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What does multicultural teaching look like when U.S. professors teach classes mainly composed of East Asian students?

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What does multicultural teaching look like when U.S. professors teach classes mainly composed of East Asian students?

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Content Running head: WHAT DOES MULTICULTURAL TEACHING LOOK LIKE

1

WHAT DOES MULTICULTURAL TEACHING LOOK LIKE WHEN U.S PROFESSORS
TEACH CLASSES MAINLY COMPOSED OF EAST ASIAN STUDENTS?

by

Chengwei Chen

_______________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2016

Copyright 2016 Chengwei Chen

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If there is a book you really want to read,
But it hasn’t been written yet,
Then you must write it.
— Toni Morrison

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The year 2016 marks my 10
th
anniversary of living in the United States of America. I
humbly appreciate the opportunities and resources offered to me by this beautiful country, which
has transformed me into who I am today. My pursuit of the USC Ed.D degree has especially
been a highlight of my journey over the last decade. In this program, I have been lucky to study
under professors whose dedication and ambition have influenced me and given me insight into
the reality of becoming a life-long researcher and responsive educator. I have been lucky to earn
friendships with my USC classmates, who by sharing their personal stories and challenges, have
inspired me to see the world from different angles. I am also lucky to have received
unconditional love from my family. My dream of achieving an advanced degree in the United
States could not have been realized without their understanding and wholehearted support. There
are many, many people to thank, so I will take a brief moment to mention some of those who
have been most influential to me during this process.
First, I would like to thank my Dissertation Committee Chair, Dr. Julie Slayton for being
such a compassionate and devoted mentor. Dissertation writing was a rough journey filled with
loneliness and self-denial. There were so many times that I questioned my own ability and was
considering giving up. During those despairing moments, Dr. Slayton was always available for
me to ask questions and talk through my concerns. As a non-English native user, I sometimes
had a sense of low efficacy about my language use, and the resulting quality of my work.
However, Dr. Slayton consistently showed confidence in my capability to think criticallyas well
as in my writing. Dr. Slayton, your validation has really meant a lot to me. In addition, this
dissertation would not have been completed without the devotion of your personal time and the
feedback and guidance you provided to me.
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To Dr. Rob Filback, another member of my dissertation committee, thank you. I sincerely
admire your profound knowledge and experiences in the field of international education. You are
a genuine role model to me. You inspired me to see through questions by using the power of
creativity. Whenever I encountered intellectual problems and asked for your guidance, you
always responded to me immediately in spite of the busy schedule. Your advice taught me to
think out of the box. And to Dr. Uju Anya, my third dissertation committee member, I genuinely
thank you as well. You always encouraged me to continue my research by giving me an
optimistic outlook. Your feedback reflected how much I had already accomplished and what I
should/could do to further polish my work.
To my beloved USC classmate and friend, Dr. Alohilani Okamura, thank you for your
faith and company. It would have been almost impossible to complete this work without your
friendship and support. To my beloved family members Nishi, my parents, and my sister—you
were the ones who encouraged me to move forward with my education and provided me with
full support. Throughout this process, you gave me the time and space I needed to complete my
coursework, conduct my research, and spend the countless hours needed for reading and writing.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………… ...3
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………… ...7
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….. ...8
Chapter 1: Statement of the Problem………………………………………………………... ...10
Background of the Problem…………………………………………………………. ...13
Statement of the Problem……………………………………………………………. ...16
Purpose of the Study………………………………………………………………… ...16
Significance of the Study……………………………………………………………. ...17
Organization of the Dissertation…………………………………………………….. ...18
Chapter 2: Literature Review………………………………………………………………... ...19
Learning in Higher Education……………………………………………………….. ...20
Cultural Diversity and Students’ Perception of Learning…………………………… ...25
Teaching Excellence in Higher Education…………………………………………... ...43
Conceptual Framework……………………………………………………………… ...63
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...69
Chapter 3: Methods………………………………………………………………………….. ...70
Research Design……………………………………………………………………... ...70
Sample and Population………………………………………………………………....72
Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures……………………………………....74
Data Analysis Procedures……………………………………………………………....77
Ethical Considerations……………………………………………………………….....80
Credibility and Trustworthiness……………………………………………………... ...80
Limitations…………………………………………………………………………... ...81
Delimitations………………………………………………………………………… ...82
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...83
Chapter 4: Findings………………………………………………………………………….. ...84
A Return to the Conceptual Framework…………………………………………….. ...85
Setting the Context: Nishiki International College………………………………….. ...86
Case Study #1: Ms. Lawrence of the College Preparatory Program…………………...87
Case Study #2: Ms. Dargo of the Liberal Arts Program…………………………… ...129
A Cross-Case Analysis……………………………………………………………......173
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….....185
Chapter 5: Discussion, Implication, and Recommendation………………………………... ...188
Summary of Findings………………………………………………………………. ...189
Implications for the Professor, Institution, and the Research Community………… ...191
Recommendation for Future Study………………………………………………… ...200
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References………………………………………………………………………………….. ...201
Appendices
Appendix A: U.S. Faculty Ideology Interview Protocol…………………………… ...207
Appendix B: Post-Observation Interview Protocol for Ms. Lawrence…………….. ...209
Appendix C: Post-Observation Interview Protocol for Ms. Lawrence…………….. ...212
Appendix D: Classroom Observation Protocol…………………………………….. ...214

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Conceptual representation of the self..................................................................... ...29
Figure 2. Conceptual framework: Multicultural teaching practice in higher education...........65
Figure 3. The multicultural competences of an instructor................................................... ...175
Figure 4. Teaching in a classroom of a more multiculturally competent instructor...............186

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ABSTRACT
This dissertation served as a pilot study that tested a set of ideas drawn from the existing
literature grounded in learning in higher education, cultural diversity and students’ perception of
learning, and teaching excellence in higher education. The study examined how a U.S.
professor’s knowledge, awareness, and skills in teaching a majority of East Asian students,
influenced teaching quality in a postsecondary institution where providing non-English speaking
learners linguistic/cultural immersion experiences was the primary mission. To answer the
following research question, “How and in what ways is a U.S. professors’ facilitation of student
learning influenced by the extent to which they are multiculturally competent?” a multi-case
study method was employed using both a single-case and a cross-case inductive analysis. This
approach enabled the researcher to examine the interactions and intersections of the professors’
beliefs, awareness, instructional methods, and teaching practices as they occurred within the
postsecondary and multicultural context. Interviews and observations collected from two
experienced U.S. professors from one U.S. college preparatory ESL academy served as the
primary methods and source for data collection. The findings suggest that a U.S. professor’s
teaching quality may be observed through his/her approach to cross-cultural communication and
interaction, their conceptions of culture knowledge and effective ways of fostering multicultural
teaching, ways of expressing culture, and their capability for effective classroom management
policy. The qualities were assessed by looking at his/her knowledge about universal conceptions
of student learning, Western theories of teaching, as well as culturally specific theories of
teaching; the professor’s awareness of the learning needs of diverse students, personal
stereotypes toward culturally and linguistically different students, and their
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intercultural/intracultural diversity; and the professor’s skills in being able to reflect on culturally
responsive pedagogy.

