The difference between teaching and learning styles across cultures and the opportunities this presents

1
The difference between teaching and learning
styles across cultures and the opportunities this
presents

• Dr S. Devlin
• Senior Lecturer and Teaching Fellow
• School of Computing and Technology

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Session Goals

• To introduce you to some different, culturally
  embedded, styles of T L
• To encourage you to think about what are your
  goals and values as a teacher, and whether these
  might be different to those of teachers from
  other cultures
• To contextualise these goals and values according
  to who your students are and what sort of
  learning situation/environment you and your
  institution provide for them

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Questions

• How do you currently teach your modules?
• How do you manage your classroom?
• Is your method of LTA effective for all your
  students?
• How and when do you measure your effectiveness?
  (formative v summative?)
• How can you aim for greater effectiveness?

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How do you currently teach?

• How do you frame your lesson? Are students
  involved in this process?
• How do you pace your lessons? What factors affect
  your pacing decisions? Do you identify particular
  groups of learners as your pace makers? Which
  learners?
• How does the physical environment affect the way
  you teach, e.g. with regard to the above?
• How do you make use of space, body language and
  your voice?

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Classroom Management

• i.e. enabling a situation in which effective
  learning can occur
• The best learning environment is one which is
  friendly, interactive and thereby encourages
  risk-taking i.e. participation (Wilson 96, Frazer
  87)
• Management problems may arise due to classroom
  expectations from the students culture being
  unfulfilled in the host (ESL) culture (Crookes,
  2003142)
• Also due to tasks being too long/complex to
  complete within the classroom, by certain groups
  of students.

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Teaching Style
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LTA Goals
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Perception is that changesneeded mainly in
monitoring and evaluation not LTA
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The Chinese TLA Environment

• HE is an elite, pyramidal system - state
  provision for 7 of eligible students, and is
  therefore very competitive
• Competitive exam based nature of system
  emphasis on rote learning
• Rote learning does not necessarily mean surface
  learning
• Very formal, didactic system
• Exams are factual content based not essay-based
• Mostly, assessment is individual - virtually no
  peer- group work
• Strong peer (class mate) relationships
• Personalization of teacher-student relationship
  outside the classroom.

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What do Chinese Students find difficult to adapt
to?

• Time management
• Being an independent learner
• Low levels of tutor contact time
• Limited number of attempts at a module
• Assessment regime
• The pass mark being 40
• Their marks being a lot lower than in China
• Co-operation not competition (group work)
• Essay-writing, referencing, critical argument
• Loose peer relationship structures
• Participation they are used to right/wrong, and
  teacher selects a student
• Which parts of a lecture to note down/
  understanding the discourse structure

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Discourse Structure of lectures

• We give
• Situation
• Problem
• Solution
• evaluation

• ESL students are used to
• Situation
• What to do
• A different situation
• What to do
• Etc.

i.e. less elaboration and evaluation (From
Tauroza Allison, in Flowerdew 1994)
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Writing

• Students may have never written essays/reports
  before
• They will be competent writers in their L1 but
  their L1 style/culture of writing may not be
  familiar to or valued by their L2 subject tutors
• Chinese written arguments are implicit not
  explicit and inductive not deductive. Students
  writing in this style will not make their points
  so explicitly they expect the reader/teacher to
  surmise many underlying points e.g. in
  cause-effect type arguments they will expect
  that you will grasp the cause just by reading the
  effect
• Discourse structure is different organisation,
  frequent headings rather than cohesive devices to
  signal topic change choppy to read

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Kolbs theory of learning styles

• Concrete Experience
• Active Experimentation
• Reflective Observation
• Abstract Conceptualisation
• Accommodators (1 2)
• Like active participation independent study
• Assimilators (3 4)
• Want the right answer, like organised lectures
  demos
• Divergers (1 3)
• Need to understand relevance. Like interactive
  learning
• Convergers (2 4)
• Need relevance and detailed presentation of info,
  work systematically but require tutor to be
  flexible

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Preference for learning study _at_ Sunderland

• Visual
• books, whiteboard, dont need oral explanations,
  can learn alone.
• Auditory
• hearing auditory explanations reading aloud
  oneself, tapes, discussions, lectures.
• Kinaesthetic
• physical experience e.g role play, participation,
  field trips, combined stimuli.
• Tactile
• hands on e.g. experiments, handling
  models/equipment. Writing down dictated
  instructions.
• Group
• studying with at least one other person, aids
  remembering
• Individual
• better understand, remember, progress when learn
  alone.

