Students develop cultural awareness through virtual exchange programs

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Students develop cultural awareness through virtual exchange programs

By Stephanie Koons

One of the most significant setbacks to higher education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was the cancellation of study abroad and international exchange programs. In the College of Education, aspiring English language teachers interested in immersing themselves in another culture were confronted with the harsh reality that their plans to live and work overseas were curtailed.

However, College of Education faculty members and their counterparts in Ecuador and Japan decided that they could make the most of the situation by facilitating meaningful cross-cultural dialogue in a virtual space.

“We thought, well, we’ll shift a little bit to try to develop some online experiences,” said Elizabeth Smolcic, teaching professor of education (English as a Second Language). “Many of our students don’t have a lot of experience with people from other countries. We noted that kind of an experience, whether it’s in person or dialoguing on Zoom … could be really transformative.”

For more than a decade, Smolcic said, the College of Education has been offering the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) with immersion program in the Ecuadorian cities of Cuenca and Otavalo. The program began in the spring semester as part of a five-course, 15-credit teaching certificate program.

TESL certificate coursework would be completed during summer courses on-campus and then continued in Ecuador, where students engaged in a teaching practicum with a mentor teacher who guided them through the design and instruction of a contentbased or theme-based English language course to Ecuadorian students.

When the program, along with other study abroad opportunities at Penn State, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Smolcic and Magda Madany-Saa, a teaching assistant in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, put their heads together to figure out how they could give their TESL students some practical teaching experience. During the fall 2020 semester, Smolcic and Madany-Saa cotaught a class, “Language and culture in the classroom: issues for practitioners” that was set up as a virtual exchange with their counterparts in La Universidad Nacional de Educación (UNAE), a public teacher’s college in Ecuador.

In the first session of the class, Penn State and UNAE students met as a group on Zoom and then were paired in one-onone partnerships: one U.S. and one Ecuadorian student. The students were provided structured discussion topics they could reflect on later in writing. During that time, Smolcic said the students “developed friendships, learned a lot about language and culture, and multilingualism and global awareness.”

For the spring 2021 semester, Smolcic and Madany-Saa said they decided to increase the amount of time the U.S. and Ecuadorian students spent with each other in class. Diego Cajas, a faculty member at UNAE, Smolcic and Madany-Saa alternated teaching the class over seven weeks, when the Ecuadorian students joined their American counterparts via Zoom for group readings and discussion.

In the third phase, which started in the fall 2021 semester, the instructors combined the students’ in-class and out-of-class interactions so that they reaped the benefits of both formats. Forty Penn State and UNAE students — 20 from each institution — met for 10 weeks but the students also met outside of class to discuss topics related to intercultural competence and globalization.

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When the pandemic canceled study-abroad and international exchange programs, faculty in the College of Education and their counterparts abroad brought the students together virtually.

Lucy Udell, a senior in the College of Education and Schreyer Honors College studying secondary social studies education, said that despite the inherent limitations of the virtual exchange program, she found it to be an overall beneficial experience.

“I think that speaking with someone who is not only from another country but is actively living in that country is a unique experience,” she said.

“In some ways, it was interesting to be able to speak ‘across borders’ about our different worlds and experiences outside of our shared ‘Zoom room.’ I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to learn about the different world perspectives and beliefs of the Ecuadorian students without being there.”

In addition to the partnership with UNAE, Smolcic and Madany-Saa forged a new partnership with Kobe College, a four-year, all-women’s liberal arts college in Hyogo, Japan. Global Conversations Japan originated in 2018-2019 when their colleague, Nathaniel Carney, a professor of applied linguistics at Kobe College, came to Penn State as a visiting scholar.

Carney, a 2005 graduate of the Penn State Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) master’s program, proposed offering a virtual English language course for Kobe students with Penn State providing instruction, which was launched in fall 2021. Madany-Saa was the instructor for the course, which included 10 Japanese students with four Penn State undergraduate students acting as teaching assistants (TAs).

Regan McGuinness, a senior majoring in Spanish business with a minor in TESOL, and a TA for the Global Conversations in Japan course, said the program exceeded her expectations.

“Since this was a virtual program, I was surprised to see how much the students participated throughout the course,” said McGuinness. “They were so attentive and prepared for each class, and they were a pleasure to work with because they were so motivated to learn.”

According to Smolcic and Madany-Saa, the virtual format of the international exchange programs did not completely deter the participants from learning about each other’s cultures. Madany-Saa said that her TAs in the Kobe program were particularly impressed by the Japanese students’ punctuality and organizational skills. On the Kobe side, the students welcomed the opportunity to freely speak their minds during class – a departure from protocol in a collective society that values group harmony over individual opinion.

For the students in the Ecuador program, Smolcic said, their cultural lesson was that many Ecuadorians are passionate environmental activists.

The Penn State students had assumed that since Ecuador is a less developed country, its citizens wouldn’t be as environmentally aware as people in the United States. Smolcic said she and Madany-Saa knew that was a faulty belief since they’ve been to Ecuador and “know it’s incredibly rich in natural resources.”

Smolcic and Madany-Saa said they are both optimistic about the

future of the College of Education’s international exchange programs and the potential benefits of combining virtual technology with the traditional offerings. They are hopeful that they will be able to travel to Ecuador in summer 2022 after teaching an introductory course in the spring. They also are talking with UNAE about offering a virtual teaching practice so that the pre-service teachers “will be able to get a lot further along in their journey as English language teachers.” In addition, Smolcic, MadanySaa, Cajas and Carney all expressed enthusiasm for continuing the virtual exchange programs. According to Cajas, the UNAE/Penn State partnership was successful in its ability to facilitate “We noted that this kind of the interaction and an experience, whether it’s in exchange of cultural and academic person or dialoguing on Zoom … knowledge, while could be really transformative.” widening access to intercultural education. — Elizabeth Smolcic “We may lack the physical touch but through the activities we have planned, students get to know each other and interact,” he said. “I do not see this as a loss but as an advantage for our Ecuadorian students because not many of them would have the resources to travel to a different country.” Carney echoed Cajas’ sentiment that the virtual model was a leveling influence for many of his students. “I think there is little question that students would prefer to physically study abroad but the reality is, even without the pandemic, not all students can afford to study abroad, and others do not study abroad because they do not feel they have the available time,” he said. “In that way, I feel this virtual experience will continue to have value even post-COVID.”