Teaching Intercultural Communication in Foreign Language Education through Video Conferencing

Since 1980s, Western linguists and specialists on second language acquisition have emphasized the importance of enhancing students’ intercultural communication competence in foreign language education. At the same time, the demand for intercultural communicative competence increased along with the advances of communication technology with its increasingly global reach and the process of globalization itself.In the field of distance language education, these changes have resulted in a shift of focus from the production and distribution of learning materials towards communication and learning as a social process, facilitated by various internet-based platforms. The current focus on learners interacting and communicating synchronously trough videoconferencing is known as the fourth generation of distance language education. Despite the fact that teaching of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) faces the same or even greater challenges as teaching other languages, the intercultural communication perspective is still quite a new trend in CFL and its implementation and evaluation are still under development. Moreover, the advocates of the new trends in CFL have so far focused almost exclusively on classroom-based courses, neglecting the distance mode of CFL and leaving it as an open field for others to explore. In this under-researched context, Dalarna University (Sweden), where I currently work, started to provide web-based courses of the Chinese language in 2007. Since 2010, the Chinese language courses have been available only in the distance form, using the same teaching materials as the previous campus-based courses. The textbooks used in both settings basically followed the functional nationalism approach. However, in order to catch up with the main trend of foreign-language education, we felt a need to implement the cross-cultural dimension into the distance courses as well. Therefore in 2010, a pilot study has been carried out to explore opportunities and challenges for implementing a cross-cultural perspective into existing courses and evaluating the effectiveness of this implementation based on the feedback of the students and on the experience of the teacher/researcher.

An analysis of linkage between foreign direct investment and GDP per Capita in Pakistan : A time series analysis

This study aims to investigate the relation between foreign direct investment (FDI) and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in Pakistan. The study is based on a basic Cobb-Douglas production function. Population over age 15 to 64 is used as a proxy for labor in the investigation. The other variables used are gross capital formation, technological gap and a dummy variable measuring among other things political stability. We find positive correlation between GDP per capita in Pakistan and two variables, FDI and population over age 15 to 64. The GDP gap (gap between GDP of USA and GDP of Pakistan) is negatively correlated with GDP per capita as expected. Political instability, economic crisis, wars and polarization in the society have no significant impact on GDP per capita in the long run.

Factors that Motivate Pupils in Grades 4-6 in Sweden to Speak English as a Foreign Language

This is an empirical study about factors that motivate pupils to speak English as a foreign language. The aim of this study is to investigate when pupils in the classroom situation, in Grades 4-6 in a school in Sweden, are motivated to speak English as a foreign language, and why they are motivated to speak English in these situations. To implement this study, questionnaires and interviews have been chosen as methods. 51 pupils in Grades 4-6 took part of the study. Since being able to communicate orally in a foreign language is of great advantage for one, and creates opportunities both for work and for study abroad, it is important for pupils to learn how to communicate orally in English. It is important to be able to use the language. In the English curriculum in Swedish schools, speaking English is a skill pupils must possess. Since this is the requirement it is important that teachers in Sweden relate to this. Many pupils do not like to speak in front of the rest of the class and some pupils only like to speak in informal situations. Therefore, teachers must use various strategies to create a willingness to communicate among pupils and various strategies to motivate them to speak English. The results show that pupils are motivated to use the language in class when they have recently been abroad. It also shows that they are motivated when they can decide the topic and speak about something they are interested in.

Machine Translation and the Disruption of Foreign Language Learning Activities

This study examines the question of how language teachers in a highly technologyfriendly university environment view machine translation and the implications that this has for the personal learning environments of students. It brings an activity-theory perspective to the question, examining the ways that the introduction of new tools can disrupt the relationship between different elements in an activity system. This perspective opens up for an investigation of the ways that new tools have the potential to fundamentally alter traditional learning activities. In questionnaires and group discussions, respondents showed general agreement that although use of machine translation by students could be considered cheating, students are bound to use it anyway, and suggested that teachers focus on the kinds of skills students would need when using machine translation and design assignments and exams to practice and assess these skills. The results of the empirical study are used to reflect upon questions of what the roles of teachers and students are in a context where many of the skills that a person needs to be able to interact in a foreign language increasingly can be outsourced to laptops and smartphones.

What Culture? : Cultural representations in English as a foreign language textbooks

Teaching the cultural aspect of foreign language education is a complex and sometimes difficult task, especially since English has become an international language used in different settings and contexts throughout the world. Building on the idea that the spread of the English language and its international status in the world has made English an important school subject to develop students’ cross-cultural and intercultural awareness, this paper has studied what research reveals about the influence this has had on cultural representations in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks. Findings from a systematic literature review that analyzed four different international studies on the topic are presented. The study showed that EFL textbooks often present stereotypical and overgeneralized representations of culture and that the cultural aspect of EFL education is not adequately addressed since focus tends to lean towards language proficiency. Results also indicated that though steps are made to include cultural representations from different international contexts, the target culture of countries where English is the first language remains dominant in EFL textbooks. The findings are discussed in correlation with the Swedish national curriculum and syllabus.