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CHAPTER 1
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Like many other international students of my generation, I launched my American dream
by attending an advanced academic program in an U.S. based higher education institution. By
accepting the tenets of U.S. based academic training—the foundations of which are active
engagement, critical thinking, and autonomous learning—I paved my way in becoming a
competent knowledge constructivist, as stressed by the Socratic ideology. Nevertheless, the
process of assimilating into the Western paradigms of learning was far from easy for me. Beyond
the linguistic barrier, my self-identification as an East Asian learner 10 years ago also triggered
certain preconceived ideas about successful learning, which included: unconditional respect of
the teacher as the intellectual authority on the subject matter, the emphasis of recitation and
memorization as the sole strategies for knowledge acquisition, and my belief in the virtue of the
silent and passive student. What I did not know was that my Confucian mindset was integrally in
conflict with the instructional practices and pedagogical expectations in an American classroom.
These fundamental perceptual discrepancies between East Asian students and their U.S.
professors were not being addressed in the United States ten years ago. At that time, many U.S.
based higher education institutions only provided their faculty with professional development on
multicultural education in order to enhance their awareness of ethnic/cultural diversity on their
campuses. These were places where English speaking U.S. born students were in the majority,
and international or immigrant students with less English proficiency the minority (Brustein,
2007). As a consequence, most U.S. based/educated/prepared faculty (hereafter referred to as
U.S professors) had not been under any immediate pressure to understand how non-U.S. students
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perceive learning differently from their U.S. counterparts (Brustein, 2007). The U.S. professors
conceived cultural assimilation as an inevitable obligation of their non-native speakers of
English. Thus, rarely did these faculty members see the need to (re)examine the effectiveness of
western pedagogical practices for non-U.S. learners who had little knowledge of American
culture and were working with limited English proficiency (Bodycott & Walker, 2000).
Consequently, my personal experience of interacting with U.S. professors with limited
understanding of culturally and linguistically diverse students, particularly the East Asian
students, and even less of a motivation to better know different learning traits, inspired me to
study how a multiculturally competent U.S. professor might provide quality instruction to
students who are neither English native speakers, nor are U.S. born and raised. Exploring what it
mean to be a multiculturally competent U.S. professor is even more crucial today than it was 10
years ago because of the effects of globalization evident in our diverse classrooms.
As a result of the internationalization of higher education, U.S. professors often have to
teach a class of students who are linguistically and culturally different from them (Stromquist,
2007). The multicultural competence of U.S. professors is especially critical for those who teach
at any postsecondary program designed to develop the linguistic/ cultural immersion experiences
of the non-U.S. learners (Stromquist, 2007). My original research plan was to investigate what an
“ideal” multicultural teaching practice in higher education might look like when U.S. professors
and East Asian students had to be aligned in terms of what professors do, how professors
understand the needs of their students, and what students say about their learning needs. With
this primitive research inquiry in mind, I assumed that if I collected data from two U.S.
professors, I could demonstrate exemplary teaching practices and demonstrate their knowledge
of teaching East Asian students. Moreover, I also assumed that the process of data collection
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would allow me to gather and analyze perspectives from both the U.S. professors and their East
Asian students in terms of their assessments of good cross-cultural teaching practices.
However, once this research proposal became site specific, I immediately encountered
two major issues. Firstly, I found out that rarely did U.S. professors in major postsecondary
institutions have an opportunity to teach a class primarily composed of East Asian students. It
was thus difficult to explore “ideal” teaching practices in the context I was hoping for. Thus I
switched my research site to a U.S. based English-as-a-second-language academy (hereafter ESL
academy) where East Asian students were the student majority. In particular, the chosen ESL
academy provided East Asian students with the chance to experience the English language
through immersion in American culture, in preparation for their future attendance at U.S.
academic institutions. However, the second hurdle I faced with the proposed research was that
Japanese students accounted for the majority at my research site. As a consequence, I could not
gather student data through focus group interviews due to the language barrier. Without feedback
from the students, I could not compare and contrast the alignment between the beliefs of the East
Asian students and the U.S. professors in regards to effective multicultural teaching practices.
In considering the above conditions and limitations, I decided to focus on investigating
the development of U.S., ESL professors, with regard to their teaching quality once they were
able to enhance their knowledge, awareness, and pedagogical skills in multicultural instruction.
To be multiculturally competent, the U.S. professors not only needed to understand the cultures
of the target students and their perspectives on learning, but they also had to be aware of the
perceptual differences between Western and Eastern paradigms of learning (McKay, 2002).
Ideally, a competent ESL professor would become experienced in bridging the perceptual
discrepancies of Eastern and the Western classrooms by utilizing effective pedagogies
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(Stromquist, 2007). Thus, the purpose of the study was to explore a U.S. based ESL professor’s
multicultural competences, including: their conscious or unconscious beliefs about East Asian
students as learners, their knowledge of effective pedagogies for culturally and linguistically
diverse learners, and their ability to critically reflect on their teaching and interactions with
students who were culturally and linguistically different from them. This dissertation exclusively
focuses on U.S. professors and East Asian students (primarily Japanese) in one ESL program in
Hawaii. In the remainder of this chapter, I set the context for this study by presenting the
background of the problem, the statement of the problem, purpose of this study, and the
significance of the problem.
Background of the Problem
As a region where most countries are still developing and economically emerging, there
has been a long history of students from East Asian countries studying abroad either for the
development of foreign language skills or in seeking advanced degrees (Huang, 2007).
According to a report for the UNESCO 2009 world conference on higher education, international
student mobility largely reflects a South-North phenomenon with an influx of Asian students
going to the major academic networks of North America, Western Europe, and Australia
(Altbach, Risberg, & Rumbley, 2009). Because of their international reputation, endowments,
academic resources, and high quality of the curricula and faculty, U.S. institutions host more
international students than any of the other English speaking countries (Altbach, Risberg, &
Rumbley, 2009). Data collected by the Institute of International Education (2013) shows that in
2013 the U.S. hosted 19% of the worldwide international student population (4.3 million) in
comparison with 11% in the United Kingdom, 6% in Australia, and 5% in Canada. Forty-three
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percent of the international student population attending school in the United States is from East
Asia (Altbach, Risberg, & Rumbley, 2009).
Globalization pushes even more students from the East Asian countries to further develop
their cross-cultural communication skills, professional knowledge, and world-view by accessing
academic training programs in the United States (Altbach & Knight, 2007). Nowadays, East
Asian students account for a significant portion of the student population enrolling in academic
programs in U.S. higher education institutions. For example, data collected by the Institute of
International Education (2014) shows that in 2013 there were approximately 2.7 million Chinese,
68,000 South Korean, 21,000 Taiwanese, and 19,000 Japanese students studying on U.S. college
campuses. Postsecondary institutions that provide East Asian students with English language and
American culture immersion experiences are also growing given globalization trends. ESL
programs based in the United States, and the satellite campuses of U.S. institutions based in Asia
are two significant types of this phenomenon.
Prior to their being accepted into academic programs in U.S. institutions, East Asian
students usually attend ESL programs to strengthen their foundation of both the English
language and their general knowledge of American culture. One research study has shown that
East Asian students’ experience of language acquisition and cultural immersion in their
respective ESL programs, determine their future efficacy and expectation of academic
achievement in U.S. institutions (McKay, 2002). Thus enhancement of the ESL instructors’
multicultural competencies is very crucial for the future success of culturally and linguistically
diverse students (McKay, 2002). Aside from East Asian students studying in the United States,
many prestigious American universities look to expand their international reputation and
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financial revenue by building satellites campuses in East Asian countries and recruiting local
students to learn with the U.S. professors there, utilizing U.S. curricula materials (McKay, 2002).
Many challenges await U.S. professors who teach in postsecondary institutions where
East Asian students are the majority. The first challenge is that U.S. professors generally lack the
necessary knowledge and skills needed to teach East Asian students, because the parties involved
don’t share a common language or a similar ideological framework of learning/teaching (Huang,
2007). East Asian students’ absence of linguistic and cultural immersion experiences puts more
responsibly on the shoulders of the U.S. professors to better understand and accommodate the
divergent learning perceptions of East Asian students (Altbach, Risberg, & Rumbley, 2009).
Furthermore, U.S. professors who tend to evaluate student-learning progress through western
paradigms, may find that East Asian perspectives of learning are in contradiction with their
expectations (Altbach, Risberg, & Rumbley, 2009). Thus it is imperative that institutions provide
appropriate assistance to cultivate U.S. professors’ knowledge of East Asian learning traits, as
well as mentoring them in effective strategies for cross-cultural communication and teaching.
The second challenge is the misconceptions that U.S. professors’ might harbor about East
Asian students. Consequently, inattentiveness to cultural biases might prevent instructors from
practicing good teaching practices with culturally and linguistically diverse adult learners
(Kumaravadievelu, 2003). Current K-12 literature suggests that culturally responsive pedagogy
helps U.S. secondary teachers to align their instructional choices with students’ cultural
characteristics, experiences, and perspectives (Gay, 2002). Culturally responsive pedagogy in the
K-12 setting underscores the importance of teachers’ knowledge about diverse cultures, their
ability to deliver culturally relevant curriculum, and create caring environments and effective
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strategies for cross-cultural communication (Gay, 2002). The very same assumptions and
practices of culturally responsive pedagogy should be applied to higher education settings.
Statement of the Problem
Nowadays, U.S. professors have more opportunities to teach a cohort of students whose
cultural experience, native language, and ideology of teaching and learning are distinct from
theirs. Given the globalization and the internationalization trends within higher education, U.S.
professors of ESL programs and those teaching in the satellite campuses of U.S. colleges in Asia
might find themselves as the only English native speaker and the only representative of
American culture in the classroom (Stromquist, 2007). In those programs, many of the students
have completed their prior degrees in Confucian education nations (i.e., Japan, Korea, China,
Hong Kong China, and Taiwan) with very limited experiences of overseas studies (Marginson,
2011). However, the Confucian concept of education most East Asian students possess is foreign
to many U.S. professors who have, not surprisingly, spent years building their teaching careers in
the U.S. educational system (Stromquist, 2007). Thus, what U.S. professors should do to
improve the learning experience of East Asian students, and understanding the essential
components of multicultural competencies then become critical research problems for both
teaching practitioners and policy makers at the institutions.
Purpose of the Study
This dissertation explored the following overarching research question: How, and in what
ways, are U.S. professors’ facilitation of student learning influenced by the extent to which they
are multiculturally competent? More specifically, my study focused on the way that Western
professors and East Asian students interacted in the classroom and how cultural identities, native
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languages, and pedagogy and curriculum played out in light of cultural and linguistic differences
between the professors and the students.
The larger research question consists of the following two research sub-questions:
1. What do the U.S. professors of East Asian students believe they must know and be
able to do in order to support and facilitate their students’ learning?
2. What does teaching look like in the classrooms of higher education faculty who teach
East Asian students who are culturally and linguistically significant?
Significance of the Study
Merriam (2009) states that the overall purposes of qualitative research are to achieve an
understanding of how people make sense out of their lives, delineate the process of meaning
making, and describe how people interpret what they experience. My research question is
significant because it provides insight into what U.S. professors can do to enhance teaching
quality in a classroom where East Asian students are the majority. In particular, this study
explores how a U.S. professor’s multicultural competences—including conscious or unconscious
beliefs about East Asian students’ teaching and learning pattern, knowledge of effective
pedagogies for culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and aptitude for critical reflection—
may influence their teaching quality and interaction with students who are culturally and
linguistically different from them.
The investigations of this study were specifically conducted within an emerging context
whereby the mission of many U.S. professors is to teach East Asian students with limited
English proficiency and American cultural knowledge in ways that enable them to make
appropriate achievement gains in an American classroom. The focus of my study is the
instructional journey of two experienced ESL professors and their interpretation of successful
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teaching practices aimed at culturally and linguistically diverse students. Through examining the
U.S. professors’ perceptions of teaching East Asian students and evaluating the quality of
instruction they provided to the East Asian students, the study attempts to present immediate
challenges encountered by the respective instructors and propose problem solutions for teaching
practitioners and program policy makers alike.
Organization of the Dissertation
There are five chapters in this dissertation. Chapter 1 presented the problem statement
and purpose of the study. Chapter 2 reviews the literature in three areas: learning in higher
education, cultural diversity and student perceptions of learning, and teaching excellence in
higher education. Chapter 3 presents the methods utilized for the study, including the research
design; population and sampling procedure; and the instruments and their selection or
development, together with the process proposed for establishing validity and reliability. Each of
these sections concludes with a rationale, including strengths and limitations of the design
elements. Chapters 4 and 5 explain the findings and discuss the implications for further study
generated from the case study analysis.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
The inclusion of multicultural education in the K-12 teacher preparation curriculum
reflects the belief that teachers need to develop competencies to work with students who do not
speak English as their native language or who have very different cultural identities and
experiences from their teachers and peers (Cockrell, Placier, Cockrell, & Middleton, 1999). In
response to immigration and increasing cultural diversity, K-12 teachers are expected to bring a
multicultural lens to course content, help students construct knowledge, promote ethnical/racial
equality, reduce prejudice through pedagogy, and build classroom and school cultures that
accommodate the co-existence of heterogeneous values, customs, and/or traditions (Dwyer,
2006).
Relevant literature concerning K-12 multicultural education might have implications for
U.S. higher education teaching practices toward culturally and linguistically diverse students.
However, due to the unique socio-political contexts of the higher education institutions, the
definition of multicultural education and the requirement that college faculty develop
multicultural competence are different from one institution to another and from the K-12 setting
(Dwyer, 2006). Chapter 1 pointed out that U.S. professors with a significant amount of culturally
and linguistically diverse student enrollment, had very different experiences from teachers in K-
12 setting in terms of student formation and the instructional challenges they face. This
dissertation explores how an U.S. professor’s multicultural competences—including their
conscious or unconscious beliefs about how East Asian students should be taught and their
learning process, knowledge of effective pedagogies for culturally and linguistically diverse
learners, and the ability to critically reflect—influenced their teaching quality and interaction
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with students who are culturally and linguistically different from them. More specifically, my
