Intercultural Communication REFLECTION Week 11

Discussion Point 1 In small groups, discuss and make notes on the following questions below: How  would you measure a person’s intercultural competence? Should intercultural competence be measured? If so, what are the implications for those deemed interculturally incompetent?   What makes an ideal intercultural classroom?  Point 3: Some points regarding the current situation in an intercultural classroom: Students don’t often make eye contact with the teacher Students very often call the teacher ‘Professor’ or ‘Sir/Madame’. Some students don’t participate much in the class Students can often make comments that don’t seem relevant to the class topic

What is Intercultural Competence and how can it be measured? Cross-culturally competent persons are those who can interact effectively and appropriately with people who have multilevel cultural identities (Chen and Starosta, 1996). Knowledge of others; knowledge of self; skills to interpret and relate; skills to discover and/or to interact; valuing others’ values, beliefs, and behaviours; and relativizing one’s self. Scholars have wrestled during the search to define intercultural competence and to what extent it should or shouldn’t be measured

References wikipedia.org (2012) Ethnocentrism. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism [Accessed 13th July, 2012]