A classroom as a “third space”
the perceptions of newly-appointed
graduate student teachers (GSTs) about
academic language teaching and learning
the effect of intercultural competence and
learning experience on their perceptions
and teaching practices
coined by Home K. Bhabha (1994)
challenges the judgmental, polarized views of
the “us versus them”
“Rather than stereotyping and making
assumptions about how the ‘other’ should
act, the ‘thirdspace’ allows each to search for
an understanding of the world of the ‘other’ ”
(Benzie, 2005, p. 5)
not a “unitary, stable, permanent and
homogeneous” place, but a place that is
“multiple, always subject to change and to
the tensions and even conflicts that come
from being in between” (Weedon, 1987, cited in
Kramsch, 2009, p. 238).
The benefit and value of third space concept
(e.g., Benzie, 2005; Bretag, 2006; Dooley, 2011; DeMont, 2010;
Forasiepi, 2011).
A classroom as a “third space” (e.g. DeMont, 2010;
Forasiepi, 2011) where newly appointed graduate
student teachers (GSTs):
 share their perceptions of educational issues
 co-construct more global views
 shape new identities for themselves through
interacting with each other
 engage in reflection of what they believe
about academic language teaching/learning
and how their beliefs affect their teaching
practice
 East Asian Language Pedagogy (EALC560), fall 2012
(required; once a week for two hours and half; fifteen weeks)
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9 newly-appointed GSTs
6 Chinese, 1 Taiwanese, 1 Japanese
7 female, 2 male
linguistics, pedagogy, TESL, music
3 in the U.S. for less than three months
2 taught Chinese at an university in the U.S.
A questionnaire
Weekly posts on the discussion forum
Three reflexive logs
The results of Intercultural Development
Inventory (IDI v3)
Supplementary data:
 class observation reports
 Lesson plans
 Teaching Portfolio
Mitchell R. Hammer, Ph.D.
http://www.idiinventory.com/
Perceived Orientation (PO)
Developmental Orientation (DO)
6 Minimization
 cultural commonalities & universal values
 deeper recognition and appreciation of cultural
difference
2 Polarization
 judgmental; “us” vs. “them”
 Defense: an overly critical view toward other
cultural values and practices
 Reversal: an overly critical view toward one’s
own cultural values and practices
 1 Denial
 recognize observable cultural differences but
not deeper cultural differences
 avoid or withdraw from cultural differences
(Hammer, 2008)
more monocultural
ethnocentric
uncertain/unfamiliar
unresolved
frustrations, fears, struggles
more global
intercultural
certain/familiar
opening new alternatives (Soja, 1996)
generating new knowledge & understandings (Benzie, 2005)
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1st year MA
Chinese linguistics
China
1~2 years of living in the States
taught Chinese at a U.S. university
Elementary Chinese I
The result of IDI
 Perceived Orientation: Acceptance
 Developmental Orientation: Denial
 Trained and taught under an Audiolingual
method
 A small class size
 Used teaching strategies that have worked
well for her in the past
 likely work well with students from her own
cultural background but may not be as
effective with students whose learning
approach is culturally different
 Use of technology
 Use of visual aids
… Technology takes time. Showing something on PPT
takes one second for changing one slide; recalling what
you plan to teach by this slide takes another two
seconds and explaining briefly what this slide is being
about takes at least five more seconds. If the teacher
prepares 20 slides for a class, three minutes or so will
be spent on introducing technological information. For
students, the visual and audio aid may be helpful but
still takes time for them to process the new stimulus.
Also students’ reaction to technological info might
detour their attention from language info…..
As I have been introduced more teaching
approaches and methods in pedagogy, my mind is
becoming opener than before to view technology
issue. It is not necessary a waste of time if the
instructor is fully aware of what she is doing and
doing it efficiently enough…..Nowadays, I feel more
obliged to accept technology in order to fit the
trends that more textbooks and Chinese courses are
designed for contextual approach….. after fiveyear's learning from and practicing audiolingual
school, I am proud to say that I am changing, to
adapt and to survive.
I agree with what you say about the change. I
myself am very used to the old school ways of
teaching because that was how I was taught. Yet
today's students obviously want more than that,
and they will easily get bored if we still stick to the
old school. I, therefore, try to incorporate
technological and visual aids in my teaching to
adapt and to survive. In a large sense, we should
always be open to change--willing to try and
adapt and find what works best for us…
Thank you, Dan, for your comments and agreement.
I used to believe that there always exists one
approach working better than all the others for the
interest of the final product of a language class.
Forgive me my tenacity please because I still believe
so. The reason I am changing strategy in our
Chinese class is that what I have been doing does
not serve well our current textbook. There will be
an obvious unintegration between contents and
method. Since we are not picking our own
textbooks and designing our own syllabus, the best
solution would be adapting ourselves old tricks to
better serve the books.
Observing Kim’s class
The most impressive part to me was the
group activity. I did not usually engage
students in free conversation in pairs.
However, Kim was pretty familiar with this
approach and the outcome was surprisingly
good..... Students come up with a variety of
marvelous expressions simply combining the
couple of grammar patterns we have learned.
Some of their expression conveyed a
complicated meaning. They were more
creative than me!
 Annotated bibliography on the paper that
challenges audiolingualism (i.e. how to
incorporate context into a drill-based class)
“As potential language educators, we should
always bear with the awareness of these
unsolved problems and contribute our
intellects to conquer these issues when it is
the moment we have to introduce these ABCs
to our students.”
 Interaction and self-reflection deepen
learning.
 Claiming common ground
 Sharing intimate information and mutual
understanding
 A teaching methods class can become
more effective and supportive.
 The importance of building a community
 The third space concept
The Theoretical Orientations to Academic
Language Learning survey (TOALL)
(Forasiepi, 2011)
The effect of teacher presence
The development of IC
Ongoing teacher development beyond a
teaching methods courses (Allen &
Negueruela-Azarola, 2010; Crane, Sadler, Ha, & Ojambo,
2011)