Developing Critical Thinking Skills For Overcoming Stereotypes In Intercultural Communication

The definition of intercultural communicative competence

The phenomenon of intercultural communicative competence emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century as a result of integration of communicative and intercultural competences. Communicative competence has been the chief goal in a foreign language acquisition, which meant a certain level of language and socio-cultural knowledge and skills enabling students to act properly in various cross-cultural situations. Practice showed that such knowledge and skills are not enough for successful intercultural communication. In case of developing communicative competence students became oriented to a target language social background assuming other view of the world, whereas proper intercultural communication presupposes a parity dialogue of cultures, the result of which, according to Bakhtin (1986), will be understanding and acceptance of differences between them; it is the process of mutual cultural exchange within which new intercultural values are created ( Moeller & Nugent, 2014, p. 2). Thus, it became more appropriate to speak about intercultural competence, which emphasizes students’ background knowledge, tolerance, speaking strategies (including non-verbal techniques), interpretation and ability to get feedback ( Byram, 1997). The problem was that developing intercultural competence did not imply excellent language proficiency, making it possible to refer to a professional interpreter if needed. This was accentuated by Byram ( 1997), who refers intercultural competence to people’s “ability to interact in their own language with the people from another country and culture,” while intercultural communicative competence takes into account language teaching and focuses on “the ability to interact with people from another country and culture in a foreign language” (р. 71).

Some scientists have taken attempts to incorporate intercultural elements into communicative competence structure; others, on the contrary, added communicative component to intercultural competence, asserting the fact that pragmatic sphere is as important as cognitive and motivational ones ( Kim, 1991). The second point of view seems more reliable as in this case the communicative component is naturally introduced into the intercultural competence structure. The authors accentuate the importance of the ability to understand and overcome cross-cultural diversities, realizing one’s own linguistic identity and correlating different views of the world. Having coined a common conceptual meaning in their minds, the communicators can efficiently carry out intercultural interaction. Moreover, it is even more important that cognizing other culture individuals at the same time enrich knowledge of their own one.

Eventually, intercultural competence has been reintroduced; today it is more appropriate to talk about the phenomenon of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC).

In literature we can find numerous definitions of ICC, with the authors accentuating these or those aspects of the notion. For example, Byram ( 1997) views a person who has developed ICC as able to build relationships while speaking in the foreign language; to communicate effectively, taking into consideration his own and the other person’s viewpoint and needs; to mediate interactions between people of different backgrounds, and who strives to continue developing communicative skills. As is seen from the suggested definition, the author puts forward attitudes as a key component of ICC.

Chen and Starosta ( 1999) define ICC as “the ability to effectively and appropriately execute communication behaviours that negotiate each other’s cultural identity or identities in a culturally diverse environment” (p. 28). Obviously, the authors emphasize the adaptability as a core element of ICC.

Kim ( 1991) suggests that intercultural communication competence is comprised of knowledge, skills, and motivation needed to interact effectively and appropriately with persons from different cultures. In this definition, motivation is a unique element not included in some of the other definitions of ICC and is further defined as “the set of feelings, intentions, needs and drives associated with the anticipation of or actual engagement in intercultural communication” ( Kim, 1991, p. 263).

According to Wiseman ( 2006), the structure of ICC can be represented through six “C”s:

• Communicative competence;

• Cooperative competence;

• Confidence;

• Commitment to universal human rights;

• Critical thinking;

• Comparability.

As is seen from the suggested pattern, critical thinking skills make a substantial part of IC alone with the knowledge of not less than two languages, ability to work in a team, person’s assertiveness as a professional, person’s civic duties and responsibilities, patriotism and tolerance, skills of interpreting and relating. This point of view seems the most well-founded as the complex of skills proposed by the author is aimed not only at high language proficiency and acquaintance with the target culture, but also at analysing and interpreting other’s view of the world through one’s own perspective. Such a strategy will ensure the cognitive flexibility, with the help of which a student is able to continually supplement and revise existing knowledge to create new categories rather than forcing new knowledge into old categories. This will, first of all, prevent the formation of stereotypes and can help them avoid prejudging an encounter or jumping to conclusions; second, being able to reflect on and adapt their knowledge as they gain new experiences, students will enrich and understand their own world view better.

