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Finals


Waiting for students to finish their final exam. The inevitable looms like a dark cloud blocking the last rays of sunlight (I'm talking about marking their papers)

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What Exactly is ICC?

Arasaratnam and Doerfel's (2005) study on defining intercultural communicative competence (ICC) may be dated, but I believe their discussions are very relevant to the current situation of ICC.  Their study aimed to define ICC from a grounded exploratory approach.  Their reasoning behind this is because of the subjective understanding of what intercultural is, and what competence is.  Communication, from an intercultural perspective, is typified as spoken discourse. To come to a definition of ICC, the study interviewed a group of international and local students studying in an American university.  The students were asked what they thought ICC is, and what they thought are key components of a person who is interculturally competent.  Though responses were diverse, a common thread was induced. But would this common thread still be applicable to different cultural contexts?  Probably from a qualitative perspective it would be, but perhaps not if viewed wit...
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Unwelcomed

Picture taken from the bus stop I was waiting at.  The structure with the curved roof is the bigger bus stop. Since arriving here, I’ve heard a lot of stories about International Students getting beaten up or mugged or both.  At times I was skeptical when I was told about stories like this, but I believed it, most of the time.  We can’t deny that word of mouth is sometimes sensationalized.  On Thursday nights, shops all over Newcastle will open longer than usual.  This is to give students as well as other people the chance to do some late night shopping or simply hang around.  Last Thursday night, Bill, Jen, and myself were at the bus stop waiting for Bill’s bus to come.  It was half past eight and we were at a bus stop waiting for Bill’s bus to arrive.  We talked for a bit, and realized that we were supposed to wait at the smaller bus stop facing the larger one.  We crossed the road and walked towards the bus stop.  There were on...
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Maybe I Shouldn't Have Written That

Recently, I wrote a response  to an article urging English teachers in Malaysia to teach only in English.  Aside from my response there were at least one other who wrote a very well thought-through  piece .   An English-only approach was a common sentiment you would find in language pedagogic textbooks and manuals published decades ago.  With the expansion of applied linguistics, the current community of language educators and scholars acknowledge that the language learning process involves more than just picking up new language knowledge and abilities through immersion.  Gone are the days when language is just considered a cognitive exercise.  These days, we have other affective variables to consider such as anxiety, stress, motivation, and the list goes on.  This was the idea that I had hoped my write-up would convey.  How wrong I was.  Not only did nobody understand what I wrote, I got a few interesting comments as well.  I do...
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