study focused on the way that Western professors and East Asian students interacted in the
classroom and how cultural identities, native languages, and pedagogy and curriculum played out
in light of cultural and linguistic differences between the professors and the students. The
research question consisted of the following two research sub-questions:
1. What do the U.S. professors of East Asian students believe they must know and be
able to do in order to support and facilitate their students’ learning?
2. What does teaching look like in the classrooms of higher education faculty who
teache East Asian students who are culturally and linguistically significant?
To answer the research question and its sub-questions, this dissertation drew from the
following research in the field literature: (1) learning in higher education, (2) cultural diversity
and student perception of learning, and (3) teaching excellence in higher education. I conclude
this literature review with my conceptual framework that determined what data I would collect,
the instruments I would use to collect the data, and how I would analyze the data.
Learning in Higher Education
The first body of literature, learning in higher education, explored the universal concept
of student learning through the lens of social-cognitive theory and the socio-cultural theory. The
universal concept of student learning is concerned with how students in general acquire new
knowledge, regardless of their cultural or linguistic differences. By examining the extant
research on the universal concept of student learning, my aim was to discover if an U.S.
professor knew when learning took place, what were some significant obstacles to learning, and
how to better assess students’ needs and facilitate learning. This section of the literature review
started from the self-regulation theory of Zimmerman. The self-regulation theory is considered to
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be the pillar of the social-cognitive theory for learning. This theory explains the enhancement of
student learning efficiency by changing their learning motivation, methods of learning, use of
time, control of physical and social environments, and performance. The second part of this
section reviews the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky. Sociocultural theory depicts learning as a
process of cognitive transformation through the activities of social perspectives on exchange and
the internalization of external insights. In particular, Vygotsky (1978) conceives the school
environment the zone of proximal development. Because individual students receive intellectual
stimulus from collaborating and interacting with peers, it is assumed they would further revise
schemata and personal perspectives as part of the learning process. The examination of student
learning through the lens of the social-cognitive theory and sociocultural theory provides a
foundation for gauging the competence of an instructor with regards to their grasp of a student’s
current learning condition, and their knowledge for facilitating learning to maximize a student’s
learning effect.
The Self-Regulation Theory of Zimmerman
The social cognitive theorists (Bandura, 2001; Zimmerman, 2000) proclaim that a
student’s academic achievement is indebted to his/her interaction with the social context and
self-perception of learning capability and purpose. Social cognitive theory believes a student’s
learning outcome is a product of a continuous interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and
contextual factors. The self-regulation theory intends to help students understand their personal
reasons for education and improve learning strategies by exploring why and how they should
study, how they can study more efficiently, which is a better place to study, whom can they study
with, and what is their current academic standing (Zimmerman, 2000). Six dimensions of
behavior that influence learning are identified by Zimmerman to enhance students’ sense of
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responsibility for their own learning and their academic performances, these six dimensions are:
motivation (why should they study), methods of learning (how to study), use of time (when to
study), control of one’s physical and social environment (where to study and whom to study
with), and performance (what is their current academic standing). The following section will
discuss meanings of the six dimensions and some effective strategies to strengthen learners’
ability for self-regulation.
Methods of learning. Learning strategies are methods students use to acquire
information and students with better learning strategies tend to do better in school. Since
different learning conditions and tasks require learners to apply different strategies for learning,
students should be prepared to perform the following three learning strategies while acquiring
new knowledge: (1) rehearsal strategies, (2) elaboration strategies, and (3) organizational
strategies. Rehearsal strategies include copying material, taking verbatim notes, reciting words
or definitions, and underlining salient material. This type of strategies helps learners to make
connections between the new information and their preexisting schemas. Elaboration strategies
are performed by paraphrasing, summarizing, creating analogies, and generating or answering
questions. With this type of strategies, students able to locate key points in long passages,
distinguish main ideas from less important details, and interpret complicated concepts in their
own words. In addition, representation or mapping is one of the most critical organizational
strategies. By sorting newly acquired information through hierarchies, sequences, matrices, and
diagrams, learners can store knowledge more effectively and remember details more
comprehensively.
Use of time. As Smith states, “you control your life by controlling your time” (as cited in
Dembo & Eaton, 2000, p. 231) students need to learn to prioritize things for better academic
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results. Zimmerman (2000) recommends the following steps to improve student time
management. First, students need be aware of their current time usage and understand that their
poor time management is the reason of low academic performance. After the stage of awareness,
students need to learn to organize their time use by category and come to realize that the
inefficient use of time is the same as time wasted. Then, students learn to identify the most
crucial tasks for the day and prioritize those activities in their schedules.
Physical environment. Effective learners know how to create a positive learning
environment with fewer internal and external distracters. Internal distracters refer to personal
concerns and anxiety, which might have a negative impact on learning, and external distracters
means noises or other types of environmental interruptions.
Social environment. While confronting personal or academic difficulties, students with
good control of the social environment know when and how to seek help from instructors, tutors,
peers, or even nonsocial resources. Students’ self-perceptions about their academic and social
competencies determine their help seeking behaviors. High achieving students tend to have
better interpersonal skills and function more successfully in the classroom.
Sociocultural Theory
Vygotsky and his collaborators in Russia first introduced the sociocultural theory of
learning in the 1920s and 1930s (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Different from cognitive theories,
which describe a mechanical process of information retention and knowledge internalization, or
social cognitive theory that investigates the effects of contextual environments on students’
learning behaviors and academic outcomes, sociocultural theory conceptualizes development as
the transformation of socially shared activities into internalized processes (John-Steiner & Mahn,
1996). The section following will first introduce some basic assumption of sociocultural theory.
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In his book Mind in Society, Vygotsky (1978) first quibbles with Koffka’s viewpoint on
the interconnection of neurocognitive maturation, learning, and intellectual development; then,
he initiates his sociocultural theory based on observations of children’s learning behaviors.
Vygotsky contends that some contributions of Koffka’s theory of child development are (1) that
the maturation of brain and intellectual development through learning are two mutually
dependent and reciprocal processes, and (2) acquired knowledge is transferable and can enhance
learners’ general ability (Vygotsky,1978). However, Vygotsky argues that Koffka’s theory fails
to explain how does school education provide different experiences from other types of learning
activities, and what are some core elements of school learning that influence learners’ intellectual
development (Vygotsky, 1978).
Vygotsky makes the following assumptions (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). First, he
claims that human learning and development originate from learners’ association with various
social sources (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Second, semiotic mediation is key to all aspects of
knowledge construction (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Semiotic meditation refers to forms and
tools people adopt to represent and receive information. Styles of presentation and language
choices are two core factors. Third, he believes that interconnection between humans’ cognitive
development and the stimulus of external environment can be best examined by genetic analysis
(John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Genetic analysis attempts to understand how a person’s culturally
relevant experiences shape and revises his/her schema construction. Fourth, the zone of proximal
development and collaborative learning are important to bridge the perceptual gap between
learners (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Vygotsky (1978) defines the zone of proximal
development as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined through
independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through
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problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p. 86). The
school environment provides learners with the opportunity to access to social sources, to
communicate and make senses of divergent perspectives from peers and teachers, and to explore
and practice some fundamental skills of socialization before adulthood. Because social cultural
theory underscores the interconnection of internalized knowledge, language, and the cultural
contexts, the theory is widely applied by scholars of second language acquisition, adult
education, and multicultural education (Lim & Renshaw, 2001). In particular, it has important
implications toward teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students (Lim & Renshaw,
2001). One thing we can learn from the theory is that learners of different cultural origins, be it
ethnicity or nationality, obtain their locally situated funds of knowledge and it is a teacher’s
responsibility to discern the ideological differences existing in his/her classroom as well as
explore the values of learning in students’ own cultures (Lim & Renshaw, 2001). The theory also
teaches us that better multicultural instruction tries to accommodate presentation styles that most
fit the learners’ local cultures and relate course content with students’ personal experiences.
Also, the theory teaches us that in class activities which encourage peer work or group
collaboration should be frequently implemented for active involvement of the diverse students
(Lim & Renshaw, 2001).
Cultural Diversity and Students’ Perception of Learning
By reviewing social cognitive theories and relevant empirical studies, a second body of
literature within the extant scholarship, cultural diversity and student perception of learning,
further inquiries into how culture influences students’ strategies for processing information, and
the role of emotional experience, and motivation for learning. A competent multicultural
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instructor needs to know how a student’s cultural perspectives influence his or her perceptions of
learning, and then to provide germane instruction.
Cultural diversity can be intercultural and intracultural. Intercultural diversity theories
study the role national cultures or traditional philosophies play on the learner’s academic identity
formation (Markus & Kitayama, 1999; Tweed & Lehman, 2002). From the perspectives of
national cultures, Markus and Kitayama (1999) use Japan as a model for East Asian perceptions
and they argue that the different socio-cultural conditions of Japan and America contribute to the
divergent self-construal of students. Because of the construal, Japanese and American students
develop their unique traits of learning in terms of cognition, emotion, and motivation. Through
the lens of traditional philosophies, Tweed and Lehman (2002) contend that some
distinguishable academic behaviors of East Asian and Western students should be attributed to
the Confucian versus Socratic frame. Another interesting approach to analyze intercultural
diversity is through the frame of educational anthropology. As a Chinese native originally from
Mainland China and a now an educational scholar at Brown university, Li (2012) reflects her
experience of identity transformation after receiving Western education training in the U.S.A.
This reflective piece of work tries to explore outstanding historical/ ecological factors which
render East Asian/ Western learners as who they were and are.
Intracultural diversity theories believe that cultural difference exists even within one
culturally homogeneous society due to the diverse cultural milieus of learners (i.e., gender,
family socio-economic status, religious beliefs, and, ethnicity). Bandura (2002) asserts that
learners from diverse milieus will develop different self-efficacies of learning that then
determines their motivation and academic performance.
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The section of the literature review that follows provides insight into explanations that
have been offered regarding what makes non-western students perceive learning differently from
their western professors; and how the divergent concepts of academic achievement might
influence students’ strategies of cognition, emotion, motivation, and self-efficacy. This
dissertation focuses exclusively on the learning differences between East Asian students and
American students. First I present comparative education theories focusing on the impact of
intercultural or intracultural diversity toward student learning. Then I offer empirical studies that
address the beliefs and academic performance of Confucian heritage students as this group of
students is the focus of the dissertation.
Intercultural Diversity and Students’ Perception of Learning
Researchers believe that a nation’s social reality and traditional philosophy will
contribute to unique perceptions of learning for its citizens and have implications toward their
academic cognition, emotion, and motivation (Markus & Kitayama, 1999; Tweed & Lehman,
2002). Intercultural diversity takes place when learners are displaced from nations or cultural
communities where they have experienced primary socialization and interaction with peoples of
the same first language and similar world view; to a foreign cultural context where people
possess divergent cultural identities and academic expectations (Salili & Hoosain, 2007). By
reviewing literature on intercultural diversity we can gain insight into challenges culturally and
linguistically diverse students encounter during the process of cultural assimilation and
accommodation; as well as insight into the adequate supports professors may provide for diverse
students’ multicultural identity development and academic success (Salili & Hoosain, 2007).
In this section, I will first present how a nation’s social reality frames an individual’s
construal of self, which influences his/her learning attitudes. Then, I will compare divergent
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concepts of learning between East and West students due to the Confucian and Socratic
traditions.
The social reality of a nation and the construal of self. Markus and Kitayama (1999)
analyzed various empirical studies that address how Japanese and U.S. students develop
divergent construals of the self in response to social expectations and the need of interacting with
others in the societies. Like many other East Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Singapore,
or Korea, Japan as a nation of social relativism conceives individuals as interdependent parts of
larger social wholes; and the Japanese people are expected to weigh collective interest and
harmony more heavily than personal gains (Markus & Kitayama, 1999). As a result, Japanese as
well as many other East Asian nationalities (i.e., Mandarin Chinese, Singaporean, Taiwanese, or
Korean) develop interdependent construal. The interdependent construal evolves in the society of
Japan with accenting allocentrism, constitutivism, and contextualism (Markus & Kitayama,
1999). Inversely, America being an individualistic society encourages individuals to develop the
construal of independence that stresses attending to the self, and appreciates one’s difference
from others (Markus & Kitayama, 1999).
Figure 1 illustrates how the different construals regulate Japanese as configurations of the
self. According to Figure 1B, the interdependent construal of the Japanese, renders blurry the
interpersonal boundary between self and others (i.e., parents, siblings, colleagues, and friends).
In other words, the self-identity of Japanese may be easily modified by receiving feedback from
significant others. The Xs represent the various aspects of the self that individuals show in front
of others. Figure 1B indicates that the Japanese adopt situational actions to interact with people
of particular social relation in specific contexts; however, those perceptible behaviors might not
reveal the genuine intention, desire, preference, and ability of the actor.
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Figure 1A visualizes the independent construal of U.S. students whose interpersonal
boundary makes a clear separation between the formation of self-identity and the opinions of
others. That is to say, others do not easily influence the identification of U.S. students. Also, U.S.
students tend to express their inner feelings more frankly, including negative emotions such as
anger or frustration, with less consideration about whether his/her emotional expression might
have negative consequences.
Markus and Kitayama (1991) assert that the two construals (i.e., the interdependent
construal and the independent construal) cause distinguishable learning traits between Japanese,
as an example of East Asian, and U.S. students in regards to cognition, emotion, and motivation.
Cognition refers to how learners define meaningful learning in their information processing;
emotion means how learners interpret their experiences in the classroom; and motivation
indicates how learners find reasons for academic achieving.

