Improving Pre-service English Teachers Native Cultural and English Language Knowledge in PBL Classrooms

Globalization and the Requirement for Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC)

• In the modern context of globalization, language learners are expected to develop global citizenship to thrive in an interconnected world. An essential educational goal is to assist learners in becoming "intercultural speakers."
• Definition of Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC): ICC is defined by Bennett ($2004$, $149$) as ‘the ability to communicate effectively in cross-cultural situations and to relate appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts.’
• Liddicoat and Scarino ($2013$) identify ICC as one of the most critical competencies in foreign language education.
• Nault ($2006$) emphasizes that the cultivation of ICC should be bidirectional. It involves the ability to understand, compare, evaluate, and apply cultural knowledge of both the target language culture and the home-country culture.
• Chun ($2011$) highlights the significance of the willingness to reflect on one’s own home-country culture and to critically evaluate the values within home-country cultural practices.

Home-Country Cultural Frameworks: HCK and ELKHC

• Home-country culture serves as a benchmark to help learners compare with target language cultures, protect national identity, develop intercultural sensitivity, and enhance overall ICC.
• Home-Country Cultural Knowledge (HCK): This is understood as the knowledge constituting a person's heritage and identity. It ranges from tangible aspects (e.g., architecture, food) to intangible ones (e.g., language, music) within their country.
• English Language Knowledge of Home-Country Culture (ELKHC): This is defined as the knowledge that enables speakers to introduce their home-country culture and communicate with others through the English language.
• Chinese Culture Defined: In this study, Chinese culture refers to the ways of life across the $56$ ethnic groups in China and their manifestations (e.g., music, art, language, politics, history, and religion).
• The Ministry of Education in China ($2022$) stresses the importance of equipping learners with Chinese cultural knowledge to introduce native identities to the world in English and to help future students do the same.

The Current State of Cultural Education and "Chinese Culture Aphasia"

• Despite policy-level support, such as The Guidelines for Teaching Foreign Language and Literature Undergraduates ($2018$), implementation in the classroom remains limited.
• Chinese Culture Aphasia: This term describes the phenomenon where Chinese English majors/teachers are competent in understanding Western culture but deficient in expressing their own home-country culture in English.
• Research Statistics on Cultural Knowledge:
  • Xiao et al. ($2010$) investigated $64$ English majors and $107$ non-English majors; results showed they were competent in target language culture but deficient in home-country culture.
  • Liu et al. ($2018$) reported that only $25\%$ (one quarter) of $40$ English majors could correctly and appropriately express Chinese culture in English.
  • Song and Xiao ($2009$) investigated $197$ teachers and students, finding both performed poorly. Teachers specifically struggled with aspects of education, philosophy, literature, and history.
• Textbook Disparity: Wang ($2010$) analyzed two national college English courses. English-American culture accounted for $68.7\%$ and $53.1\%$ respectively, whereas Chinese culture represented only $1.56\%$ and $4.1\%$.
• Underlying Factors:
  • Exam-oriented education leads to a "washback effect," where attention is centered on Western culture to pass tests.
  • Teachers lacks systematic study of Chinese culture themselves.
  • HCK and ELKHC input in textbooks is insufficient, oversimplified, and often relies on rote learning.

Project-Based Learning (PBL) Theory and Steps

• PBL is inspired by constructivist learning theory and centers on projects that integrate complex tasks like planning, gathering information, and problem-solving (Hedge $1993$).
• Benefits of PBL in Language Education: Improves language abilities, reinforces content, fosters real-life skills, and promotes intrinsic/extrinsic motivation (Stoller and Myers $2019$).
• The Five-Step Process of PBL (Stoller and Myers $2019$):
  1. Preparation: Students determine the project theme, topics, final aims, and a progression plan.
  2. Information Gathering: Collecting information via reading, web searches, questionnaires, and interviews.
  3. Information Processing: Processing information with scaffolded instructions from teachers.
  4. Information Display: Sharing projects with teachers and peers for assessment (formative and summative) and feedback.
  5. Reflections: Identifying strengths and weaknesses through discussion or journals to improve future work.

