Negotiating meaning through intercultural exchange

• Establish a safe environment.
• Respect students’ identify and hold the judgements.
• Build on students’ prior knowledge.
• Use students as resources.
• Select relevant and appropriate topics.
• Use authentic materials whenever possible.
• Allow time for personal reflection with guiding questions.
• Design tasks that require students to conduct interviews from different point of views.
• Have students role play cross cultural scenarios.
• Have students share how they would relate and/or react to a specific situation in their culture.
• Use anticipation guide to help students identify facts or opinions (cultural stereotypes).
• Analyze advertisements or events that caused misunderstanding.
• Ask questions to enable students to explain their interpretation and expand their thoughts.
• Use See-Think-Wonder thinking routine to allow students make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations.

• Teach thinking skills explicitly.
• Ask purposeful questions to solicit responses and interpretations.
• Help students to make personal connections after viewing, reading or listening.
• Provide students with sentence starters to engage them in the thinking process.
• Use Connect-Extend-Challenge thinking routine to help students develop understanding of new ideas based on their prior knowledge and personal experiences.

• Engage students to share alternatives and discuss why someone’s ideas differ from their own.

To conclude, I would like to share this great Ted talk video by Derek Sivers that share how things might be perceived differently and we ought to be more open-minded.