Figure 1. Conceptual representation of the self. Adapted from Markus and Kitayama (1991,
p. 226)
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Consequences for cognition. The Japanese, being learners of the interdependent
construal, are different from their American counterparts with regards to information processing
in the following ways: (1) the Japanese acquire more interpersonal knowledge; (2) they are more
attentive to context-specific knowledge of self and other; and (3) the socially oriented mindset of
the Japanese will impact their non-social cognitive activities (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Compared with U.S. students, Japanese students develop a denser and more richly elaborated
store of information about others or of the self in relation to others. In addition, the focus of the
self’s relation to others influences how Japanese students process, organize, and retrieve
information from memory. Rather than simply treating learning as a chance for personal
intelligence growth (as a trait of the independent construal), Japanese students memorize and
organize information on the basis of what has been done or said and by whom and under what
conditions, with regards to the self. Nevertheless, the attention and consideration of others may
constrain the verbal and ideational fluency of Japanese learners. Because Japanese students are
taught to show respect to the authority and behave modestly, they usually hesitate to standout
from peers and express personal opinions. As a result, Japanese students tend to behave as a
passive learner in the classroom and are frequently misinterpreted by U.S. teachers as learners
without critical opinions or a sense of creativity (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Consequences for emotion. Culture can play a central role in shaping emotional
experiences of learning; and moreover, learners will acquire ways of emotional expression
germane to the social contexts within which they are situated (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Ego-
focused emotions including anger, frustration, and pride are acceptable in countries that
encourage independent construal; whereas, people with interdependent construal are inclined to
show other-focused emotions such as sympathy, feelings of interpersonal communication, and
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shame. Learners with ego-focused emotions (i.e., U.S. students) emphasize revealing their inner
feelings, while learners with other-focused emotions (i.e., Japanese students) consider the
expression of feeling as a public instrumental action that may or may not be related directly to
ones’ inner feelings (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Consequences for motivation. The purposes of achieving are different between students
with the interdependent construal and those with the independent construal (Markus &
Kitayama,1991). Unlike U.S. students who find academic motivation by accomplishing
challenging tasks or demonstrating proficiency, Japanese students demonstrate their willingness
to learn through behaviors of deference (to admire and willingly follow a superior), similance (to
emulate others), affiliation (to form friendships and associations), nurturance (to nourish or aid
others), and succorance (to be dependent). Moreover, Japanese students show a tendency
towards blame avoidance in fear of being ostracized or punished (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
The different motivations of learning can also be observed by how people are inspired to interact
with peers or teachers. The American notion of achievement considers gaining control over one’s
surroundings as being more important than maintaining interpersonal harmony. On the other
hand, Japanese students tend to limit individualism and personal autonomy so that they may fit in
better with people, objects, or circumstances (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Traditional philosophies and students’ perception of learning. Elliott and Phuong-
Mai (2008) reviewed the results of several international tests (i.e., International Association for
the study of Education Achievement, and International Mathematics and Science Study) which
demonstrated the high academic attainment of East Asian students and they attribute East Asian
students’ performances to the following learning traits:
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• East Asian students hold high standards and expectations toward educational
achievement.
• Because East Asian parents feel obligated to maximize financial and emotional
support for their children’s learning, East Asian students are motivated to compensate
their parents’ contributions through their own academic success.
• East Asian students believe in diligence, endurance of hardship, concentration, and
perseverance.
• East Asian students demonstrate a strong sense of group identity and are collaborative
team players.
• East Asian students respect authority and are able to follow rules.
As well, Tweed and Lehman (2002) have shown that East Asian students value effortful
learning, behavioral reform, pragmatic learning, acquisition of essential knowledge, and
respectful learning, which are incarnations of the Confucius teaching philosophy. Rather than
ability, Confucius believed that extended practices and mastery learning are essential to
academic excellence. Since the era of Confucius, learners acquire knowledge through long hours
of recitation, repetition, and rote memory. For Confucius, learning was not a process of
innovation but knowledge transmission from respected authorities to the learner. To show their
admiration toward the masters, learners needed to maintain modest attitudes, passively obey the
regulations, and refrain from expressing personal opinions or criticism. Moreover, Confucius
believed learning was not only the accumulation of knowledge but also the refinement of moral
sense. A learned person was expected to become a moral role model for the general public and
shoulder the responsibility of social good and civil service. In ancient China, what motivated a
person of Confucian heritage was to excel in the severe competition of national examinations so
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that they could improve their socioeconomic conditions (Tweed & Lehman, 2002). As a result,
learning in the East Asian countries is very goal-oriented and pragmatic.
On the other hand, by inheriting the Socratic philosophy, Western learners demonstrate a
significant tendency towards critical thinking, challenging the status quote, esteem for self-
generated knowledge, and learning from their failures (Tweed & Leham, 2002). Socrates
believed that all people have knowledge limitations and suffer from misconception, and the
purpose of education was to reexamine what we have perceived as truths through intellectual
debates or scientific research. Since Socrates defined teachers as learners with more experience
in specific academic fields, the superior-subordinate relationship between teachers and students
(as commonly observed in the East Asian classrooms) was not considered as an effective
method. Instead, students are encouraged to challenge teachers’ arguments as a way to
demonstrate their learning progress. Socrates also believed in the importance of inquiry and
problem solving skills. Instead of memorizing information or adhering to the dogma, he asked
that learners demonstrate their outcomes by applying knowledge to real life issues or giving
personal voice to disputes.
Similar to Tweed and Leham’s (2002) study of intercultural diversity by investigating the
inherited philosophies of learning, Li (2012) further inquiries as to how how the substantial
distinctions in thinking and learning affect the East Asian learners’ adoption or rejection of
Western learning philosophy. The anthropological approach also questions some obstinate
presumptions Western educators obtain toward East Asian students’ lack of critical thinking. Li
believed that the Western scholars perceive critical thinking as a combination of truth seeking,
open-mindedness, analytical inquiry, and intellectual a significant asset of the Socratic learning
paradigm (Li, 2012). However, Li has demonstrated that Confucius teaching also accentuates a
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learner’s capability for critical thinking. For example, the proverb “In strolling with only two
people, I am bound to find a teacher” ( 三人行必有我師焉) represents that learning is not
necessarily conducted through a hierarchical teacher-student relation in the Confucius culture. A
learner can as well expand the depth and width of his/her knowledge by learning from their
peers. Another proverb “Learn, then you will know your inadequacy” ( 學然後知不足) reveals
the spirit of truth seeking and intellectual curiosity. Li believed what has distinguished East
Asian and Western learners, is the path they choose to reach knowing. While the Socratic
philosophy of learning perceives critical thinking as an independent competence in the process of
building intellectual expertise from any content subject, the Confucius ideology treats critical
thinking as a product of intellectual achieving after the learner diligently and exhaustively
acquires the content knowledge. As the consequence, the Confucius-oriented school system
imposes the virtues of familiarizing oneself ( 熟), practicing （練) , and perfected mastery ( 精) on
East Asian learners. The Confucius teaching also expects East Asian learners to refrain from
showing their intellectual achievement until the reach of eventual perfection.
Another significant contribution of Li’s anthropological analysis is her elaboration of an
exchange of perspectives between of U.S. educators and the East Asian students in today’s
changing landscape of learning. However, Li asserts that the internationalization of higher
education as a trend, not only brings the potential for U.S. professors to know East Asian
learning traits in depth, it also increases the risk of U.S. professors gaining only a superficial
understanding of who their East Asian students are.
Intracultural Diversity and Students’ Perception of Learning
Bandura (2001) argues that people raised in different cultural contexts will develop
different agentic perspectives, including personal agency, proxy agency, and collective agency.
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The personal agency refers to one’s understanding about the self and one’s motivation for
academic achievement. The proxy agency refers to one’s interaction with others for the aim of
academic achieving. The collective agency indicates actions people choose to work through as a
group for their future development. For students from a collectivistic society such as China, their
personal agency defines academic success as a path to honor their families or belonging
communities. Their proxy agency underscores the necessity to obey the authority (i.e., teachers
or schools). To collaborate with classmates or to uncritically absorb knowledge that the authority
provides are some of the significant traits of Chinese collective agency. On the contrary,
American students (who represent the individualistic society) demonstrate personal agency,
which values self-realization and independent thinking. Their proxy agency considers learning
from peer competition or critics, to be more effective than top-down lecturing. As a
consequence, student-centered exercises and the development of independent and creative
thinking can be said to be the essence of American collective agency.
Nevertheless, Bandura (2002) believes that the comparison of learning perspectives on
the basis of nationality or ethnicity can be problematic for it neglects the role that intracultural
diversity plays in the formation of the learner’s identification and motivation. Intracultural
diversity refers to the different attitudes and values individuals perform due to their socio-
economic milieu in a community with seeming cultural homogeneity. In spite of sharing the
same Confucianism tradition, learners raised by upper-middle families in a Confucian society
might act more individually oriented as Western students, rather than being collectively oriented
as their middle or lower middle class peers. Moreover, behaviors that students from a Confucian
community choose to act can be very situational which are determined by whom they are
working with. Group loyalty and team cooperation might be easily observed when East Asian
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students are assigned to work with peers who are from the same national or ethnical origins.
However, East Asian students have a low sense of efficacy and perform poorly when managing
activities within an ethnically mixed group (Bandura, 2002).
In today’s pluralistic and globalized societies, cultural hybridization almost becomes the
norm of intraculturally diverse classrooms (Bandura, 2002). Cultural hybridization provides
learners with frequent opportunities to interact with peers each of whom possesses distinctive
composition of cultural identities (i.e., ethnicity, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic condition, or
religious belief). As the consequences of mass transnational migration, intermarriages, and
global mobility of business, education, or information, learners are frequently exposed to
multifarious voices and ideologies and have wider flexibility to interpret the multi-layered
formation of their self-identification. The enhancement of bicultural efficacy helps learners to
identify the homogeneity and heterogeneity of identity formation amongst themselves and others,
and explore new possibilities of identity development.
East Asian students’ perception of learning in empirical studies. How the Confucian
ideology and the social structures of Chinese communities (i.e., Mainland China, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Singapore, etc.) influence Chinese students’ cognition and motivation for learning
remains unfamiliar to comparative education researchers since the Western-centered
psychological theories (i.e., Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development, and Maslow’s theory of actualization) continue to dominate
methodologies of cross-cultural studies (Watkins , 2000). Some Western college professors with
abundant experiences in teaching in Chinese communities realize the limit of Western learning
theories, and they have conducted empirical studies that observe Chinese perspectives of
learning, and analyzed how the culturally specific perception leads to unique learning attitudes
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37
and the student-faculty interactions of Chinese students (Jackson, 2003; Salili & Lai, 2003;
Watkins, 2000).
Salili and Lai (2003) investigated how contextual factors influenced the achievement
orientation and performance of Chinese students in Hong Kong. Contextual factors referred to
the Confucius ideology, social values, and Chinese as the medium of instruction. The 3-year
longitudinal quantitative study gathered data from 1807 seventh graders who were divided into
several levels of intellectual competency (i.e., higher ability or lower ability brands) and they
utilized either English or Chinese as instructional medium (Salili & Lai, 2003). Although
samples of Salili and Lai’s research were from K-12 settings rather than higher education
institutions, this study was valuable for my dissertation for two reasons. First, the research
showed that students started to develop their perceptions and strategies of learning at an earlier
age than college and that school played a crucial role in student ideology formation (Salili & Lai,
2003). Second, what determined the learning performance for students was not limited to
student qualities—including intelligence, motivation, and previous learning history—but the
reciprocal relation between teachers’ teaching practices and students’ perception of learning
(Salili & Lai, 2003). Some students demonstrated higher self-efficacy, stronger motivation of
involvement, and better academic outcomes when learners could connect with the instructional
strategies of the teachers, the values delivered behind the course contents, and the mode
instructors used to communicate with students (Salili & Lai, 2003).
The study asserted that people with Confucian ideology interpreted learning strategies
and learning motivation differently from students accustomed to a Western paradigm of learning.
One major distinction is the practice of critical thinking. Critical thinking as a universal
competence is practiced by learners of both the East and the West through different strategies of
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cognitive processing and intellectual inquiry (Li, 2012). Westerners perceive critical thinking as
logical reasoning methods that are detached from all subject knowledge (Durkin, 2008). The
Western learners usually have to undergo several stages to eventually develop critical thinking
competency. The Western perspectives of critical thinking include the first stage of awareness
that knowledge should not be absolutely defined by the authority, the second stage of realization
that multiple points of view might exist depending on the positions of the argument, and the final
stage of judgment making or problem solving based on the situation (Durkin, 2008).
Nevertheless, the Eastern learners conduct critical thinking in a different way. For example,
Chinese students, including students from Hong Kong, considered memorization as an active
way of learning that allows them to thoroughly inquire and ponder texts at the same time that
they integrate the new information into a schema (Durkin, 2008). The Chinese definition of
memorization was not equivalent to the rote memory that describes a situation where learners
passively absorb knowledge.
In addition, students in Hong Kong achieved both mastery and performance goals. The
two goals coexist in Confucian society (Durkin, 2008). Learners with mastery goals attributed
academic achievement to student effort over student ability. Confucius believed that diligence
could compensate for dullness. Learners with performance goals judged their academic standing
against others and believed that academic performance was determined by ability. The history of
