Presentation given at the 2010 International Conference on Developing Intercultural Competence.

1. Developing intercultural competence
with dual-language peer review
Todd Ruecker,
University of Texas at El Paso

2. Rationale for study
• Lacina (2002) wrote about international students
struggling to meet resident students in the
“linguistically unsophisticated” US
• “international students may experience extreme loneliness and
culture shock or physical symptoms such as headaches, insomnia,
mental exhaustion, and many other symptoms due to stress caused
by adjustment to a new culture” (24).
• Marginson’s (2007) Australian study showed
universities’ reluctance to invest in innovative curricula
for international students
• Language knowledge or simply being sent abroad not
enough for one to develop intercultural competence
(Deardorff, 2009)
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3. Rationale (cont.)
Chilean
US students little mediated students
studying academic interaction studying
Spanish between them. English
composition composition
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4. A brief overview of peer review
• Studies on peer review have focused on the following:
• L2 students in an ESL classroom
• L1 students in a mainstream classroom
• Minimal study on L1 and L2 students working together
• BUT little to no study on L1 and L2 peer reviewing to
help each other with their respective languages, a gap
this project intended to fill (exception: Hedderich,
1997)
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5. A brief overview of peer review
• Peer review success limited by failure to activate ZPD
(see Vygotsky, 1978).
• Litowitz (1993) explained the individual’s lack of
motivation or resistance to learning can be a hindrance in
activating the ZPD
• This model addresses this and is based on dual-language
bilingual education
• facilitates second language acquisition because it promotes
authentic, meaningful interactions among speakers of the two
languages. Because students in TWI programs are fluent
speakers of one of the two languages of instruction, proficient
language models are available in the classroom for both
groups of second language learners (Christian, Howard, &
Loeb 2000: 259).
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6. Situatedness of study & participants
• One of the top three • Group 1 (met twice):
universities in Chile. A state
funded, Catholic institution. • 2 U.S. students:
• Chilean students preparing Molly & Julie
to become English teachers.
During the study they were • 2 Chilean students:
in enrolled in the first Ubaldo & Mauricio
semester of a two-semester
composition sequence. • Group 2 (met once):
• U.S. exchange students • 2 U.S. students:
enrolled in a Spanish Jackie & Danny
composition class or in
another class with significant • 1 Chilean student:
amount of writing in Spanish. Andrea
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7. Situatedness of study
Student strike shut
down university for 5
weeks.
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8. Study design
• Texts:
• Groups met one or two times to peer review compositions that the U.S.
students had written in Spanish and the Chilean students had written in
English.
• Chilean students used learning logs, 2 page ungraded compositions
about something they learned recently
• US students brought papers on an aspect related to Chilean culture for
their first meetings, student strikes and high bread consumption, and
papers for their Latin American poetry class for the second meeting.
• Peer review:
• Students reported having done it before so no special training was given
• Feedback sheets and discussions concerning the Spanish papers were
in Spanish and discussions concerning the English papers were in
English.
• Data collected:
• recorded sessions, copied papers with comments, and student
interviews after project.
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9. Intercultural exchange
• Seeing an outside perspective:
• “I really like it because we are so used to be just Chilean, in
a Chilean environment, so you really don’t get much insight
about you being examined by someone else. It’s just like in
a language, you’re really aware of the rules underlying your
language, so it’s really refreshing, can I say that? When
someone comes here and says you Chileans eat too much
bread. Wow, bread, really, it’s something so usual for us,
we really don’t think about that.” – Andrea, group 2
• “The content of the first essay, concerning the strikes…she
was shocked about this thing, the demonstrations
everywhere, and people protesting in the streets…so that
essay was very interesting to see a foreign opinion about
these social issues..” –Mauricio, group 1
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10. Intercultural exchange (cont.)
• Exchange of ideas (2 perspectives):
• “What a great opportunity to have a native speaker…to meet
another Chilean to exchange ideas. It’s a great
opportunity.” – Jackie, group 2
• “I mean our communication was limited by our work, you are
studying to be a teacher, you are studying to be a
psychologist…so I think we should have, she should have
elaborated opinions about other things, rather than just our
work. They were straight to the point, we are doing an
investigation and that’s it. –Ubaldo, group 1
• Cultural word use:
• Discussion on the use of Chile-specific words like micro for
autobus led to an explanation of transportation in Chile.
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11. Intercultural exchange (cont.)
• Value of facilitated exchange:
• Several noted a barrier between Chilean students and U.S.
exchange students. Mauricio commented, “Sometimes its
very funny when we see a bunch of foreign students and
none of them sometimes take the time to talk with us about
our own culture…”
• Jackie explained that the organized peer review helped
break the awkwardness in meeting new Chileans saying:
“Not only to meet another Chilean, and you actually needed
it to exchange ideas and connect with a Chilean, it was a
great opportunity.”
• Julie was more pragmatic, saying that she needed help with
her papers but that it “is super awkward to ask a Chilean
that you don’t really know that well…” to read a paper.
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12. Shared understanding of the
difficulties of language learning
• In peer review sessions:
– “We have trouble with those also in Spanish.” – Molly,
during a discussion on false cognates in the Chilean
students’ English writing
– “We share the same error in this sense. Because of the
transfer between languages.” – Mauricio
• During interviews:
– “We got to discuss some different pitfalls that we deal with
as people learning each other’s languages…” – Molly
– “First I learned that we are not the only ones who have
problems writing in a foreign language.” – Mauricio
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13. Motivated by working with an
“expert” native speaker
• …”I felt I was more motivated to get their critique as well,
it’s like we’ve been given an opportunity to work with an
expert on what we need, whereas if they’re working with
fellow Chileans or if we’re working with fellow American
students, I kind of just, I’m not as excited about it because
there’s a chance that they don’t..they have the same level
of knowledge that I do” – Molly
• “I found her suggestions to be really helpful because it’s
one thing to go through it by yourself and try to translate
things or give it to another English speaking student but I
think the best way to learn is to sit down with a native
speaker and have them explain why we made this error or
why they made this correction. – Jackie
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14. Challenges
Potential to foster native speakerism (Holliday 2005)
U.S. students discussing Chilean students
• “I feel like I’m more willing to take everything they said
and say that this is how it probably should be because
they’ve grown up speaking this language and they know
when something sounds a little awkward…but another
foreign speaker like myself, doesn’t have that ear for the
language and can’t accomplish that” -Julie, group 1.
• “If they had been English speakers criticizing me, I
would also hesitate to change it right away” –Molly,
group 1
• “I think the best way to learn is to sit down with a native
speaker and have them explain why one made this error
or why they made this correction” –Jackie, group 2
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15. Challenges
Potential to foster native speakerism (Holliday 2005)
Chilean students discussing US students
• “it was a reliable source, I mean, we cannot correct them.
There’s no way they can be wrong. It was authentic.” –
Mauricio, group 1
• “It was quite interesting to give them feedback…to
foreigners, imagine that. Now we were the teachers, the
masters of the knowledge” –Ubaldo, group 1
• “the fact that we are nonnative speakers is really different,
because we still have enough problems tend to pollute
English with our Spanish and if we have to correct
someone else’s it’s even worse, because we have two
pollutions, theirs and ours” –Andrea, group 2
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16. Challenges
• Reluctance of professors to use graded compositions
• Scheduling times to meet outside of class
• Choice of paper topics affecting motivation
Mauricio: So that essay was very interesting to see a foreign
opinion about these social issues.
Ubaldo: But I mean the second time we were together, the
essay was so dense.
Mauricio: The essay was boring, be honest.
• Different expectations
• Ubaldo: Here, in Latin American cultures we have the
predisposition to go beyond the work. We can have this time
to get to know you better…Sometimes foreign students keep
to themselves to workUniversity of Texas at El Paso
© The on their studies, and that’s it.

