Culture, Competence, and Composition

In order to support student outcomes that demonstrate the effects of Middlebury’s endeavor to effectively link the learning of language with a deeper understanding of the host culture, the portfolio is constructed to help students engage in effective immersion and to turn their experience abroad into experiential learning that leads to a deeper understanding of both their own and the host culture. In order to turn their experience into experiential learning, students are asked to reflect upon their experience in a focused, analytical, self-critical manner, while the portfolio documents both the process of engaging in continued self-reflective analysis and the result of that process. The ultimate goal, however, is not just to help students acquire an increased knowledge of specific features of a specific host culture, but also to enhance their intercultural communicative competence (definition and approach based on work of Michael Byram) that will allow them to successfully negotiate cultural differences in general. This competence comprises the ability to

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Sponsored by

Middlebury C.V. Starr School in Germany

PROGRAM FEATURES

Education Abroad Program Name	Middlebury C.V. Starr School in Germany
Level	Undergraduate, Graduate
Number of Credits for Course	1 Middlebury credit (or 3 credits at a typical university)
Number of Credits for Education Abroad Program	4-5 per semester
Does this course carry major/minor credit? Elective credit?	1 Credit for ‘German’
Typical Enrollment	10-20
Language of Instruction	German
Duration	Semester
Time Spent On-Site	Semester
Last Taught	Spring 2013
How many times has this course been taught?	2
Curriculum Strong Points/Innovations	Course assignments in part deal with students real-life experiences in the host culture and their way of negotiating cultural differences; it therefore comprises the total experience a student has in that study abroad program (all other courses are taken at local university, mainstream courses/direct enrollment)
Level	Undergraduate
Language of Instruction	English
Duration	Semester
Time Spent On-Site	Semester
Typical Enrollment	12
Required Courses	One theme course (“Exclusion & Exploitation: Marginal People of the Mekong” in Thailand, Issues in Peacebuilding, Genocide & Reconciliation” in Rwanda) One course on the history and religion of the context One course on the Local Literature or the Cultural Arts One course on the Social Context of Community development One four-week cross-cultural field Practicum
Elective Courses	Supplemental courses offered in second semester.
Elective Courses	Intensive Japanese language course during orientation, 45 hours. Non-credit bearing, but students take the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview at the end of the summer and may use their score to test out of lower level language classes at their home university Introduction to Nanotechnology Seminar, 12 hours, non-credit bearing. Taught by expert researchers from the U.S. and Japan during orientation program. Introduction to Japanese Culture & Society Seminars, 12 hours, non-credit bearing. Taught by expert guest speakers from Japan and combining company site visits, cultural visits, and experiential learning activities in and around Tokyo.

 

FACULTY LEADER BIO

Heike FahrenbergAffiliation: Middlebury College
Associate Professor of Middlebury College and Director of the School in Germany since August 2000. PhD in American Studies Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, May 2006; Staatsexamen (Teachers’ State Exam) in American and English Studies Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 1998; M.A. (German Philology, American and English Studies) Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 1997. Vocational Training as laboratory assistant with major focus on Biology at Hoechst AG 1990. After she had worked and studied at Middlebury College as the teaching assistant in the German Department (1994-95) Heike Fahrenberg was awarded a one-year position as lecturer in the English Department at UC Davis (1998-1999). Afterwards, she worked as assistant lecturer in the American Studies Department at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität (1999-2000). She continued to teach one course on American Culture (language, literature and history) till 2009. After the publication of her dissertation (Framing and Reframing the Ladies: Viewing Attitudes in Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady and its Cinematic Counterpart’), her research interests have focused on the practice and theory of Study-Abroad program design in general and on the teaching and assessing of Intercultural Communicative Competence (based on M. Byram’s work) specifically.