examination and academic competition in Chinese society made the learning of performance
goals a part of the Chinese learner mindset. Compared to Western students (i.e., Canadian
students), Chinese students in Hong Kong tended to have a lower sense of efficacy. The lower
sense of efficacy resulted from high academic expectation from parents (Durkin, 2008). Filial
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piety, as a core element of Confucius teaching, underscores intellectual achievement as a way to
honor family reputation.
The study also asserted that language proficiency and ability grouping were two societal
factors that influenced student achievement in Hong Kong (Durkin, 2008). The two elements
related to Hong Kong’s unique socio-political context is that the place used to be a British colony
as well as a hierarchical Chinese. Both Mandarin Chinese and English were utilized in Hong
Kong as instructional languages at the time of the study. However, the bilingual education policy
of Hong Kong might have created challenges to student learning. The study showed that students
had more difficulty comprehending texts written in English or communicating with teachers in
English. High schools in Hong Kong adopted a band system that separated higher performance
students from lower performance students. Because of the band system, some parents, teachers,
and society had lower performance for their children/students. They also tended to become less
motivated and confident toward academic achieving (Durkin, 2008).
The meta-analysis study by Watkins (2000) focusing on Chinese college students’
perspectives of learning corresponded to the results of Salili and the K-12 research presented
above. Watkins observed that the higher education reforms in East Asian countries attempted to
introduce Western instructional approaches, yet whether these practices were compatible with
East Asian students’ ways of learning remained debatable (Watkins, 2008). By collecting data
from seven studies which investigated 4000 students, Watkins deduced some significant learning
traits of Chinese students that were very different from Western concepts of learning. The
Chinese learning traits include memorizing and repetition as strategies for understanding,
attributing academic achievement to effort investment, adopting a mixture of intrinsic and
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extrinsic motivations, and emphasizing collective relationships and collaboration (Watkins,
2008).
Watkins contended that in the eyes of Chinese students, good teachers should fulfill the
following requirements. First, teachers should not only be knowledgeable but also capable of
leading students as a moral model. The Chinese believe that teachers are responsible for
lecturing and cultivating students (Watkins, 2008). To lecture students was to deliver knowledge
through transmission approaches and to prepare students for examination (Watkins, 2008). On
moral cultivation, teachers carried the burden of disciplining and mentoring students to help
them develop appropriate attitudes and thoughts. Second, Watkins suggested that teachers should
have been able to encourage student involvement by facilitating sequential talk (Watkins, 2008).
Sequential talk activities allowed students to discuss and prepare presentation content in a
smaller group before sharing thoughts with the whole class. This strategy not only alleviated
Chinese students’ anxiety of losing face or making mistakes in front of other people, it also
satisfied the Confucian mentality of harmony seeking (Watkins, 2008). Students attentively
listened to what presenters said and respected their preparation efforts. Third, teachers should
have known that unlike western students who perceived questioning as a strategy to construct
knowledge and reflect independent viewpoints on issues, Chinese students asked questions to
confirm their understanding and assess their learning progress (Watkins, 2008). The different
interpretations of questioning might be observed from the timing of the inquiry. Western students
tended to ask question during the process of learning while Chinese students asked questions
after learning (Watkins, 2008). This finding explained why Chinese students on a U.S. campus
might feel stressed and even uncomfortable when their peers abruptly throw out questions during
the class (Watkins, 2008). Therefore, U.S. professors should know and be aware of those
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divergent perspectives of learning in order to enhance Chinese student learning outcomes and
engagement.
Another 3-year longitudinal mixed method study conducted by Jackson (2003) inquired
into Chinese students’ perception about the case-based teaching practices in a Hong Kong based
undergraduate business program. Case-based pedagogy as a core feature of business education
had been adopted by most of the Western business programs and East Asian institutions alike,
with intention to cultivate the ability for critical thinking and constructive learning for their
students (Jackson, 2003). However, business professors in this Hong Kong institution
encountered challenges in implementing a case-based pedagogy and saw a need to modify the
instructional methods. Jackson (2003) tried to answer the following research questions through
student survey (n=589), interview, and class observation. The result aimed to provide business
program professors and administrators, recommendations on future case-based curriculum
development. The three research questions were:
1. What are the students’ perceptions about case-based learning, especially in terms of
benefits, the difficulties they face, and the features they like and dislike?
2. What are their explanations for student reticence in case discussions and their
suggestions for English support staff and business case leaders (i.e., professors) to
help students take a more active role in these events?
3. What similarities and differences can be observed in the perceptions of business case
leaders and their Chinese students about case-based learning?
The study site was a renowned higher education institution in Hong Kong with a majority
of Cantonese as the first language speakers. Only a very few students in the program had
overseas study experience. To highlight its internalization, case-based learning activities were
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mostly conducted in English. The sample (n=589) reflected these realities. For example, 96.9%
of survey respondents were Cantonese speakers, 2% were Mandarin Chinese speakers, and
another 1% of the respondents spoke another Asian language. In addition, 96.6% of student
respondents never studied abroad (Jackson, 2003). The survey gathered 68.3% of data from
female respondents. Nevertheless, the study result did not reflect whether gender affected the
current case-based learning facilitation challenges.
Based on her data analysis, Jackson came to the following conclusions with respect to her
three research questions. First, regarding students’ challenges and academic gains from case-
based learning, most of the respondents agreed that case studies provided them with a good
opportunity to hear from different perspectives and hone their skills of critical thinking and
debates (Jackson, 2003). However, the following linguistically/ culturally relevant factors
restrain the effect of case-based learning. To begin with, about 90% of respondents felt
uncomfortable in attempting to explain complicated/academic ideas in English and most of them
reflect that their lack of vocabulary or technical terms to translate their ideas into English was the
source of discomfort (Jackson, 2003). Some other cultural reasons that explained their hesitation
to participate included harmony seeking, face saving, and a sense of security (Jackson, 2003).
Student respondents feared that intellectual arguments and discussions might potentially offend
or embarrass other classmates. They were especially reluctant to verbally challenge professors’
ideas since professors are considered the knowledgeable authority in Confucian teaching.
Comparatively, respondents preferred to express their personal opinions in small groups rather
than in front of the whole class (Jackson, 2003).
Face saving means that students dislike being possibly disdained by peers or faculty by
showing or making mistakes in front of the class (Jackson, 2003). A respondent addressed this
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concern in an interview: “I am afraid that the point or the idea that I have raised is not well-
thought out enough, that I have not thought thoroughly or completely” (Jackson, 2003, p.464).
Relative to face saving, student respondents reflected that they felt more secured in keeping their
ideas to themselves. Their hesitance to share ideas with classmates might have been partially due
to shyness and partially out of low confidence regarding the value of their verbal contributions
(Jackson, 2003).
Some suggestions for a better implementation of case-based pedagogy in the program
included the increase of English language courses that strengthen students’ oral skills and self-
efficacy with presentations in English, the utilization of support materials such as guiding
questions to scaffold student learning, and the creation of a more amicable learning environment
for English second language learners (Jackson, 2003). It was presumed that an amicable learning
environment would allow students more time to draft or ponder their oral responses, as well as
alleviate students’ anxiety with public presentations (Jackson, 2003).
Teaching Excellence in Higher Education
Different from some traditional “quality measures,” which evaluate the value of a higher
education institution through the college’s wealth, reputation, and academic accomplishment
(i.e., selectivity in admissions, financial endowment, library holdings, and institutional prestige
from faculty research), the assessment of teacher quality determines how an U.S. professor’s
teaching practices directly influence students’ learning outcomes, including: active classroom
engagement among students, the extent and nature of student interactions with faculty, and the
focus and intensity of academic experiences (Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). Exploring the
concept of teaching excellence through theory and empirical work is crucial because this types of
scholarship helps to explain what good instructions looks like in response to the needs of adult
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students. Kolitch and Dean’s (1999) study of the instructor’s role in the classroom, Astin’s
(1993) input-environment-output model for higher education student involvement, and the seven
principles for good practice from Chickering and Gamson (1987) generalized some fundamental
elements of effective instruction.
Furthermore, empirical studies conducted by TESOL scholars identified some critical
issues that prevent instructors from practicing good teaching with culturally and linguistically
diverse adult learners, including cultural stereotypes, the lack of multicultural awareness and
communication skills, and the absence of culturally responsive teaching in the classroom (Cheng,
2000; Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Morita, 2004). Researchers have asserted that the mastery of
culturally responsive pedagogy and teacher reflection are the key to effectively teaching
culturally and linguistically diverse students. First I reviewed the field literature that is concerned
with defining the meaning of effective instruction. Then I turned my attention to the elements of
effective instruction in relation to culturally and linguistically diverse students.
Fundamental Elements of Effective Instruction
By exploring teaching excellence in theory, this section provides insight into instructional
philosophy and strategies that engaged students in meaningful and active learning. The section
covers the following three themes: the instructor’s role in the classroom, instruction that
stimulates student’s involvement in learning, and the seven principles of good instructional
practices.
Instructor’s role in the classroom. Kolitch and Dean (1999) contend that teaching
practice embodies an instructor’s perception of his/her role in the classroom and the students’
process of learning. According to their argument, the transmission model of teaching and the
engaged-critical model of teaching are two dominant paradigms for instruction in the United
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States today, and the two paradigms represent two distinctive traditions of teaching philosophies:
positivism and critical theory. Since the positivist paradigm assumes that the social world is
composed by numerous objective facts which are both measurable and indubitable, an ideal way
to practice a transmission model of teaching is when instructors have absolute authority to decide
what students should learn and adopt strategies to maximize students’ input knowledge (Kolitch
& Dean, 1999).
Proponents of critical theory conceptualize higher education as a lever to trigger students’
awareness of social inequality and emancipate traditionally marginalized students from class
oppression (Kolitch & Dean, 1999). The engaged, critical-based pedagogy treats the instructor as
the facilitator of course activities that allow students to make meaning of their learning process.
Therefore, to enact an engaged-critical model of teaching, an effective instructor is able to detect
individual students’ learning strengths and inspire them to construct new knowledge based on
their personal experiences of learning and being (e.g., gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity,
and socio-economic status).
Instruction that stimulates student involvement in learning. Astin (1996) contends
that research on the instructor’s role in the classroom failed to reflect a very crucial factor within
students’ academic success—students’ level of involvement. Student involvement refers to “the
amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic
experience” (Astin, 1999, p.518). In other words, Astin’s theory of student involvement argued
that effective instructional practice must elicit sufficient student effort and investment of energy
to bring about the desired learning and development (Astin, 1999). Students with a strong
interest of involvement might actively engage in academic activities and interact with their
faculty more frequently (Astin, 1999). Instructional strategies college teachers adopt must be
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able to meet the special learning needs and styles of students who encounter the challenges of
changing demographics, the global economy, and the advancement of information and
technology in a modern society (Astin, 1993). Student involvement is especially important in a
culturally or linguistically diverse classroom. To enhance the academic engagement of culturally
or linguistically diverse students, instructors must create a learning environment that encourages
students to relate their unique personal experiences with the course content, allows students to
collaborate with peers and share their values, and exposes students to texts that reflects different
values (Astin, 1993).
Seven principles for good practice. Chickering and Gamson (1987) have recommended
that instructors implement seven principles for good practice that addressed six major areas of
student development, including: activity, expectations, cooperation, interaction, diversity, and
responsibility. In effect, the seven principles urge instructors to encourage (a) student-faculty
contact, (b) cooperation among students, (c) active learning; emphasizing time on task; providing
prompt feedback; communicating high expectations; and respecting diverse talents and ways of
learning. Chickering and Gamson believe that regardless of students’ race/ethnicity (i.e., white,
black, Hispanic, or Asian), socio-economic status, biological condition (i.e., age and gender), and
academic preparedness, the implementation of seven principles could enhance students’ level of
involvement and academic performances (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Each of the seven
principles are discussed in greater detail below.
Good practice encourages student-faculty contact. Chikering and Gamson argued that
student-faculty contact in and out of class is the most crucial factor in student motivation and
involvement (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). By interacting with faculty, students have a better
chance to develop persistent and positive attitudes of learning through rough times (Chickering
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& Gamson, 1987). Also, through this kind of contact students can receive guidance for their
future academic and career plans. Faculty are important role models for their students. Through
frequent interactions, faculty can demonstrate students’ learning strategies, attitudes, and
motivations that are essential for academic achievement.
Good practice encourages cooperation among students. Collaboration generates more
pleasant and successful learning experiences than competition (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
Teamwork is particularly important to stimulate understanding and communication among
culturally diverse learners (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). By working with peers, students learn
to communicate values with other people, to accommodate ideas and work styles different from
theirs, and to make critical judgments in situational contexts (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
Good practice encourages active learning. Learning does not happen as students are
assigned to passively memorize knowledge spoon fed by their instructors and to merely recite
what they have been taught without deep thinking (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). By adopting
active learning techniques in the classroom, instructors inspire students to relate what they are
learning to their past experiences, and make personal meaning of the knowledge acquired
(Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Active learning techniques might be practiced both inside and
outside the classroom. In the classroom, instructors might design tasks that involve challenging