Critical thinking and its core skills

Since critical thinking was first described by Dewey ( 2008) in 1910, there have been numerous definitions of this term. Educators generally understand the core of this concept as “careful goal-directed thinking”; yet, the existing definitions of critical thinking “can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses” ( Hitchcock, 2018, p. 29).

A lot of attention has been given to determining what cognitive skills critical thinking consists of. Ennis ( 1985) claims that since critical thinking is “reflective and reasonable” and “focused on deciding what to believe or do” (p. 45), it goes beyond the lower-order thinking skills in the cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy, which are knowledge and comprehension, and comprises a significant part of the higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. This means that besides recalling, organizing, comparing, interpreting and summarizing information, critical thinkers are able to reason and apply knowledge to solve problems, to thoroughly examine information and to explore different viewpoints, to combine information in new patterns and to draw conclusions ( Ennis, 1985).

Wade ( 1995) distinguishes eight characteristics of critical thinking. In her opinion, a critical thinker should be able to ask questions, determine problems, analyse evidence, scrutinize assumptions and biased judgments, avoid emotional reasoning, eschew oversimplified statements, take into account multiple interpretations and be willing to accept ambiguity.

Facione’s (2010) research, during which he surveyed a group of forty-six experts about essential elements of critical thinking, shows that critical thinking includes six main cognitive skills: interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation.

The Pearson RED critical thinking model ( Chatrand et al., 2011) arranges critical thinking skills into three groups, which are Recognizing assumptions, Evaluating arguments, and Drawing conclusions. Although this model was designed for training programs in business environment, it is also applicable in other contexts, for example, in teaching foreign languages. Being able to recognize assumptions and evaluate the quality of arguments before making a logical conclusion based on solid evidence is vital in intercultural communication where the view of another culture is often subject to overgeneralizing and stereotyping. Since critical thinking was first described by Dewey ( 2008) in 1910, there have been numerous definitions of this term. Educators generally understand the core of this concept as careful goal-directed thinking; yet, the existing definitions can vary according to the scope of critical thinking, its goal, the thinking component, the criteria and threshold for being careful ( Hitchcock, 2018).

Stereotypes in intercultural communication

The term “stereotype” is used to describe rigid beliefs about a particular category of people considered to conform to one pattern and lack any individuality. These beliefs can be based on different variables, such as social class, nationality, gender, education, religion, sexual orientation and others.

Since stereotypes originate from social categorization, which is a natural cognitive process, people tend to have generalizing preconceptions about others and overlook their individual characteristics. Such oversimplified representations of a specific national group are common in intercultural communication.

Any stereotype, whether it is positive or negative, is a misleading overgeneralization based on judgmental attitude and selective perception. Blum ( 2004) calls stereotypes “a form of morally defective regard of persons” because they are “false and unwarranted” (p. 271). In Blum’s (2004) opinion, among the deficiencies of stereotyping are “viewing members of the stereotyped group as more similar to one another than they actually are” and “viewing members of the stereotyped group as more different from other groups than they actually are” (p. 275).

In intercultural communication, stereotypes often lead to misunderstanding or even cultural conflicts as they prevent representatives of one national culture from rationally evaluating products, perspectives, and practices related to another culture. Besides, as stereotypes are typically acquired in a subconscious way, as part of socialization ( Macrae et al., 1996), people are often unaware that they hold stereotypic beliefs about other cultures. As these stereotypes are deeply rooted, they are hard to recognize and to subject to a critical examination.

Overcoming stereotypes as barriers to successful communication across cultures is one of the central roles in teaching foreign languages. Developing critical thinking skills is an effective way of deconstructing stereotypical perceptions and promoting openness toward other worldviews. The term “stereotype” is used to describe rigid beliefs about a particular category of people considered to conform to one pattern and lack any individuality. These beliefs can be based on different variables, such as social class, nationality, gender, education, religion, sexual orientation and others.