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• Major best way to learn
• Minor can do fairly successfully
• Negligible hard to learn that way
• British
• Major Kinaesthetic
• Minor All others
• Lowest mean Group
• Chinese
• Major Tactile, Kinaesthetic, Group
• Minor All others
• Lowest mean Individual
• Japanese
• Major Auditory, Kinaesthetic
• Minor All others
• Lowest mean Individual
• Think about your own classes. Is there a conflict
  between the stated preferences and your learning
  situation?

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Cultural influences on work-related values

• Power Distance autocracy vs equal
  interdependent
• Individualism/collectivism actions for benefit
  of self or group
• Uncertainty Avoidance risk taking, scaffolding
• Masculinity/Femininity clear division or
  overlap of gender roles
• Long/short term orientation delayed
  gratification of social, material needs etc,
  encompasses respect for tradition
• (Hofstede,1980)
• Can you think of any examples of differences in
  behaviour among people, groups, or institutions
  which differ in their nationalities but are
  otherwise comparable?
• Can you describe any incidents of cultural
  conflict differences in mental/behavioural
  attributes of people from different national
  backgrounds which were misinterpreted by at least
  one of the actors and led to difficulties in
  productive collaboration?
• Can you describe any cases of cultural synergy
  the successful overcoming of differences in
  mental/behavioural attributes due to different
  national backgrounds, or even the use of these
  attributes as a source of additional strength in
  a multicultural team?

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Implications for LTA how can we aim for greater
effectiveness?

• There are as many ways to teach as there are are
  to learn
• People generally do not stick to one style of
  learning
• By implementing a range you can accommodate more
  students
• BUT, you have to create a good learning
  environment and attempt to understand your
  students

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Can we change the way an ES/FL student thinks
should we even try?

• One viewpoint is that any attempt will fail
  because participants are too constrained by the
  existence of well-established participation
  structures and interactional routines ingrained
  and definitional of the lesson as they jointly
  construe it (Coleman, 1996)
• Another is that we have too many different
  cultures to adapt to them all.
• We need to support students attempts to
  assimilate while also valuing the cultural
  identity they hold. They all have strengths we
  should build on them.

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Creating a supportive environment

• It is almost impossible to predict what a
  teacher can draw out from the students before
  the teaching takes place, because what can be
  drawn out is entirely dependent on the context.
• Showing interest in the students, making sure
  that the students know each other and encouraging
  each class to develop its own atmosphere are
  important factors They will help students feel
  comfortable in class and personalise the place
  where their learning occurs. (Crookes,
  2003168).
• Icebreaking ensuring students know each others
  names classroom management. (Only 13 of staff
  in my study used icebreakers in subject classes)
• Cooperative learning structured groups which
  compete for grades supportive, social
  groups
• QUESTION What do you do to foster good
  inter-student relationships in your classes?

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When preparing materials

• Use clear, unambiguous and uncomplicated language
• Avoid use of colloquialisms, jargon (unless
  subject specific), slang, acronyms (unless
  subject specific), or locally specific text
  references
• Assumptions of background knowledge should
  acknowledge that not all readers have the same
  cultural experiences
• Assumptions of readability level should allow for
  English not being the readers first language
• When lecturing
• Avoid vague language, verbal mazes, and overly
  long utterances

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Assessment

• Introduce low risk assessment allow students
  time to learn what you want from them and give
  regular feedback
• You can increase a students self-perception and
  therefore motivation by allowing a gradual
  approximation to a particular level of work
  through repeated revision of initially ungraded
  coursework (Crooks, 2003137)
• Introduce more practical assessments or a wider
  range
• Why not require only one piece of academically
  rigid written work, perhaps the project, rather
  than being obsessive about it in all
  modules?
• Do you penalise students for poor English in
  their assessments? Is this made clear in the
  rubric?

