experience in English Department of School of Bumiayu Islamic Teacher Training. (CCU)course is offered to the students in the sixth semester. To know the students’ knowledge about cross-culture, in the begining of semester session, before they got the materials, the writer instructed them to make a group of two or three, then practiced communicating in English. The number of the students in a class is thirty five, so there are about twelve groups. Each group was then extended one topic to perform in the role play. The writer took several topics from the guidance book entitled ‘Business Across Culture: Effective Communication Straegies’. Based on practicing to communicate in English with foreigners through role plays, most students still performed/showed Javanese or moslem attitude in which are not appropriate with foreign’s culture. Meanwhile, the cultural competence will affect practically some aspect of language use. It can influence the foreigners’ respond whether or not they accept the communicator’s attitude. Negative or inappropriate impression of English learners of course can inhibit the effective communication

Falling through the (cultural) gaps?

In this paper we report findings of a study of online participation by culturally diverse participants in a distance adult education course offered in Canada, and examine two of the study’s early findings. First, we explore both the historical and cultural origins of “cyberculture values” as manifested in our findings, using the notions of explicit and implicit enforcement of those values. Second, we examine the notion of “cultural gaps” between participants in the course and the potential consequences for online communication successes and difficulties. We also discuss theoretical perspectives from Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Genre and Literacy Theory and Aboriginal Education that may shed further light on “cultural gaps” in online communications. Finally, we identify the need for additional research, primarily in the form of larger scale comparisons across cultural groups of patterns of participation and interaction, but also in the form of case studies that can be submitted to microanalyses of the form as well as the content of communicator’s participation and interaction online

Fluctuations in Learners’ Willingness to Communicate During Communicative Task Performance: Conditions and Tendencies

A person’s willingness to communicate (WTC), believed to stem from a combination of proximal and distal variables comprising psychological, linguistic, educational and communicative dimensions of language, appears to be a significant predictor of success in language learning. The ability to communicate is both a means and end of language education, since, on the one hand, being able to express the intended meanings in the target language is generally perceived as the main purpose of any language course and, on the other, linguistic development proceeds in the course of language use. However, MacIntyre (2007, p. 564) observes that some learners, despite extensive study, may never become successful L2 speakers. The inability or unwillingness to sustain contacts with more competent language users may influence the way learners are evaluated in various social contexts. Establishing social networks as a result of frequent communication with target language users is believed to foster linguistic development. WTC, initially considered a stable personality trait and then a result of context-dependent influences, has recently been viewed as a dynamic phenomenon changing its intensity within one communicative event (MacIntyre and Legatto, 2011; MacIntyre et al., 2011). The study whose results are reported here attempts to tap into factors that shape one’s willingness to speak during a communicative task. The measures employed to collect the data - selfratings and surveys - allow looking at the issue from a number of perspectives

Intercultural New Media Studies: The Next Frontier in intercultural Communication

New media (ICT\u27s) are transforming communication across cultures. Despite this revolution in cross cultural contact, communication researchers have largely ignored the impact of new media on intercultural communication. This groundbreaking article defines the parameters of a new field of inquiry called Intercultural New Media Studies (INMS), which explores the intersection between ICT\u27s and intercultural communication. Composed of two research areas—(1) new media and intercultural communication theory and (2) culture and new media—INMS investigates new digital theories of intercultural contact as well as refines and expands twentieth-century intercultural communication theories, examining their salience in a digital world. INMS promises to increase our understanding of intercultural communication in a new media age and is the next frontier in intercultural communication

Musical identities, learning and education: Some cross-cultural issues

In sum, the aims of this paper are to consider some of the ways in which individual musical identities are formed through formal and informal music-learning across a range of contexts afforded by the contemporary dialectical relations between local and global musical cultures; to suggest some ways in which both similarities and differences occur in the processes of musical identity-formation and the content of musical identities; and to consider some of the effects of globalisation and localisation in relation to the provision and content of formal music education. (DIPF/Orig.

Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: access, identity, autonomy

In this paper, I propose that we need to develop an appropriate set of conceptual tools for examining motivational issues pertaining to linguistic diversity, mobility and social integration in a rapidly changing and expanding Europe. I begin by drawing on research that has begun to reframe the concept of integrative motivation in the context of theories of self and identity. Expanding the notion of identity, I discuss the contribution of the Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio in promoting a view of motivation as the development of a plurilingual European identity and the enabling of access and mobility across a multilingual Europe. Next, I critically examine the assumption that the individual pursuit of a plurilingual identity is unproblematic, by highlighting the social context in which motivation and identity are constructed and embedded. To illuminate the role of this social context, I explore three inter-related theoretical frameworks: poststructuralist perspectives on language motivation as 'investment'; sociocultural theory; and theories of autonomy in language education. I conclude with the key message that, as with autonomy, language motivation today has an inescapably political dimension of which we need to take greater account in our research and pedagogical practice

Distance learning of foreign languages

doi: 10.1017/S0261444806003727This article provides a critical overview of the field of distance language learning, challenging the way in which the field is often narrowly conceptualised as the development of technology-mediated language learning opportunities. Early sections focus on issues of concept and definition and both theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on the field. Emphasis is placed on evident shifts from a concern with structural and organisational issues to a focus on transactional issues associated with teaching/learning opportunities within emerging paradigms for distance language learning. The next section reviews choices and challenges in incorporating technology into distance language learning environments, foregrounding decisions about technology made in particular sociocultural contexts, the contribution of ‘low-end’ technologies and research directions in developing new learning spaces and in using online technologies. The investigation of learner contributions to distance language learning is an important avenue of enquiry in the field, given the preoccupation with technology and virtual learning environments, and this is the subject of section six. The two final sections identify future research directions and provide a series of conclusions about research and practice in distance language learning as technology-mediated interactions increasingly come to influence the way we think about the processes of language learning and teaching