Study Design and Course Intervention

• Participants: $43$ third-year undergraduate pre-service English teachers (PSETs) at a Chinese university, majoring in English language education. They were divided into $12$ groups of $3$ to $4$ members.
• Course Structure: "Multimedia and Foreign Language Teaching." $16$ weeks total ($8$ weeks theoretical, $8$ weeks practical).
• Theoretical Sessions: Covered the development, advantages, and challenges of multimedia technologies in ELT.
• Practical Sessions and Applied Technology:
  • MOOC: Instructor shared examples like "Chinese Culture English."
  • Micro lessons: Used online media reports on history and food.
  • Gamification: Presented examples of the $24$ Chinese solar terms (farmers' agricultural guide based on the sun's zodiac position).
  • Social Media: Discussed VR examples: (1) Palace of the Emperor in Forbidden City, (2) 'V-Palace' WeChat mini-program, (3) Virtual National Museum on WeChat, (4) Traditional Chinese Culture in the Multilingual Context VR platform.

The Four Group Projects

• Project 1 (MOOC Outline): Included target student group, course overview, structure, homework, exams, certificate requirements, and discussion topics.
• Project 2 (Gamification): Applied games to English teaching about Chinese culture, covering name, platform, length, and structure.
• Project 3 (Micro Lesson): A $10$-minute micro lesson involving teaching objectives, structure, and a script.
• Project 4 (Social Media): Designing a class activity using social media, including platform choice and activity structure.

Quantitative Results

• Student Self-Evaluations (Scale $1$ to $10$):
  • HCK: Pre-intervention mean was $5.49$; Post-intervention mean was $6.83$.
  • ELKHC: Pre-intervention mean was $5.32$; Post-intervention mean was $6.66$.
  • Statistical significance: $p \le .001$ for both pairs.
• Instructor Evaluations (25 points per project):
  • HCK Scores: Project 1: $18.10$; Project 2: $20.47$; Project 3: $21.26$; Project 4: $22.34$.
  • ELKHC Scores: Project 1: $19.27$; Project 2: $20.15$; Project 3: $20.79$; Project 4: $21.47$.
  • Improvement in HCK ($M = 4.24$) was more significant than ELKHC ($M = 2.20$).
  • Statistical significance: $p \le .001$ for the instructor's pre-to-post growth assessments.

Qualitative Findings from Reflective Journals

• A total of $164$ reflective journals were collected (over $65,000$ Chinese words). Analysis yielded $173$ codes for HCK and $139$ for ELKHC. Inter-rater reliability was $92.8\%$.
• Reflections on HCK:
  • Gains: Students deepened understanding of local traditions (e.g., a student from Shandong learned about cooking techniques and ingredients of Shandong cuisine).
  • Motivation: Wang noted feeling a responsibility to acquire more HCK as it is ‘interesting, brilliant and beautiful.’
  • Deficiencies: Lu noted that knowledge remained superficial and was mostly limited to one's own hometown.
  • Solutions: Searching more materials, attending cultural exchange festivals, and seeking help from instructors.
• Reflections on ELKHC:
  • Gains: Learners mastered specific vocabulary (e.g., "marinate the meat in soy sauce") and translation principles (semantic proximity and cultural communication principle).
  • Linguistic Challenges: Distinguishing between similar terms (e.g., "porcelain" vs. "ceramics"); difficulty translating terms related to history or traditional instruments like the pipa (Chinese lute).
  • Skills: Writing micro-lesson scripts helped explore lexical diversity and accuracy.

Discussion and Critical Affordances of PBL

• Authenticity: Manifested through audience (considering future students), texts (news, academic references), and purposes (designing learning tasks).
• Motivation and Autonomy: PBL empowered students to take control of decisions. While typically passive and extrinsically motivated (by exams), PSETs showed increased intrinsic interest in expressing their native identities.
• Teacher as Coach/Expert: Instructions in PBL shift from planning to designing. Pucher and Lehner ($2011$) suggest teachers must serve as coaches that accompany students and experts that provide instruction.
• Peer Collaboration: Shifted the learning culture from competition (common in exam-oriented environments) to collaboration.
• Limitations of the Study: Lack of a control group; small sample size ($43$ students); focus on only one course; and dependence on self-reports and journals which could be improved to more closely track progress.