International Mindedness: what, where, how and why? Part 3: Teaching IM

Martyna Elerian R&D in International & Intercultural Education | PhD |

In the third article of this series, Martyna Elerian explains how to achieve big goals through minor adjustments when teaching international mindedness

As a researcher, I always come across many articles, talks, presentations and discussions on the theory and the theoretical application of international mindedness in education. I always find them very valid from my perspective as an academic. However, at the same time, I am a practising secondary school teacher – and, from a teacher’s standpoint, I am always left with the same questions:

How do I teach international mindedness in my lesson? To what extent can I apply IM goals in my classroom, with my students, in line with the curriculum and the time I have?

Teaching international mindedness is not as hard and time-consuming as you may think. In fact, being an international school teacher, you are probably doing it already. The purpose of this article is to help you become more aware of it. International mindedness should not be treated as a standalone subject, and one should not have to spend a lot of time creating separate lessons on the issue. What is much more feasible is to work with what you already have.

It is not about throwing your existing plans out of the window; it is about making small adjustments where you can and when you can.

Every element counts

Look at your lesson plans and materials, and reflect on your teaching practice to realise where you are incorporating international mindedness already and where you could incorporate a starter, a plenary, a discussion or a homework task that connects your lesson topic to the concept of international mindedness. For example, if you are teaching about nuclear power in physics, then discuss the social perceptions of nuclear power in your plenary. International mindedness consists of cognitive and affective aspects in the areas of global engagement, intercultural understanding and multilingualism.

Every element counts, and every small step that you and your colleagues take in any of these areas adds to the ultimate goal of developing internationally-minded students.

Other articles you might be interested in:

* From the same author: How to make your new students feel at home

* The language of inclusion? Challenging the dominance of English in international schools

* WATCH: Multilingualism and language learning in international schools

Global engagement

Any subject that tackles global issues (economy, climate, politics, international organisations and others) will contribute to the cognitive aspect of the global engagement component of international mindedness. Build on that! Whenever you are covering a global issue, include materials that allow for the comparison of different opinions and perspectives.

Teach from both local and global perspectives, so students realise how the two are interconnected. For example, when discussing climate change, ask students to do research on related local initiatives as part of their homework. In your PSHE lessons, discuss general topics such as trends in music, movies or books to make all students, especially those who are new to the school, feel included by sharing their thoughts on topics that everyone is aware of and can contribute to. This also allows students to find common interests and supports their integration.

Intercultural understanding

Teaching intercultural understanding means making diversity a constructive element in the learning experience. If you are a language, geography or sociology teacher, you probably include a lot of case studies through which students learn about places and people of diverse cultures. Go beyond discussion and comparison of customs and focus on the different perspectives that result from such diversity. In your plenary, you can then discuss concepts such as respect, tolerance and open-mindedness, and tackle the issue of stereotyping.

Multilingualism

Beyond language teaching, we should also teach communication skills that are paramount to achieving intercultural competence

This should be an easy one! In many cases, our students are already multilingual, and by teaching them additional languages, we are teaching multilingualism by default, aren’t we? However, in terms of international mindedness, we mustn’t forget the broader picture. Multilingualism has a significant social dimension: it leads to intercultural understanding, and it changes one’s perceptions by allowing the learner to explore new ideas and prospects. Beyond language teaching, we should also teach communication skills that are paramount to achieving intercultural competence: to communicate and collaborate, to listen, to understand and respect the opinions of others.

The paths you can take

For our students to become internationally minded, we need to teach them skills such as research, presentation, critical thinking, and the ability to see different perspectives to enable them to apply their own knowledge and make their own judgement. To do that, IM should be taught actively, through teaching strategies such as teamwork, individual research, presentation, discussion and source analysis.

Based on my own research, I observed that generally there are two different approaches towards teaching IM: personal and academic.

In the direct, personal approach, students are asked to share experiences and information about their native country, culture, and background with other students. In the indirect, academic approach, cultural learning takes place through case studies and other teaching material that is not related personally to anybody in the class.

Including topics directly related to your students by asking them to share their experiences or become a ‘teacher’ when a topic relates to their culture is a strategy utilised by many international school teachers. It can help minimise stereotyping, and make students feel respected. An alternative to class discussion can be project work in which students write about or make posters about their countries or cultures. Such presentations allow students to share their culture and engage in individual research and independent learning. However, several issues need to be considered. If students have an opportunity to present their culture, will such a presentation be followed by a meaningful, critically-engaged discussion? Secondly, as a teacher, can you rely on the accuracy and credibility of the knowledge provided by the students? Moreover, taking a personal approach, if not utilised mindfully, can pose a danger of breaching students’ privacy.

In the indirect academic approach, teachers place emphasis on neutrality through the provision of objective academic information, and focus on the development of higher-order thinking skills such as understanding, analysis, evaluation and application of knowledge. For example, in a literature class, you can incorporate texts from an international spectrum of authors or critics. In ICT or history lessons, you can look at different websites and resources to teach students to recognise bias. This approach is overall more challenging than the personal approach and requires more preparation from the teacher.

No matter what you choose and what you do, it is important to remember that change is a process and that the level of achievability can differ between various aspects of international mindedness.

Certain school or subject characteristics can constrain the development of IM in full, but you can focus on and work towards the development of components that are achievable in your classroom, in your school and with your students.

You can find the other articles in Martyna's IM series here: Part 1 and Part 2.

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