17. Overall attitude was very positive
“I
think
everyone
would
benefit
“I’m
glad
to
have
par8cipated
from
it.
I
wish
everyone
had
the
here.
I
think
it
was
a
very
good
opportunity
to
do
something
like
idea.”
–
Mauricio
this.”
–
Jackie
“First
of
all,
prac8cing
my
English,
I
loved
that….I
can
get
some
“I
think
it’d
be
a
good
idea
to
feedback
on
my
wri8ng…and
I
had
do
it
on
a
big
scale
for
sure
a
good
8me,
they
were
a
nice
because
even
though
I’m
here
people.”
–
Andrea
in
Chile,
a
lot
of
8mes
I
feel
“I
think
if
were
more
like
I’m
burdening
my
family,
widely
known
about,
my
Chilean
family,
if
I’m
people
would
be
eager
to
asking
them
to
edit
5
or
6
page
get
involved
with
it”
–
papers…”
–
Molly
Julie
© The University of Texas at El Paso

18. Recommendations
• Create a cross-cultural or dual-language composition
course or link courses
• Some precedent in Matsuda and Silva (1999) and here at
UA.
• Things to consider
• An equal amount of people learning different languages
• Paper topics—writing about respective countries or other
cross-cultural experiences/issues
• Team-taught or link courses
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19. Future studies
• Should consider designing, implementing, and studying
dual-language cross-cultural peer review exchanges and
possibly two-way composition classrooms centered
around the process. Some questions:
– What challenges prevent or limit such programs/classes?
– How do these programs/classrooms foster cultural interaction?
– How can they avoid reinforcing the NS hierarchy?
– What is the most effective way to divide language use in dual
language peer review and classrooms?
– Do both groups of students benefit equally or does one group
benefit more?
– What should students’ writing focus on?
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20. References
Christian, Donna, Howard, Elizabeth R., and Loeb, Michael (2000). Bilingualism for all: Two-
way immersion education in the United States, Theory into Practice, 39(4), 258-266.
Deardorff, D. K. (Ed.) (2009). The SAGE handbook of intercultural competence. Los Angeles,
CA: SAGE.
Hedderich, Norbert (1997). Peer tutoring via electronic mail. Teaching German, 30(2),
141-147.
Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford:
Oxford UP.
Lacina, J.G. (2002). Preparing international students for a successful social experience in
higher education. New Directions for Higher Education, 117, 21-27.
Litowitz, B. E. (1993). Deconstruction in the zone of proximal development. In E. Forman, N.
Minick, & C. A. Stone (Eds.), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children’s
development (pp. 184-196). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Marginson, S. (2007). Global position and position taking. Journal of Studies in International
Education, 11(1), 5-32.
Matsuda, P.K & Silva, T. (1999). Cross-cultural composition: Mediated integration of U.S. and
international students. Composition Studies, 27(1), 15-30.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
© The University of Texas at El Paso

21. Thank you!
If you would like to dialogue more about
these issues, please email me at
tcruecker@miners.utep.edu
If you would like to read more about my
research on the US-Mexico border and
download this presentation, please visit
my website at toddruecker.com
© The University of Texas at El Paso