Sharing communicative responsibility: training US students in cooperative strategies for communicating across linguistic difference

Abstract

The internationalization of Anglophone universities could allow English-dominant students to benefit from experience with English speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds, but US students have often complained of difficulty communicating with such instructors, especially International Teaching Assistants (ITAs). Research has largely focused on helping ITAs assimilate linguistically and culturally, although many applied linguists suggest that ITAs’ students would also benefit from training in skills for communication across linguistic difference, through attention to their language attitudes, familiarity with diverse Englishes, and communication strategies. We report on an intervention designed to address all three, here focusing on students’ willingness to engage in collaborative communication strategies. The intervention, conducted in a computer science department and reaching over 300 first-year students from varied linguistic backgrounds, included an online and an in-class component, each lasting about an hour. This brief intervention resulted in small but significant gains in domestic undergraduates’ (n = 174) stated intention to engage in collaborative behavior with their ITAs, although our detailed examination of qualitative responses suggests important areas for continued improvement of the intervention. We discuss the potential for such interventions to facilitate institutional and cultural change, encouraging the recognition of the shared responsibility for successful communication.

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