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Good Practice

• Acknowledge and respect culturally diverse
  approaches to learning
• Make use of multiple media and variety of
  activity thus catering for different types of
  learners
• Support students who are having to adopt new
  approaches structured approach at personal
  tutorial or programme level, module level, school
  level, International Student Forum
• Explain why you are asking students to do certain
  tasks in certain ways, and what will be the
  outcomes (convergers divergers need
  relevancy!)
• Provide opportunities for all students to reflect
  on and express their own sources of cultural
  influence, as well as the knowledge and
  experience they bring to the educational
  environment dont assume they dont have
  anything to participate if they dont volunteer
• Create an open and inclusive approach to learning
  from others, and valuing the diversity of
  perspectives offered in group learning contexts

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More Good Practice

• Give all students the opportunity and support to
  improve their knowledge of and capacity to
  interact with people from diverse cultural
  backgrounds (through personal intervention or
  university-wide/school-wide initiatives e.g.
  mentoring module, cultural communication
  workshops, study skills modules).
• Always make clear where assessment marks come
  from if there are marks for English ability you
  should clearly say so
• Provide opportunities for practice in elements of
  assessment that students may be unfamiliar with
  critical analysis, discursive writing etc
• Be careful with group work allocate group
  membership that is integrative
• Dont be critical/give negative feedback in front
  of other students save face
• Direct your questions at named students many
  cultures wait to be picked out by the teacher.
• Involve international students they will have
  different perspectives.

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Good Practice

• Dont expect academic writing from students who
  have not had the opportunity to improve their
  English from their point of entry into the
  system.
• Flowerdew (1994113) suggests building a lexical
  base for lecture instruction generating lists of
  key terms for students to prepare prior to a
  lecture
• Useful in computing where not always time to
  provide updated notes in advance allows
  preparation without representing the whole thing
• Structure your teaching so that you can learn
  from it as you teach, not after the fact. You
  cant know your students until you meet them, but
  you can have knowledge of possible needs and
  behaviours.
• Introduce question breaks
• Any questions? at end of lecture really means
  Thats all folks!
• Introduce breaks where you ask students to write
  summaries of what theyve learned practicing
  writing summaries should help students develop
  writing skills where theyre using their own
  words.

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Why not try this?

• Tape one of your classes. Listen to it.
• How inclusive is your teaching? How do you ask
  questions? How long do you wait for answers, get
  students to join in, organise students?
• Get a colleague to peer review your teaching
  (materials as well as observation) with respect
  to accessibility by all students
• Get to know the EAP staff in your institution
• Sit in on an EAP class. Invite an EAP teacher to
  sit in on one of yours.
• See if staff development at your institution has
  cultural awareness training, and enrol on it
• Find out about all the cross-university study
  skills modules (EAP, Mentoring, Effective
  Learning etc) that may be valuable for your ES/FL
  students

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Opportunities a final word

• The increasing cultural and linguistic diversity
  of our students is not a problem. As
  professionals we are constantly seeking to
  improve, and we now have the chance to
• Increase our knowledge and draw on experiences of
  other cultures during our teaching
• Re-evaluate our beliefs as teachers
• Give home students experience they wouldnt get
  because they no longer move away from home
• Expand our skills - More diverse ways of TLA
  which in turn benefits all students, including
• Assess learning outcomes in many different ways
  which may ensure more fairness across the board?
  E.g. focus more on practical abilities?

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Recommended reading

• McNamara, D. Harris, R. (Eds.) (1997) Overseas
  students in higher education issues in teaching
  learning. Routledge.
• Turner, Y. Acker, A. (2002) Education in the
  new China shaping ideas at work. Ashgate.
• Crookes, G. (2003) A Practicum in TESOL
  Professional development through teaching
  practice. CUP.
• Flowerdew, J. (1994) Academic Listening Research
  Perspectives. CUP