Motivational Stage

The first, motivational, stage involves engaging students and stimulating their interest in examining their own world views and the worldviews of people from other cultural backgrounds. At this stage, students need to realize that there are divergent world views, both across cultures and within one culture, yet people tend to have stereotypical perceptions distorting the complexity of the world. It should be emphasized that for successful intercultural communication it is vital to avoid overgeneralizations and to demonstrate flexibility in considering alternatives and opinions.

To stimulate students’ interest, the teacher can, for example, show a video which gives examples of cultural stereotypes, or assign the students to read a text which contains cultural stereotypes, or ask the students to name some common stereotypes. These stereotypes can be about the students’ own culture or about the culture they study. Then, the following questions can be discussed: “How do such stereotypes develop?”; “What effect do they have?”, “Does it make a difference whether the stereotypes are positive or negative?”, “Do you think it is possible to avoid such stereotypes?” Such a discussion will be a good lead-in to further activities.

Educational Stage

During the second, educational, stage the teacher’s task is to provide activities aimed at developing students’ critical thinking skills of recognizing assumptions and subjecting them to a critical examination. The teacher gives explanations and instructions and then guides the students as they do the activities.

Being able to recognize assumptions about other national cultures is essential as some of these assumptions may turn out to be false and may lead to stereotyping. Recognizing assumptions includes such skills as separating facts from opinions, evaluating the credibility of sources, and examining assumptions from multiple perspectives.

These skills can be developed through exposing students to information coming from different sources and asking them to evaluate the quality of the information and the sources. The following questions for such an evaluation can be suggested:

• Can this statement be verified?

• Does the statement look like an expression of judgment or belief?

• Is this statement based on research and supported by evidence (e.g. statistics, documentation, etc.)?

• Are there any biased words in the statement?

• Who is the author? What are his/her credentials? Are these credentials sufficient?

• What kind of source does the information come from (e.g. a blog, a personal website, a movie, a documentary, a website of an educational organization, etc.)? Do you think it is a credible source? Do you think it is a biased source? Why/Why not?

• Can you rely on one source of information? Why/Why not?

For instance, the teacher selects various texts on the topic “How do Americans view Russians?” The length and the difficulty of these texts vary depending on the students’ level of language proficiency. These texts could include an episode from an American movie featuring a Russian character, an extract from a book or an article written by an American author about Russians, a blog/ a video blog in which opinions about Russians are expressed, etc. The students study these texts and answer the questions above. Besides learning to differentiate between facts and opinions and to evaluate the sources of information, students get a valuable experience of dealing with multiple viewpoints, which gives them a richer perspective on the topic.

The next step is to critically analyse the assumptions. This means questioning the quality of evidence and identifying possible biases and logical fallacies. One of the most common biases resulting in stereotypical distortions and clichés about cultures is confirmation bias. This bias means the tendency to process information by selecting information which matches one’s world view and to ignore the information which is not consistent with it. For example, if a person has an idea that Americans are an individualistic nation, giving priority to personal liberty, s/he is likely to look for confirmatory examples and to reject contradictory examples.

For example, while doing the activity described above, students may come across some negative opinions about Russians and they may feel like rejecting this information under the influence of confirmation bias. In this case, analysing information objectively and accurately means detaching yourself from your mind-set and gaining a different perspective of your culture. These critical thinking skills are vital for better intercultural communication.

Sweeping generalizations (also called unqualified generalizations) and hasty generalizations (also known as faulty generalizations) are both logical fallacies which lead to stereotyping, exaggerations and unwarranted conclusions in any communication, including intercultural communication. The two fallacies are the inverse of each other. A sweeping generalization means treating a general rule as universally true and applying it to any specific situation, regardless of the circumstances, whereas a hasty generalization means taking a small sample and extrapolating a specific rule about this sample to a general situation. In both fallacies conclusions are not justified by sufficient, proper evidence. An example of a sweeping generalization could be a situation when a person says that because all Americans like eating fast food, a particular American must also like fast food. An example of a hasty generalization could be the opposite situation when a person says that he knows an American who likes eating fast food, so it must be true of all Americans.