Can France really stop them? : A study grounded on the realist perspective about the French foreign policy towards Syria as the root cause of the Phenomenon of French Foreign Fighters

During the Syrian conflict the number of European Foreign Fighters has increased exponentially and has become an ever-growing concern for European policymakers. This phenomenon presents host of major security challenges for European policymakers and governments. Among European countries, France provides the highest number of citizens who have gone to Syria to fight against Assad´s regime. The French authorities have estimated that by mid-2014, over 700 French citizens have left France and travelled to Syria to fight. Historically France has had a relationship with Syria which started with its role as a border-drawing colonial power. Grounded in a framework of realism, that emphasizes nation-states as the primary actor within the international system, the analysis concentrates on the role of France´s foreign policy on the Syria as push factor for terrorism and radicalization. This paper attempts to determinate a specific correlation between the policy that France has been conducting towards Syria between 2000 and 2015, and the phenomenon of French Foreign Fighters. Findings suggest that France´s foreign policy towards Syria is the main root cause of the French Foreign Fighters phenomenon.

Machine translation and the disruption of foreign language learning activities

This study examines the question of how language teachers in a highly technology-friendly university environment view machine translation and the implications that this has for the personal learning environments of students. It brings an activity-theory perspective to the question, examining the ways that the introduction of new tools can disrupt the relationship between different elements in an activity system. This perspective opens up for an investigation of the ways that new tools have the potential to fundamentally alter traditional learning activities. In questionnaires and group discussions, respondents showed general agreement that although use of machine translation by students could be considered cheating, students are bound to use it anyway, and suggested that teachers focus on the kinds of skills students would need when using machine translation and design assignments and exams to practice and assess these skills. The results of the empirical study are used to reflect upon questions of what the roles of teachers and students are in a context where many of the skills that a person needs to be able to interact in a foreign language increasingly can be outsourced to laptops and smartphones.

Enhancing Intercultural Communication in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language : An Action Research Study

Enhancing Intercultural Communication in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language – An Action Research Study Over the past few decades, the rapid development of information communication technology, internationalization and globalization worldwide have required a shift in the focus of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) towards competence in intercultural communication in which the role of culture in the acquisition of CFL and in the pragmatic use of the language is emphasized and promoted. However, most of the current research in this academic area remains only on a theoretical level. Practical examples, particularly with regard to distance learning/teaching of the Chinese language, are very limited. This motivated the implementation of an action research study which aimed at exploring the possibilities and limitations of integrating Chinese culture and applying intercultural communication theory into a contemporary distance CFL course for beginners. By observing and comparing the performance of subjects in the control and experimental groups, this action research study focuses on exploring three basic areas. Firstly, it discloses the cultural elements which underlie effective daily communication. Secondly, it investigates how students acquire cultural knowledge and develop their ability to competently communicate in the target course. And thirdly, it evaluates how the modified course syllabus could enhance students’ intercultural communicative competence. The findings of the research aim to serve as both a resource and reference for educators and researchers who are interested in carrying out reforms and research in this academic domain.

March 2007: United States Foreign Relations

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Foreign investiment and convergence

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Foreign direct investment spillovers in Portugal: additional lessons from a country study

This paper investigates the impact of FDI on the productivity of Portuguese manufacturing sectors. Model specification is improved by considering the choice of the most appropriate interval of the technological gap for spillovers diffusion. We also allow for sectoral variation in the coefficients of the spillover effect; idiosyncratic sectoral factors are identified by means of a fixed effects model. Inter-sectoral positive spillover effects are examined. Significant spillovers require a proper technological differential between foreign and domestic producers and favourable sectoral characteristics. They may occur in modern industries in which the foreign firms have a clear, but not too sharp, edge on the domestic ones. Agglomeration effects are also one pertinent specific influence.

Capital structure choice of foreign subsidiaries: evidence from multinationals in Brazil

Is the capital structure choice of a foreign subsidiary different from the choice of a comparable company controlled by nationals? If so, what are the differences? In this paper we shed some light on these questions by looking at a sample of foreign subsidiaries in Brazil over the period 1985 to 1994. We find that the foreign subsidiaries in our sample are more levered than their Brazilian counterparts. This difference, however, has declined over time. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that foreign subsidiaries increase leverage as a hedge against an expropriation of assets in a nationalization process.

Economic growth with foreign saving?

Highly indebted countries, particularly the Latin American ones, presented dismal economic outcomes in the 1990s, which are the consequence of the ‘growth cum foreign savings strategy’, or the Second Washington Consensus. Coupled with liberalization of international financial flows, such strategy, which did not make part of the first consensus, led the countries, in the wave of a new world wide capital flow cycle, to high current account deficits and increase in foreign debt, ignoring the solvency constraint and the debt threshold. In practical terms it involved overvalued currencies (low exchange rates) and high interest rates; in policy terms, the attempt to control de budget deficit while the current account deficit was ignored. The paradoxical consequence was the adoption by highly indebted countries of ‘exchange rate populism’, a less obvious but more dangerous form of economic populism.