Thursday, September 9, 2010

A Reacquaintance

When it comes to gathering literature for my research, I have easily found enough for the context of teaching English as a second and/or foreign language. I can also find lots of examples for case studies and ethnographies of living and/or working in a foreign country. However, I've had some difficulty finding an overlap of the two...until recently.

I took a course on cross-cultural and intercultural communication in my MA program, which was 8 years ago. I kept the textbook all these years, and I recently opened it up in hopes to find a relevant chapter with a nice list of references. The textbook is Intercultural Communication, A Reader by Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter, the ninth edition published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. The most relevant chapter is "Intercultural Communication in the University Classroom" by Lisa M. Skow and Laurie Stephan. And in this chapter is a useful table outlining the "value differences in teaching and learning" from a study by Geert Hofstede, who is quite famous or infamous in the field of cultural anthropology.

I believe that I might uncover more useful literature by finding sources that cite Hofstede that either support or criticize his approach or conclusions. Although this is quite exciting, I must keep my focus on my current course work.

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