discussions, team projects, and peer critiques (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Instructors can also
encourage students to apply acquired knowledge to daily problems as extracurricular activities
(Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
Good practice emphasizes time on task. “Time plus energy equals learning” (Chickering
& Gamson, 1987, p.4). Instructors have an obligation to teach students effective time
management strategies and design a curriculum that maximizes the time and effort students
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invest in their learning (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). The practices of mastery learning and
contract learning (i.e., syllabus) can ensure that students complete learning tasks at a given time.
Nowadays, instructors adopt computer assisted instruction as a self-paced learning tool that
allows students to exclusively or repetitively focus on unfamiliar academic subjects.
Good practice gives prompt feedback. By receiving timely feedback from instructors,
students can take account of their current academic standing and find direction for further
academic improvement (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Before giving feedback, instructors need
assessment efficacy that can help them to identify the existing competencies of their students
(Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Instructors should provide both formative feedback (tracking
student improvement on the process of learning) and summative feedback (the diagnosis of the
student learning result at the end of the course).
Good practice communicates high expectations. As instructors express their high
expectations for students, they should verbally acknowledge students’ abilities and encourage
them to pursue academic success with their investment efforts (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
Instructors should equally address their high expectations to both the bright / highly motivated
students, as well as the lower achieving/ poorly prepared students.
Good practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning. Students bring different
talents and learning styles to college, and a competent instructor should be willing to
accommodate intellectual diversity in the classroom, and support students in contributing their
unique talents to their learning communities (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Good instruction
will inspire individual students in the same classroom to explore personal academic interests,
pursue individual learning goals at their own pace, and share their accomplishments with other
classmates (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
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Instructors’ Cultural Stereotypes toward Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
Empirical TESOL studies have demonstrated that U.S. instructors knew very little about
their students who were linguistically and culturally different from them (Cheng, 1999;
Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Morita, 2004). Moreover, the lack of cross-cultural knowledge usually
led to instructors’ misconceptions about the specific groups of students (Cheng, 1999;
Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Morita, 2004). In particular, Western instructors had formed some
general stereotypes about East Asian learners that negatively influenced their approach to
working with these students. The empirical findings were consistent with other research and
scholarship presented in the areas of international business, nursing education, and academic
counseling (De vita, 2000; Hanassab, 2006; & Kardong-Edgren et al., 2005). This section
focused on TESOL literature as representative of the issue.
Kumaravadivelu (2003) asserted that Western instructors frequently misunderstood their
East Asian students to be learners who unconditionally obeyed authority, lacked critical thinking
skills, and did not participate in classroom interaction. Cheng (1999) disputed Asian students’
alleged reticence and passivity. Clark and Gieve (2006) argued that Western instructors have
problematically portrayed the learning traits of Confucian heritage Chinese learners as passive,
lacking in critical thinking, reliant on simplistic rote memorization strategies resulting in surface
learning, and unwilling to participate in classroom talk. These empirical studies have
demonstrated that cultural stereotypes needed to be critically examined because they negatively
impacted instructors’ teaching qualities, including the lowering of expectations for student
achievements, the consequent creation of an inimical classroom climate toward diverse students,
and the adoption of inadequate pedagogy and instructional materials (Cheng, 1999;
Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Morita, 2004).
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First, this section presents the most controversial aspects of East Asian learning
stereotypes. Then, Empirical studies that counteract the culturally biased statements were
reviewed. The empirical studies bolstered up the claim that culturally responsive pedagogy and
teacher reflection should be introduced to eliminate the stereotypes.
Controversial discourses about East Asian learning stereotypes. Some voices
addressing East Asian students’ learning styles are presented below. East Asian students are
continually described as learners who unconditionally obey authority, lack critical thinking
skills, and remain passive and reticent in the classroom.
Unconditional obedience to authority. Liu (1998) has argued that a perpetual problem of
TESOL teacher education programs in North America, Britain, and Australia is that these
programs neglect the unique dispositions and learning needs of international graduate students,
particularly East Asian students. Liu believed that what distinguished East Asian learners from
Western learners is their valuing of hierarchy and obedience to the authority. Because of the
burden of traditional values, the learning strategies of East Asian graduate students showed a
propensity to be dominantly didactic, product-oriented, and teacher-centered (Liu,1998).
Lack of critical thinking. Durkin (2008) conducted qualitative interviews with 41 full
time masters students from five Asian countries (China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and
Indonesia). The research explored the trajectory of East Asian students’ intellectual development
and “education shock” encountered after enrolling in the master’s programs in the UK. Based on
the findings, it was discovered that one significant challenge East Asian students encountered
was that Western instructors frequently questioned their critical thinking skills. Some Western
instructors believed that since East Asian cultures are characterized by a large power distance,
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low individualism, and high uncertainty avoidance, East Asian students resisted the western
styles of critical thinking (Durkin, 2008).
Passivity and reticence. Flowerdew and Miller (1995) conducted a 3-year ethnographic
study exploring how four dimensions of culture (ethnic culture, local culture, academic culture,
and disciplinary culture) influenced the learning behaviors of college students in Hong Kong.
They observed one native English speaking instructor’s course and wrote the following note:
The lecturer devoted considerable time in explaining how to write an essay style
assignment, stressing the need for a main point, subpoint structure, and how past students
had difficulty writing in this style. At several points the lecturer asked if there were any
questions concerning the assignment, but no students responded… As the lecturer
developed his topic; students began to annotate their notes, using both Chinese characters
and English. Some students helped others in this, writing on their notes for them or
explaining in Cantonese. (p. 354)
Flowerdew and Miller concluded that college students in Hong Kong were taught to be a
passive knowledge recipient given the restraint of disciplinary and academic cultures; and
students did not ask questions spontaneously in fear of breaking rapport with instructors or peers
(Flowerdew & Miller, 1995). However, English-speaking instructors felt distant from their
Chinese students due to the lack of verbal communication and intellectual interaction
(Flowerdew & Miller, 1995).
Teaching excellence and East Asian stereotypes. The above stereotypes are
problematic because they reflect the ethnocentrism of some Western instructors.
Kumaravadievlu (2003) analyzed ethnocentrism through the theories of aversive racism, social
identity, and orientalism. The theory of aversive racism asserts that stereotypes are ingrained by
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a racist system and the prejudice will be perpetuated unless questioned or challenged by the
oppressed (Kumaravadievlu, 2003). The fact that Western instructors have spoken about East
Asian stereotypes and advised East Asian students to modify their learning styles if they wish to
see further intellectual development, manifestly proves their belief in the superiority of Western
pedagogy. Social identity theory asserts that stereotypes are labels that an ethnic or cultural
group creates to maintain its superior social identity and simultaneously degrades the socio-
cultural values of other groups (Kumaravadievlu, 2003). According to orientalism, the East is a
systematically constructed discourse by the West with the intention to “manage—and even
produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and
imaginatively” (Edward Said, as cited in Kumaravadievlu, 2003, p.716).
Postcolonial theories and critical theories are powerful frameworks to deconstruct the
perpetuation of East Asian (and other) stereotypes and to stimulate the awareness of western
instructors about the complex nature of culturally diverse students (Kumaravadievlu, 2003). The
following are empirical studies that critically examine the stereotypical discourses of East Asian
learning styles.
Unconditional obedience to authority. Littlewood (2000) interrogated the assertion that
because East Asian culture has “a long tradition of unconditional obedience to authority, a
teacher is not seen as a facilitator but as a ‘fount of knowledge’” (Liu, 1998, p. 5). The purpose
of Littlewood’s quantitative research (n=2307) was to analyze Asian students’ (from Brunei,
Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam)
perceptions toward their teachers and to compare their beliefs with students from three European
countries (Finland, Germany, and Spain). Littlewood designed a 12 item Likert scale
questionnaire on the basis of three research formulations:
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• In the classroom I see the teacher as somebody whose authority should not be
questioned.
• I see knowledge as something that the teacher should pass on to me rather than
something that I should discover myself.
• I expect the teacher (rather than me myself) to be responsible for evaluating how
much I have learnt.
The survey results told us that Asian students and European students shared similar ideas
about the teacher’s power, students’ role as a learner, and teachers’ role as the facilitator of
student learning. Most of the East Asian and European students disagreed or held a neutral
opinion when asked that the teacher’s authority should not be questioned. Most of East Asian
and European students disagreed or even strongly disagreed when it came to passive
learners/learning. Interestingly, Confucian heritage students (from Mainland China, Hong Kong,
South Korea) strongly agreed that teachers should be the facilitators of student learning and were
capable of assessing their academic outcomes (Littlewood, 2000). Littlewood then concluded
that “the stereotype of Asian student as ‘obedient listeners’—whether or not it was a reflection of
their actual behavior in class does not reflect the roles they would like to adopt in class”
(Littlewood, 2000, p. 33).
Passivity and reticence. Morita (2004) argued that the passivity and reticence of East
Asian students in English speaking classrooms delivered more complicated messages than a lack
of willingness towards participation and interaction. While attending a class where a foreign
language (i.e., English) was the dominant language of communication and student composition,
or where the faculty was the mostly culturally different from them, East Asian students
encountered immediate challenges related to identity, competence, power, access, and agency
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(Morita, 2004). In other words, each East Asian student had personal reasons for remaining
silent; and moreover, the very same student might have various reasons to act passively in
courses where academic demand and member composition were divergent.
Qualitative, multiple case studies were conducted by Morita to explore the academic
discourse socialization experiences of East Asian female students in a Canadian university
(Morita, 2004). Morita intentionally selected a female sample population to examine the role
gender plays during the process of identity formation and self-efficacy. The ideal female persona
in many East Asian countries is thought to be docile and amicable. This internalized conception
about gender also influenced students’ strategies to negotiate participation and identity in second
language academic communities (Morita, 2004).
The focal interviewees of Morita’s research were six female masters’ program freshmen
from Japan. Morita particularly selected responses of three students (Lisa, Nanako, and Rie) and
analyzed their experiences of being a female graduate student in a foreign land.
Interviewee #1, Lisa, claimed that she remained silent out of multiple ability reasons,
including her low English proficiency, lacking of content knowledge, anxiety of making
mistakes in public, and feeling inferior to other classmates. Nevertheless, as an English language
teaching professional in Japan, her vocational identity made her feel guilty not being able to
participate in class discussions. Lisa adopted some strategies to increase her classroom
participation, including: speaking in less face-threatening situations (i.e., small group discussion
and pre-class preparation), asking instructors for help individually after the class, and
maximizing her opportunities to speak English outside the classroom (Morita, 2004).
Interviewee #2, Nanako claimed that her choosing to remain silent was not only mediated
by her concerns about her ability, but also because she was the youngest and the only Japanese
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student in the classroom. Nanako’s statement corresponds to Morita’s hypothesis that gender and
race related stereotypes are possible causes of East Asian students’ silences. However, Nanako
also believed that being the only Japanese in class could be advantageous because she could
bring in diversely cultural perspectives. For Nanako, silence was a tool that she used to negotiate
the situational contexts of different courses, and her silence meant different things in different
courses. For one course, she was silent because she wanted to hide her anxiety about language
proficiency and her lack of professional experience; in another course, her silence meant her
identification with an invisible cultural minority in the white community.
Interviewee #3, Rie encountered bicultural identification issues prior to studying in
Canada. She was a third generation Korean in Japan and identified strongly as a Korean. Her
self-perception since childhood, of being culturally different from the Japanese had helped her to
develop strategies of cross-cultural communication and adaptation. One of her strategies was to
resist her culturally marginal status through spontaneous volunteering and active communication
with faculty and peers. Rie’s case also counters the stereotype of East Asians as being voiceless
learners. Interestingly, Morita also indicated that Rie’s multiple cultural identities, sometimes
caused her troubles in her interactions with people from diverse backgrounds. Rie was sensitive
about having to play different ethical roles in varying situational contexts and would get
frustrated when her actions did not receive the anticipated responses. Rie was an excellent
example to illustrate that East Asian students do not all share a homogeneous cultural or ethical
identity.
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Critical Reflection
Cultural stereotyping in higher education is a negative consequence of instructors’
insufficient knowledge, skills, and awareness about multicultural education (Gay, 2002).
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Multicultural education has been underscored in K-12 teacher preparation programs to cope with
the challenge of increasing demographic divides, prevailing racism, and educational inequality
(Gay& Howard, 2000). Nevertheless, multicultural education is rarely discussed in theoretical
pieces or empirical studies for the preparation of college faculty. In this section, I examined two
fundamental multicultural education theories in K-12 literature, culturally responsive pedagogy
and critical reflection for future application.
Culturally responsive pedagogy. This theory assumes that academic knowledge and
skills are grounded in the lived experiences and frames of reference of students (Gay, 2002).
Therefore, in order to make learning more personally meaningful as well as stimulate academic
interests of culturally or linguistically diverse students, the mission of an educator is to relate his
or her instruction with students’ cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives (Gay,
2002). Gay (2002) then proposed five essential elements of culturally responsive pedagogy,
which includes: (1) developing a cultural diversity knowledge base, (2) developing culturally
relevant curricula, (3) demonstrating cultural caring and building a learning community, (4)
cross-cultural communication, and (5) cultural congruity in classroom instruction.
Developing a cultural diversity knowledge base. Despite most educators concurring that
