As the number of international students in U.S. universities has increased since 2010, so has the number intercultural communication programs that aim to bring U.S. and international students together. At the TESOL 2016 convention, I attended three sessions related to models of intercultural communication programs that brought together domestic and international students at U.S. universities. These programs were extracurricular and recruited interested and enthusiastic domestic students to participate in loosely structured cross-cultural conversations on topics like food, family, fashion, sports, and other surface-level cultural knowledge.

Though there is certainly a need for programs like these in universities, such programs do not adequately engage students in the deep levels of exploration into cultural self-awareness and intercultural communication that is necessary to experience transformational learning. Indeed, many universities have now included in their mission statements language that articulates a vision of graduates who are “global citizens” or who have “global awareness.” How do universities intend to meet such goals when U.S. students report that they “rarely” interact with peers from other countries on campus? (Glass, Buus, & Braskamp, 2013, p. 6).

In addition, intercultural communication programs and partnerships must continually modify and adapt as enrollment and student populations change. As the partnerships coordinator of our Intensive English Program (IEP), I have coordinated different models of an intercultural communication program at the University of Dayton since 2013. Prior to 2013, we hosted a program called Conversation Groups, which was open to the entire campus community and was extracurricular for IEP students. From 2011 to 2013, as our average IEP student enrollment increased from 150 to 350 students per term, we had plenty of IEP students who attended, but we lacked a steady presence of degree-seeking domestic students.

In 2013, with an average IEP student enrollment of about 430 students per term, the IEP began partnering with the Department of Teacher Education to bring teacher education students into Conversation Groups to fulfill field experience hours for a required teacher education course. Doing so provided that steady presence of degree-seeking students. However, new challenges emerged. In general, we found that making the program curricular for only one population resulted in surface-level discussions about culture that didn’t approximate the relationship building that was necessary for developing intercultural competence. IEP students would come to the groups when it was convenient to them, arriving late and interrupting groups or leaving early, which was sometimes interpreted as a sign of disrespect. This uneven level of commitment to the program didn’t build the mutual respect and trust that was necessary for students to feel that they could ask questions without being misconstrued as offensive. In fact, the fear of being offensive was a constant concern that teacher education students voiced in the orientation sessions that I’ve conducted over the years.

In 2015, with an average IEP student enrollment of about 200 students per term, we decided to try to implement a model that required more commitment from IEP students in order to participate. We gave the program a new name (iLEAD, for International Language Exchange and Dialogue), and we marketed it to incoming IEP students. We required them to apply. We didn’t take everyone. We selected students in upper levels with a good record of attendance. IEP students would commit to attending eleven 1-hour weekly sessions of iLEAD, including two sessions that would occur during the midterm break between two 8-week IEP terms. (The University of Dayton’s academic calendar covers two 16-week semesters in the same time that the IEP covers four 8-week terms). If a student missed two sessions of iLEAD, we said we would drop that student from the program (we actually didn’t). Our rationale for these stipulations was that they would lead to more commitment among our IEP students.

Well, they kind of did.

The truth of the matter was that when an IEP term ended and a new one began, there were inevitably changes in students’ schedules and commitment. We lost students. Sometimes, we pulled in waitlisted students in the middle of the term. When we tried to hold sessions during IEP students’ midterm break between IEP terms, most IEP students didn’t come. This demotivated the teacher education students who went 2 weeks without much of an IEP student presence. It was difficult to reestablish authentic enthusiasm among the students during the second half of the university semester after 2 weeks of pervasive IEP student absences.

In addition, IEP teachers and administrators alike requested that we still have a drop-in model that was available to all students, including the low-level students who needed the authentic language exposure in an inclusive, low-anxiety setting. To respond to these needs, members of our Activities Committee brainstormed, organized, and implemented weekly activities, including occasional open drop-in Conversation Groups. At the end of the year, one of our instructors became the activities coordinator. With her guidance and enthusiasm, we replaced Conversation Groups with the wildly successful Global Game Night, a drop-in activity that is open to the campus community and all IEP students.

The iLEAD program underwent a similar evolution in responding to the changing needs of participants. In 2016, our average IEP student enrollment per term dropped to 100 students, mirroring overall national IEP student enrollment trends as reported by the Open Doors 2016 Report (Institute of International Education, 2016). Now, we didn’t have enough students to recruit for the program. Now, it seemed, we might need to require students to attend.

