The Intercultural Classroom

 

 

  

 

The beginning                

 

In the fall of 2008, LIFE invited Darla K. Deardorff, Executive Direct or of the Association of International Education Administrators, to hold a seminar entitled “How to teach in an intercultural classroom”. In the course of the seminar it became apparent that there were many lecturers at LIFE with a great deal of experience in teaching in classrooms with students from all over the world – experience that other lecturers could benefit from. The Secretariat for Internationalisation at LIFE therefore launched a project to gather these experiences and make them available to others.

 

The project

Individual face-to-face interviews with the stakeholders: LIFE lecturers, international exchange students, international full degree students and Danish students were set up to identify good practices when teaching in an intercultural classroom. The stakeholders were asked to define on the basis of their own experiences what they felt did and did not work well. Ten lecturers and a total of 11 students (three Danish students, four international exchange students and four international full degree students) were interviewed in order to explore the situation from different perspectives.

 

The results

 

The results of the project are presented here. The results are based on what the stakeholders said during their interviews and the frequency of the answers. The good practices should therefore be understood as guidelines and they should be adapted individually to the specific teaching situation.

 

 

 

 

 

The students’ point of view

 

The international students all said that the special relationship between the lecturer and the students was the most positive difference from their home universities. The fact that the lecturers see students as equal partners was what the international students appreciated the most.  

The Danish students appreciated getting new input from students from all over the world, especially from international students who had hands-on knowledge of the issues dealt with in class.

 The fact that the Danish students were forced to speak English was also noted as one of the greatest advantages of having classes with international students.

 

Since the fall of 2008, the Faculty has hosted several seminars on various aspects of the

Intercultural Classroom and aims to continue this activity. Events will be posted in eLife.