Language Educators' Native-speakerism and How Cross-cultural Adaptation Affect Students

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
by (Name)
The Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
The Name of the School (University)
The City and State where it is located
The Date
Intercultural Communication
Part 1: Intercultural Encounter
As people from different cultures and backgrounds, countries, gender, age, sexual orientations, and economic backgrounds meet, they will have to cope with intercultural exchange’s negative and positive aspects (Ilie, 2019). In most cases, issues such as stereotyping, small culture formation, and native-speakerism emerge, in addition to the assumption of similarities instead of differences, ethnocentrism, and prejudice. In particular, individuals from the United States and China face important communication challenges, which are often caused by ethnocentrism, lack of mutual understanding, stereotypes, language barriers, prejudice, political and economic issues, and differences of nonverbal indices (Ilie, 2019). In everyday life, we engage with the ‘other’ in intercultural encounters, and interculturality involves this engagement and how we reflect on ourselves (Newcastle University, n.d). In this section, I will describe an example of my intercultural encounter in China, describing the background and description of my encounter with an American group of students who traveled to China for an exchange program. In particular, I will present the Chinese and American students’ discussion on climate change and human rights efforts in China and the United States. I have chosen this example because it represents individuals from two countries with dissimilar cultures, political ideologies, and communication styles, among other differences.
Over the last summer holidays, we organized to meet with students from the United States to discuss climate change and human rights efforts demonstrated by the two countries here in China. China has witnessed rising numbers of American students studying in the country. As the Institute of International Education (2022) notes, the number of American students in China has increased by more than 500 percent in the last ten years. During this discussion, speakers from both countries presented their views regarding climate change and human rights initiatives. I happened to be the one to represent my country, China, as most students felt they could not effectively speak English among Americans due to the ill-defining concept of native-speakerism. We had another student from the United States who led the American side’s discussion. What I noticed during the discussion were clear intercultural communication challenges, especially the notion that native speakers of the English language embody not only the language but also the Western or English teaching and practices or native-speakerism. The American representative in the group presented key points that outlined efforts by the Chinese government in arresting climate change and enhancing human rights, which the group did not expect from the American side.
The discussion continued for roughly two hours and concluded with both sides recognizing the important contributions of China in strengthening efforts in both climate change and human rights efforts. Contrary, students from the ...