But how?

After some discussions about session goals, content, and student learning outcomes, our administration approved moving iLEAD into our Academic Success 1 course. iLEAD content would lead students through a series of activities and conversations that aligned with Deardorff’s (2006) Process Model of Intercultural Competence. We adapted the content for these activities from published intercultural communication resources to meet the needs of our populations (Berardo & Deardorff, 2012).

Our current iLEAD program is a structured, six-session model that can be implemented from beginning to end in each of our 8-week IEP terms (Tjaden-Glass, 2017). It is also curricular for both IEP and teacher education students, which helps balance student investment in the program. Session objectives build toward student learning outcomes for both populations while also supporting both program and university missions. In addition, each session builds intercultural competence objectives, as defined by Deardorff (2006). Here is a brief summary of the program and its intercultural competence objectives:

Orientation
Objective: Establish session expectations and gauge students’ experience and attitudes toward intercultural communication

Session 1: Identity Tags
Objective: Build students’ knowledge of cultural self-awareness

Session 2: Values Continuum
Objective: Build students’ knowledge of cultural self-awareness and culture-specific information

Session 3: Description-Interpretation-Evaluation Activity
Objective: Build students’ skills of observing, listening, interpreting, and evaluating

Session 4: Tower of Babel
Objective: Build students’ skills of observing, listening, and interpreting, as well as their sociolinguistic awareness

Session 5: Exploring Issues (Choice A)
Objective: Build students’ skills of listening, interpreting, and relating

Session 5: Critical Incidents (Choice B)
Objective: Build students’ skills of observing, listening, interpreting, and relating

Session 6: Party
Purpose: Develop camaraderie

In addition to the activities that guide each session, there is also time for students to go off-script and talk about the surface-level cultural knowledge that interests them, especially during the first session when students are already talking about themselves.

It is important to mention that in addition to adjusting for changes in enrollment and student populations, materials and activities must respond to the particular needs of student participants. Materials that are suitable for students who demonstrate attitudes similar to those expressed in the minimization stage of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity are not suitable for students who function in the defense stage. This requires intentional and ongoing design and assessment to ensure the responsiveness and validity of the activities and materials that lead students through intercultural communication experiences.

Our IEP students often mention iLEAD in their course evaluations and the annual program evaluation as one of the key highlights of their experiences in IEP. It doesn’t cost the program much beyond the time and effort to make it happen. It increases our students’ self-confidence. It helps teacher education students to recognize their own culture and to value difference instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. In fact, for many teacher education students who have belonged to the dominant cultural group, seeing themselves as cultural beings is a new experience (Nieto & Bode, 2008, p. 75). Finally, this program brings together domestic and international students on campus in an authentic and meaningful exploration of cultural identity.

Intercultural communication programs will remain challenging to implement in the future. What is needed is an investment from key stakeholders to remain committed to the goals of bringing students together to build intercultural competence and a stronger sense of community on campus while still being flexible in how that vision is implemented and achieved.

References

Berardo, K., & Deardorff, D. (2012.) Building cultural competence: Innovative activities and models. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Deardorff, D. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10, 241–266.

Glass, C., Buus, S., & Braskamp, L. (2013). Uneven experiences: What’s missing and what matters for today’s international students. Chicago, IL: Global Perspectives Institute. Retrieved from http://www.gpi.hs.iastate.edu/documents/Report-on-International-Students.pdf

Institute of International Education. (2016). Open Doors 2016 Report. Retrieved from https://www.iie.org/en/Research-and-Insights/Open-
Doors/Open-Doors-2016-Media-Information.

Nieto, S., & Bode, P. (2008). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Tjaden-Glass, S. (2017). A handbook and materials for iLEAD: An intercultural communication program between intensive English program students and teacher education students. University of Dayton eCommons. Retrieved from http://ecommons.udayton.edu/cip_pub/3/

Sharon Tjaden-Glass is the partnerships coordinator for the Intensive English Program (IEP) at the University of Dayton. She coordinates partnerships and course collaborations that bring together IEP and degree-seeking students to engage in meaningful dialogue or mutually beneficial course projects.