Students should be taught how to identify these logical fallacies in other people’s reasoning and to avoid overgeneralizations in intercultural communication. This could be done through analysing a selection of texts on one aspect of culture from different sources, for example, texts about typical housing or fast food in the USA. The following questions can be suggested for discussing these texts:

• Does the source contain a personal experience or findings of a study?

• Is one person’s experience enough to determine a group’s characteristic?

• Is one study enough to determine a group’s characteristic? Is it important to know how the study was conducted?

• How similar do you think members of one national culture are? How different do you think they are? What makes them similar or different?

• How much evidence is needed to make a justified generalization about a national culture?

• What linguistic means help to make a justified generalization?

These questions aim to stimulate students to question the assumptions and to reconsider them, to bring diverse information together and to avoid unwarranted generalizations.

It is important that students be taught how to use hedging to make qualified generalizations about other cultures, taking into account diversity of any group. Hedging, or cautious language, turns an overgeneralization into a credible claim. This language includes using modal verbs (e.g. may, might, can, could, etc.), certain lexical verbs (e.g. to seem, to appear, to tend, etc.), probability adjectives (e.g. probable, possible, (un)likely, etc.) and adverbs (e.g. probably, perhaps, apparently, etc.), qualifiers of degree, quantity, frequency, and time (e.g. roughly, generally, some, somewhat, often, etc.) and other features.

The following activity could be suggested. Students make a list of some common stereotypes about a nation, for example, about Americans or the English, and then change these overgeneralizations by means of hedging. If students have difficulty making such a list, the teacher can show a video with on-the-street interviews where people from one country talk about their stereotypes of another culture (there are plenty of videos of this type on the Internet). After the hedging activity, the teacher asks the students to discuss the effect caused by the use of hedging.

Practical Stage

The third stage of the technique is called practical, or autonomous. During this stage, students are given tasks in which they can practice their critical thinking skills for dealing with cultural stereotypes. These tasks vary in their content and form depending on the students’ level of language proficiency and the syllabus. Let us consider a few examples.

Students can be asked to critically explore their own views of their national culture and to realize that this culture is not homogenous. The purpose of this exercise is to teach students to see multiple perspectives and to identify possible auto stereotypes, or overgeneralized perceptions of themselves. Students can do it in several ways:

The teacher chooses a particular cultural aspect or several aspects (e.g. family, home, customs, work rules, community, food, time, sense of space, etc.) and makes a list of questions about people’s behaviour and attitudes. For example, if the teacher chooses the topic “Family”, such questions can be asked: “Do several generations usually live together, under one roof?”; “Who takes care of the elderly members of the family?”; “Do young people tend to move out when they come out of age?”; “Who does the household chores?” and others. The teacher asks students to imagine a situation when a person from an English-speaking country asks them these questions. Working in small groups, students discuss how they would answer the questions. Then they present the results of their discussions to class. This task can be done in class or assigned as homework.

Alternatively, this activity can be done individually. In this case, the teacher asks students to imagine that they need to write a post for a blog or make a video for a video blog about Russians. The teacher (or the students themselves) can create a blog on a free platform for the students to publish their content.

Similar projects can be done about various aspects of a foreign culture – its products, practices and perspectives. The teacher can organize work in a number of ways. Besides discussions and blogs/vlogs, students can make presentations, write essays and critical reviews, prepare posters, participate in debates, etc. When doing these projects, students will use their critical thinking skills to examine not only their view of the foreign culture but also that of their own culture. Comparing and contrasting the two cultures will eventually enrich their cognitive structure, making it broader, more flexible and interculturally equipped.

Controlling Stage

During the fourth stage of the technique the teacher exercises control and checks the correctness of the tasks completed by the students. The main focus is put on how well the students can identify overgeneralizations and use the language of hedging, how good they are at evaluating the quality of reasoning and considering multiple viewpoints before arriving at a conclusion.