Considering Intercultural and Inclusion Issues

What do we mean by intercultural issues?

According to UNESCO, interculturality refers to the existence and equitable interaction of diverse cultures and the possibility of generating shared cultural expressions through dialogue and mutual respect.

There are many issues that need to be considered when facilitating online dialogues that value and promote cultural diversity. This is also the case for offline classroom time and should always be given appropriate thought and planning, especially if there is a predominantly diverse group of students. The main intercultural issues cover a broad range of topics and identities including race, religion, ethnicity, culture, socio-economic backgrounds, sexual orientation, disability as well as different epistemologies/ways of knowing and different learning approaches.

Helping with communication skills

On online exchange or dialogue can help improve students’ communication skills, especially in multilingual and multicultural settings as well as helping students with their social and relationship-building skills. Your students will also gain a better awareness of their own values and culture while they are exposed to and learn about the experiences of peers from a different background. Preparation is, once again, key. As a teacher you will have to plan and exchange relevant information with your co facilitator regarding the intercultural “make up” of your students as well as try to address if there may be some difficulties or doubts to discuss prior to the students meeting up. Through preparation exercises, such as asking students to work in groups and to research and present interesting facts about the partner country or to create a quiz for the other groups, students can also build more interpersonal skills that reinforce trust and respect within their own classroom.

Promoting empathy in our virtual exchanges

Some evaluations of virtual exchange programs have already demonstrated that “virtual exchange programs can increase participants’ empathy for other cultures and perspectives, develop their willingness to engage constructively with peers of diverse backgrounds and views, and provide participants with the experience of being heard and respected.

Some considerations

Some aspects to consider when communicating the students’ intercultural characteristics:

What are the relevant aspects of my students’ background?
How do my students learn?
What’s the ratio between boys and girls?
Are there/have there ever been conflicts and/or difficulties/competition between students due to their identity?
Are there/have there ever been any significant positive moments of cooperation and/or inclusion between students due to their different identities?
Where do the students live? (Rural, urban settings)
What languages does the group know? (Can any of these be used sensitively during the exchange?)
Could there be any language barrier issues?
Are my students used to speaking with people from other backgrounds?
What non-verbal behaviour do my students use that could be understood or misunderstood?

Managing diversity

Having a diverse group means that you, as a teacher or educator, will need to manage diversity. Respecting and giving value to diversity is one significant way to foster inclusion. Talk with your co-facilitator about these issues and plan together how you can:

Get to know the students in both groups
Maintain consistent communication
Acknowledge and respect every student
Practice cultural sensitivity
Incorporate diversity in the exchange, ensuring nobody is excluded
Give students freedom and flexibility

Ensuring inclusion

We want to help our teachers to ensure that all students — no matter their differences, technology or backgrounds — can participate fully in the online exchange. Try to always provide alternative options for participation. If someone cannot be on video, make sure there’s a way to call-in. If students are calling in, give dedicated space for them to participate during activities and make sure the chat is read aloud. This may be the same for students who have impaired vision for example. Facilitating groups online offers some new challenges but also many benefits for access and engagement of students with disabilities. The choices you make can help maximize those possible benefits. Become familiar with the accessibility features of the software you are using and share that information with your co facilitators and group.

Students may be or feel excluded from an online exchange for a number of reasons. It is important for you as a teacher/educator to know whether there may be students at risk of being excluded in the groups so openly discuss this aspect with your co-facilitator(s) together with the needs they may have. Someone who is deaf, for example, may or may not be able to effectively read lips. Each situation requires different levels of adaptation. Give students choice about the ways they share information. For example, in a live plenary session, give students the option to share out loud or in the chat box. Then make sure to read everything from the chat aloud. When recording videos use closed captioning or offer a transcript.

Planning for linguistic barriers

Many online exchanges will be carried out between groups coming from different countries, which is simultaneously stimulating and challenging. Overcoming linguistic barriers needs careful planning. Non-simultaneous translated sessions can be done, but require twice the time and cause almost immediate disengagement after the novelty has worn off. Furthermore, it’s hard to keep up a flow of conversation if the conversation starts and stops continuously.

If the group doesn’t have to interact frequently, you can have students work in separate breakout rooms or channels and then come together occasionally. But then students will not benefit from each other’s knowledge.

Most technology platforms now offer more options. Zoom, for example, offers a way for meetings to have simultaneous translation, where you can select a preferred language. This requires one or two dedicated interpreters and it would be ideal to involve colleagues who teach a foreign language. Similar options exist on other platforms.

There are apps that claim to provide automated simultaneous translations but none have yet managed to gain a high standard or accuracy.

There are, however, some practical solutions, which can help soften the linguistic difficulties during your online facilitation:

Share materials to students in advance, sharing the agenda and any materials in all your official languages at the same time.
Include in your pre-meeting information what the dominant language of the exchange will be (if applicable), and any additional language support that will be included, such as interpretation.
Include software connection instructions in all needed languages. If the help guide for the software is available in multiple languages, make that clear and share a link.
Prepare slides to share during your online session that include simple instructions for all activities in your official languages.
Make sure any visuals or other resources you are using for the session include all present languages, if possible.
Be clear about how interpretation will happen, for example one person speaking at a time, creating signals to ask for tech help/interpretation assistance.

Lastly, hear from everyone. Use a participation format that ensures each student contributes, and no one’s silence is assumed to mean they understand or agree. Some options are: do a go-around, have one student share and they pass to the next student and so on until everyone has shared, ask everyone to share in chat or out loud and track that each student has responded, or use a polling tool.