mastery of content knowledge and pedagogical skills is a must, many of them are not yet aware
of the imperative of knowing their culturally and linguistically diverse students (Gay, 2002).
Furthermore, Gay (2002) inquired about what an educator should know in order to serve this
group of students better; and he concluded that a cultural responsive educator should fulfill the
following three knowledge requirements: First, the educator should be aware of nuance of
students’ cultural values, traditions, communication, learning styles, contributions, and relational
patterns. Second, the educator should acquire detailed factual information about the cultural
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particularities of specific ethnic groups. Third, the educator should develop a deep understanding
of multicultural instructional strategies.
Designing culturally relevant curricula. A competent multicultural educator is capable
of imposing culturally responsive elements on formal, symbolic, and societal curricula (Gay,
2002). Formal curriculum refers to standardized textbooks and materials. A culturally responsive
educator is sensitive about the potential biases of curriculum contexts and guides their students to
examine those materials critically through the lens of their minority perspectives. Symbolic
curriculum includes images and artifacts that are used to teach students knowledge, skills, and
values. A culturally responsive educator might utilize symbolic curriculum to enhance inclusion
and promote diversity in the student population. Societal curriculum is the representation of
diverse cultural groups in the mass media. The values and images of some cultural groups are
distorted by the popular culture. Therefore, a culturally responsive educator includes media
representations as authentic teaching materials and teaches students to critically analyze the
hidden power inequalities behind popular culture.
Demonstrating cultural caring and building a learning community. Creating an
amicable classroom climate is important to solicit the academic involvement and engagement of
culturally diverse students, and it should be started from practicing cultural scaffolding
techniques, demonstrating culturally sensitive caring, and building a culturally responsive
learning community (Gay, 2002). By practicing cultural scaffolding, the educator inspires
culturally diverse students to explore new knowledge through their own unique cultural
experiences and knowledge. Moreover, to provide diverse students culturally sensitive caring is
not merely paying lip service towards human equality. The educator commits themselves to
becoming an ethical, emotional, and academic partner of their students and show respect to their
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incongruity (Gay, 2002). Building a culturally responsive learning community is to stimulate
cooperation among students with different socio-cultural identities, academic strengths or other
talents, and work styles. Through team work and group interaction, students understand that
people perceive things differently, and will learn to accommodate their unique voices.
Cross-cultural communication. People of diverse cultural backgrounds develop their
unique modes of communication through the process of cultural socialization (Gay, 2002).
Without recognizing communication as a medium for diverse learners to deliver culturally
specific values and consolidate newly acquired information into schema, educators are at risk of
dissuading diverse students from active participation and muting their voices. Multicultural
communication competency is an important goal and component of culturally responsive
teaching; and the competence is constituted by three core elements: (1) deep understanding about
the linguistic structures and contextual discourses of various cultural groups, (2) knowledge
about the speech protocols of cultural groups while participating in discourse, and (3) analysis of
divergent patterns of task engagement and organizing ideas among different cultural groups
(Gay, 2002).
Each cultural group has unique cultural markers and specific communicative behaviors.
Understanding linguistic and discourse elements includes the analysis of the speaker’s ways of
speech (i.e., logic and rhythm, delivery, intonation, and vocabulary usage), purpose of speech
(i.e., content and values, and role relationships of speakers and listeners), and non-verbal
language (i.e., gesture and body movements). Protocols of participation in discourse deduce
modes of communicative participation existing among culturally diverse groups (Gay, 2002). For
example, the “call-response” communicative style of African Americans and the “talk story”
style of Native Hawaiians represent the active participatory tradition of learning (Gay, 2002).
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Because active participatory learners expect timely feedback and dialectic interaction with
teachers and peers, educators should avoid passive-receptive style of teaching (Gay, 2002).
Different cultural groups have different patterns of task engagement and organizing ideas (Gay,
2002). The topic-chaining approach of communication—focusing on setting a social stage prior
to the performance of an academic task—is pervasive among many African, Asian, Latino, and
Native American groups (Gay, 2002). On the contrary, American and many western speakers
adopt a topic-centered approach which determines the quality of the discourse by their clarity,
succinctness, and reasoning (Gay, 2002).
Cultural congruity in classroom instruction. Culturally responsive pedagogy attempts to
match instructional techniques to the learning styles of diverse students; and ideal instructional
strategies should fulfill at least two principles: (1) instructional content should correspond to the
learning needs of diverse learners, and (2) instructional activities should routinely accommodate
the perspectives from culturally diverse or minority students (Gay, 2002).
Culturally responsive theory defines meaningful multicultural education content as
materials that can maximize the engagement of diverse students in their process of learning, and
the content should include at least eight key components, including: (1) culturally preferred
issues, (2) learning tasks that match with the learning styles of learners, (3) content structures
that follow the ways in which students organize and deliver information, (4) opportunities for
students to apply acquired knowledge to their social settings, (5) content allocation should
connect with students’ experiences of work, study, or other forms of social practices, (6) the
content will provide perceptual stimulation to diverse learners, (6) the content will trigger
learners’ culturally specific motivation for academic achievement, and (7) the content satisfies
the interpersonal interactional styles of the individuals (Gay, 2002).
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Instructional activities should serve as pedagogical bridges that help culturally diverse
students to connect culturally specific knowledge with new information, and help culturally
dominant groups to explore alternative voices barely discussed in their daily discourses (Gay,
2002). The introduction of cultural examples including illustrations (i.e., ethnic architecture or
fabric design) and culturally specific literatures (i.e., Asian American literatures, African
American literatures, or foreign literatures) have been validated by researchers as instrumental
practices that boost academic performance for culturally diverse students (Gay, 2002).
Critical reflection. Different from educators’ reflections on their day-to-day instructional
quality by gathering student feedback, Dewey (1933) introduced the concept of “critical
reflection” which depicted a comprehensive and dynamic approach of ideological examination in
regards to the educators’ value of being a teacher and their expression of self-identity with the
adoption of certain teaching strategies or attitudes of student-faculty interaction. He further
explained critical reflection as “an active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or
supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds supporting it and future conclusions to
which it tends” (p. 6).
Critical reflection can be said to be one of the most crucial multicultural education
techniques. In particular, diverse students bringing in culturally specific learning styles,
communicative modes, talents, and attitudes toward learning, demand educators to intermittently
contemplate their teaching philosophy and efficiency. This section reviews two theoretical pieces
and one reflection essay about practicing critical reflection techniques in culturally diverse
classrooms.
Yost, Sentner, and Forlenza-Bailey (2000) defined critical reflection through the lens of
professional development, performance assessment, and morality; moreover, they introduced
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various types of critical reflection strategies, including constructivist methods, dialogue, action
research, and writing experiences. Falk and Darling-Hammond (2010) extended Dewey’s
association between critical reflection and democracy, and they have further argued that the
adoption of reflection techniques help teachers to hear multiple perspectives that are originally
oppressed by dogma and presumption. As a South African native, Jeffrey (2007) had been
teaching Japanese English foreign learners for years. His article recalled how writing teacher
diaries helped his professional advancement in three phrases.
Yost, Sentner, and Forlenza-Bailey (2000) believed that the practice of critical reflection
not only help educators to become more open-minded and responsible to student needs, it also
improved teaching quality because the educators constantly contemplated how their perceptions
might lead to the success of their instructional practices (Yost, Sentner & Forlenza-Bailey,
2000). Especially, critical reflection can improve professional performance in terms of the
effectiveness of teaching strategies, solution seeking for specific classroom issues, and ethical
debate toward controversial issues.
Through the lens of performance assessment, the notion of reflection encompasses three
different modes of reflection: (1) reflection-on-action, (2) reflection-in-action, and (3) reflection-
for-action. An educator’s reflection toward his/her daily teaching practices may be conceived as
reflection-in-action. As a formative assessment, the reflection-in-action strategy helps an
educator to collect feedback from students and adjust his/her teaching practices in
correspondence to students’ opinions. Beside the reflection-in-action strategy, the summative
assessments of instructional quality, including reflection-in-action and reflection-for-action are
essence of critical reflection. Critical reflection requires an educator to demonstrate the ability of
reflection-for-action because it helps the educator to examine what S/he has learned through past
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and current incidents that might help her to transform her obstinate thoughts about teaching and
student learning. Moreover, the practice of reflection-for-action reinforces an educator to
contemplate how systematic examination of his/her previous or present teaching experiences
might improve instructional quality of the future.
Falk and Darling-Hammond (2010) conceived critical reflection as documentation of a
teacher’s performance with at least four purposes, these are: (1) documentation fosters an inquiry
approach to teaching, (2) documentation informs teaching and enhances professional learning,
(3) documentation extends and deepens awareness of lacking knowledge and misconception, and
(4) documentation as an overview of teacher’s interaction with students, students’ families, or
the public (Falk & Darling-Hammond, 2010). Documentation is an effective tool for the educator
in order to be able to observe, evaluate, and reflect on his own instructional strategies for
culturally and linguistically diverse students. By seeing reflective documentation as a way that
leads to democracy, the authors asserted that good practices can help teachers to discard biased
and dogmatic interpretation toward students’ intellectual abilities and achievements. Good
practices liberate diverse voices and allow teachers to perceive the values of learning and
academic challenges through the eyes of students.
Based on his personal experience of keeping an educator’s diary, Jeffrey (2007) asserted
that practicing reflective documentation helped him cultivate awareness and professionalism as a
professor. He identified three stages of professional development. The first stage was the
reflection upon the personal role in the teaching profession. During the stage, he recorded details
about instructional practices and students’ interactions. After recalling, he included a few
paragraphs to disclose thoughts and feelings about the day’s teaching experience. He also
contemplated what to do to improve the future experience of teaching and student learning. This
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initial phrase was crucial because it transited a professor from day-to-day reflection to critical
reflection. The second stage was the reflection of improvement on teaching and class
management. Compared with the generally descriptive style of the first phase, the second phase
diary pinpointed to more comprehensive class management problems, and possible problem
solutions. He gained more awareness of the practical impact on his teaching style and principles
through the second phase. The third phase was a professor’s ethnical/moral reflection about his
identity. He would write down his critique toward the current course design and curriculum, and
explain his reasons of disagreements. Also, he provided his suggestions for dealing with some
controversial classroom issues.
One professor’s skill of conducting culturally responsive pedagogy and critical reflection
as presented in the previous section of this literature review, if adopted by others, can have a
substantial impact on his/her instructional quality when it comes to teaching East Asian students.
As evidenced, those skills played an important role in a U.S. professor’s knowledge or awareness
of teaching a class of East Asian students who were culturally and linguistically different. One
professor’s knowledge, skill, and awareness thus became the three pillars of my conceptual
framework design. In the next section, I elaborated how I integrated the three important elements
into my conceptual framework. Also, I further explain how these three elements were relevant to
my purposes in this study as well the research questions which guided that study.
Conceptual Framework
In this section, I present my conceptual framework, which formed the basis of this study.
This framework evolved as a result of the data collection and analysis, beginning as something
more complex, eventually distilled down to the elements captured in Figure 2. The conceptual
framework informed my research and was the “system of concepts, expectations, beliefs, and
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theories that support[ed] and inform[ed] my research and [was] a key part of my design”
(Maxwell, 2013, p. 39). As illustrated in the figure, my conceptual framework describes how a
U.S. professor’s knowledge, awareness, and skill of multicultural teaching can influence their
quality of teaching for students who are culturally and linguistically different from them.
Although I divided the U.S. professor’s knowledge, awareness, and skill into three independent
categories, those elements are actually intertwined. That is to say, an U.S. professor with better
knowledge about East Asian students’ culture tended to have stronger awareness about
intercultural and intracultural diversity existing in the classroom. Moreover, a stronger awareness
of diversity motivated the U.S. professor to improve his/her teaching quality by utilizing more
effective teaching methods such as culturally responsive pedagogy.
My conceptual framework was grounded in the three bodies of literature described in-
depth above. The three bodies of literature were the pillars of my theoretic arguments. On
knowledge, I argued that a competent U.S. professor needed to know the universal conception of
student learning, the western theories of teaching, and culturally specific theories of teaching.
Drawing on social cognitive theory and the sociocultural theory, I believe that students in general
can only learn better if their professors know how to motivate them to achieve, or the professors
taught the students how to learn effectively, or the professors expressed a strong faith in their
capability, or the professors created an amicable environment for learning. Besides learning
through the student-faculty interaction, Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development theory
explained that a positive learning environment should allow students to contribute personal
insights and benefit from the learning perspectives of their peers.
Tweed and Leham (2002) contended that the Western paradigm of teaching is rooted in
the Socratic philosophy of learning with emphasis on a learner’s abilities for critical thinking,
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challenging authority via debates, and knowledge generation through research and inquiry. The
mission of a multicultural instructor is to help the learners to transform from the Confucian
paradigm of learning to the Socratic paradigm of learning. Therefore, a competent multicultural
instructor needs to have a profound knowledge of the Western theories of teaching. Moreover,
Kolitch and Dean (1999) asserted that the role of a U.S. professor is to reinforce the engaged-
critical model of teaching and avoid the transmission model of teaching. The engaged-critical
model of teaching perceives an instructor as the facilitator of student learning instead of being
positioned as the knowledge authority. Through his theory of student involvement, Austin (1996)
proclaimed that the degree of student involvement determines the success of a U.S. professor’s
facilitation of student learning. A competent instructor can encourage students to invest effort
and time on their intellectual development.