About the course

This competence comprises the ability to:
•differentiate between observation, interpretation, and evaluation in theory and practice
•be aware of how your own culturally defined frame of mind affects your judgment
•postpone that judgment and re-engage in further observation
•decenter and take the other person’s point of view
•identify a conflict / critical incident as based on a difference in culture between the parties involved in this conflict
•to solve this conflict via adequate communication •to appreciate cultural differences without necessarily having to embrace or condemn elements of your own or the other culture
•transfer what you have learned by exposure to your host culture in very specific situations to dealing with cultural differences in general
•ability to apply the principles of what you have learned to new situations you haven’t yet encountered.
The Portfolio consists of an Analytical Notebook, argumentative, analytical and creative writing tasks, and semester specific tasks that ask students to apply methods of cultural analysis and critical-incident negotiation into practice.

What inspired you to create this course?
I wanted to document what students learn in addition to academic class content when they study in a program designed to provide effective immersion. Being convinced that critical thinking and reflection are at the heart of one’s ability to negotiate cultural difference, and being furthermore convinced that having to put your thoughts on paper causes you to practice both reflective/critical thinking and writing skills, I designed the course to document developments of both skills, especially because they depend on each other to some extent.

What are the goals for this course?
Students increase their factual knowledge of various dimensions of ‘culture’ in general and the multiple layers and complexities of the host culture specifically. Which specific area(s) a student wants to explore outside of the classroom may depend on personal interests Students can apply the terminology and method linked to cultural analysis, intercultural exploration and learning to their own experience abroad. Students document their own increasing ability to apply the terminology to their own experience, to reflect on their experience, and to put their observations and reflections into writing that adequately reflects their learning progress. Students reach a level of cultural understanding and competence that allows them to apply what they have learned to the observation and reinterpretation of phenomena they had not yet observed either in their own or their current/future host culture. Students have acquired the intercultural communicative competence that enables them to initiate and maintain meaningful relationships with people from the host culture because they can recognize and respect cultural differences and value systems without necessarily embracing, adopting, or opposing and condemning elements of their own or the other culture.

How does the course taught abroad contribute to the curricular goals of the home department?
Students go abroad to improve their language skills in both spoken and written German, to study German culture and to learn how to negotiate cultural differences. These are learning goals tied both to Middlebury’s institutional goals as much as to the learning goals of Middlebury’s German Department.

What challenges have you encountered in designing a course to be taught abroad?
None that I would attribute to the fact that it’s taught ‘abroad,’ because, from the point of view of the home institution, I’m ‘abroad’ myself.

How has the course developed over time, and why?
Writing assignments changed – I replaced one main creative writing assignment by a thesis-driven essay because I wanted to put more emphasis on the type of writing students have to do for their mainstream courses at the university.

Do you believe that it is feasible to incorporate cultural learning into content courses abroad? If so, then how?
This would depend on how you define ‘cultural’ learning. I’m teaching another course before the semester starts called ‘Berlin as history’ – and students cannot but note the difference between German and American ways of presenting and remembering ‘history.’ In short: it depends on the definition of culture you’re working with and which definition of ‘culture’ would work in a given course.

Did you consult any resources on education abroad that were particularly helpful in designing this course?
Countless articles in Frontiers; Publications of the SIT, Wagner and Magistrale’s book on Writing and Study Abroad; Byram’s Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Competence (1997); I’d have to send you the bibliography, really.

Please describe your education abroad teaching style and philosophy.
My goal is to provide students with tools/techniques they need to successfully organize and happily live their lives while abroad. Whatever I do is focused on teaching them how to become more and more independent from my input and support, to equip them with the ability to pursue their own interests, private as much as academic and, of course, to do it all in the target language while interacting with native speakers of their host culture on an everyday basis.

How do you contextualize and debrief experiential learning?
The whole course is dedicated to that process. The longer I worked with students abroad, the more obvious it became that the sooner they could contextualize their experience, the sooner they got out of culture shock. Differences they found horrible turned into things that were just different and could be seen from a different angle. This in turn lowered their stress-levels and enabled them to face the next ‘challenge’ from a stabilized point of view. That’s why the course puts so much emphasis on reflections and the practical resolution of cultural conflicts and/or critical incidents.

How do you assess student learning in this course? Are there any assessment methods that are particular to study abroad?
I use rubric sheets I share with the students. For their Analytical Notebooks, only the level of deep description and reflective/critical analysis counts. For writing tasks, that level is considered in conjunction with the quality of the writing sample.

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