Language Centres at a Crossroads

The internationalization of universities creates opportunities for domestic students to interact with their international peers. However, there are only few occasions in which international students and home students communicate in a meaningful manner, despite taking the same courses. Studies on foreigner talk (Hatch, 1978; Long, 1981) and asymmetrical dialogues (Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986), show that asymmetry of language proficiency and its subsequent audience design lead to significant changes on interlanguage and state of knowledge. Despite these benefits, more proficient students are reluctant to collaborate with less fluent students, one of the reasons being that simplification of the language is perceived as a non-academic feature. Furthermore, students who are not confident with their language skills tend to take a more passive role in the discussion and play the role of a learner rather than that of a collaborator. In Multi-Cultural Workshops we try to rebalance the group dynamics thus encouraging meaningful and contextualised communication by allowing translanguaging and code-switching for activities such as the paper tower building challenge. These workshops are compulsory for all freshmen and last 90 minutes. They are split into two parts. During the first 45 minutes, students listen to a lecture on sociology or psychology in a large amphitheatre. During the last 45 minutes, students are split into classes of 30 students, then into smaller groups to perform a task as they are supervised by specifically trained older students, referred to as peer-leaders. The learning outcomes are collaboration and other transferable soft skills as well as fluency in the target language through the lowering of the affective filter (Krashen, 1982). Techniques that lecturers can use to facilitate the recalibration of the group dynamics will be presented and students' reservations will be discussed during the presentation.

La plupart des étudiants décident de faire leurs études à l'étranger afin de s'améliorer en anglais notamment. Cependant la communication entre étudiants nationaux et étrangers ne passe pas facilement à cause des écarts des niveaux de langue et l'absence de véritables occasions d'échanger. En effet lorsqu'on parle une langue couramment, il peut être fatiguant de s'adapter à son interlocuteur. Inversement si on doit vraiment se concentrer pour comprendre ce que son interlocuteur dit, cela devient très vite décourageant. De plus, des relations hiérarchiques se créent dans les dyades, ce qui est d'autant plus vrai au Japon. Malheureusement, la raison pour laquelle le dialogue avait été initié est très vite oubliée. Pour éviter cet écueil, APU, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, a mis en place des ateliers de collaborations multiculturelles pendant lesquels les étudiants sont libres de s'exprimer dans la langue qu'ils préfèrent (anglais ou japonais). Le but de cette présentation est de partager nos expériences pour créer les conditions idéales pour un véritable échange entre étudiants internationaux et locaux.

References:

• Clark, H., & Wilkes-Gibbs, D. (1986). Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition, 1-39
• Hatch, E. M. (1978). Discourse analysis and second language acquisition. In E. M. Hatch, Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
• Horton, W. S., & Gerrig, R. J. (2002). Speakers' experiences and audience design: Knowing whenand knowing how to adjust utterances to addresses. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 589-606.
• Krashen, S. (1982). Principle and practice in second language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Long, M. H. (1981). Question in foreigner talk discourse. Language Learning, 31(1), 135–157. doi:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1981.tb01376.x

Once Sophie got into higher education, she never wanted to leave. She has been roaming corridors of tertiary institutions all over the world for the past 20 years either as a student, or a lecturer, and sometimes both. Her background is in psychology, linguistics and communication. Sophie is particularly interested in how to achieve successful communication between speakers of different cognitive abilities and language proficiencies, as well as its impact on language learning, and academic skills. She is currently working at APU-Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan as an English and French lecturer.