Figure 2. Conceptual framework: Multicultural teaching practice in higher education

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According to Markus and Kitayama (1999) and Bandura (2001), a competent
multicultural instructor must have a sound knowledge of culturally specific teaching because
students’ classroom behaviors and academic performances are observable outcomes of their
perception of learning; moreover, their perceptions are driven by approaches of cognition,
motivation, and emotion. The study exclusively focused on East Asian students’ perception of
learning and consequential outcomes.
Empirical studies of East Asian students’ conceptions about learning, demonstrated that
East Asian students with a Confucian ideology considered memorization and repetition as
meaningful cognitive learning strategies. On motivation, they showed a mixture of effort-
oriented and ability-oriented motivation; moreover, family expectations also motivated students
to achieve. On class involvement, East Asian students were reluctant to express personal
thoughts. Their reticence was not out of an unwillingness to participate, but rather due to fears of
making mistakes, losing face, and cause conflicts with peers or teachers. In addition, East Asian
students also had divergent interpretations of inquiry from their western counterparts. They
considered questioning to be an approach that verified their learning, consequently they were
inclined to ask questions only when they were confident about their learning progress.
On awareness, I argue that a competent U.S. professor needs to discern the learning
needs of diverse students, to be aware of their potential stereotypes toward East Asian students,
and of the intercultural/intracultural diversity in classroom. Salil and Lai’s (2003) comparative
study about the experiences of English immersion education of Chinese native speakers revealed
that, in their earlier stage of immersion, the East Asian students would struggle to fit into a U.S.
classroom if their learning needs were neglected. The research also suggested that the reciprocal
relation between a professor’s teaching practices and students’ perception of learning determined
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students’ quality of learning and academic outcomes. Through the perspectives of the East Asian
learners, a meta-analysis study from Watkins (2000) concluded that a U.S. professor needs to be
aware of three critical needs of the students, they are: (1) East Asian students (i.e., Chinese)
appreciate an instructor to deliver knowledge through a transmission approach, (2) East Asian
students prefer to discuss with peers before presenting individual ideas to the whole class, and,
(3) East Asian students tend to keep silent and avoid asking explorative questions or conducing
interactions.
The above literature review presented some fundamental differences between the U.S.
professors and the East Asian students in regards to their perceptions of effective ways of
learning. Without mutual understanding and communication, the perceptual discrepancy might
lead to perpetual stereotypes propagated by the professors. Empirical studies (Liu, 1998; Durkin,
2008; Flowerdew & Miller, 1995; and Kumaravadievlu, 2003) assert that some common
stereotypes that U.S. professors have of East Asian students include that East Asian students are
unconditionally obedient to the authority, they lack the ability to think critically, and they are
passive, reticent, or unwilling to engage. The field literature also shows that many U.S.
professors are inattentive to messages behind those unexamined biases (Littlewood, 2000; and
Morita, 2004). For example, Morita’s (2004) qualitative, multiple case study selected three East
Asian female students (Lisa, Nanako, and Rie) to demonstrate their reasons for being silent in a
U.S. classroom. The findings showed that the silence of East Asian students usually indicated
some unrealized concerns and obstacles the students encountered.
The Literature also suggested that an U.S. professor needs to be aware of the classroom
dynamic generated by the intercultural and intracultural diversity of the students (Markus &
Kitayama, 1999; Tweed & