Cultural Context The Cultural Context (maximising cultures in classrooms) video includes the following two topic areas:
(1) Cultural Experiences
(2) Apathy and Acceptance Transcript Cultural Experiences Student 1 I feel that, while it's a kinda cliche, its a big privilege here. Yeah from a, there is a big difference from what I’m used to back home Student 2 In my high school we have a very strict atmosphere and no jokes during the class time, so everyone is listen carefully and takes down notes Student 3 And we don’t really in Malaysia encourage us to, they just want, how to say, encourage one way communications not, not, you know, encourage the feedback from the students, so we just get used to it, so when I’m studying at Bond it’s kind of a new experience and for me, it’s very, very good and um yeah, I learn a lot more positive outcome where I can, you know, like, speak more and give more of my ideas you know Student 4 In China, like, teachers are put on a pedestal and students all think that teachers can’t make any mistakes and the good side, is like, for students here, is that like they’re more creative and are free to put up their hands and say “Hi Miss, I don’t agree with that” . Student 5 I’ve actually learned a lot from people, and the different cultures that are here are great. It’s it’s so cool to learn how people do things rather than like just your home country . . ". Dr Marian Williams,
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Science I think one of the most important things about this university in comparison to other universities is the fact that we have such a huge international population and for me as an instructor here, the ability to have that kind of diversity in my classroom is a real privilege, and I benefit from it, and I know the other students benefit from it, because they get to see a vast array opinions and differences, and just all kinds of rich cultural heritage from other people and it’s so important to their learning. Professor Jim Corkery,
Professor (Law), Faculty of Law And we fully appreciate it, that people will come to the university from environments where you are used to watching the god professor or the god teacher as it were, dispensing advice and you scribbling it down and then going away to digest it later. Professor John Wade,
Professor (Law), Faculty of Law My classes at Bond often look like a mini United Nations as I look around the classroom particularly in the post-graduate areas I look around and see French, Russian, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Chinese, Japanese, American, a lot of Canadians, then a group of Australians and so from the very first class there is a lot of commentary and discussion on how things might be different in the country or the place that you come from. Put people in groups where they have to teach the class about the nature of their own culture and I found that students really enjoy taking theories about culture and looking at their own countries, and I found that that particular exercise is probably the highlight of the whole class, that students are stunned by the insights that these other students have into their own culture, and the kinds of offense that they might cause if they went to that country without being educated about the nuances, and they are nuances, there are very fine tunings as to how to behave in a particular country. Apathy and Acceptance Student 6 There is 50/50 here, like, 50% international and 50% Australian so I don’t feel it's like “Oh Marie she’s from another country, she must be so interesting”, because everyone is from another country and another culture. Student 7 It’s their, they are native speakers so sometimes they don’t listen to my suggestions, but yeah, so I found it is one difficulty I got in the group work with presentations. Student 8 And also you get different opinions from different cultures like, I’m a marketing major and if someone mentions something that, like happens different in their culture, then it’s like “Oh that would work too” so stuff like that. Student 9 Problem I think, which I think is the biggest one could be the loneliness, I’m suffering now. I think too, [that for] nearly all international students that could be a big, big problem because sometimes you may feel very lonely and you could find nobody to talk to. Mr Neil Roberts,
Senior Teacher, English Language Institute I think sometimes students, the international students, often feel a little bit isolated, because they come here and it’s difficult for them to interact with the Australian students and the native speakers, so I think one thing that’s very important is that they have as much opportunity to interact together within the classroom. So I think as much as possible try to bring the students closer together so that there is not big spaces around the classroom, and also perhaps if possible try to arrange them in a horseshoe shape; the more they talk to each other, the more comfortable they feel, and the better the dynamics are. Professor Cynthia Fisher,
Head of Department (Management), Faculty of Business, Technology and Sustainable Development It’s the beginning of week 11 and I’m ashamed to say that I just found out that one of my international students doesn’t have the textbook and there is only one copy of it in the library. He’s from a very poor country, and has not been able to afford it, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me that that was the reason for him performing poorly and I suppose the lesson is to delve more deeply into students who are having problems because it might be something that wouldn’t come to your mind as a likely candidate for helping him do better. Dr Amy Kenworthy-U’Ren,
Associate Professor of Management, Faculty of Business, Technology and Sustainable Development One of the problems that I find that we have in classes with a large number of international students relates to something akin to student apathy. For example we have a number of students that really, genuinely, come into a class and they are not interested in learning about other students cultures or experiences, so what I try to do to reduce that is to celebrate each of the different countries that the student in the room are from. If I start to do that enough we tend to see, I tend to see, a lot of my students really taking a genuine interest in the other students in the room and starting to ask questions and engage in ways that reflect the diversity of the student body that we have here at Bond.
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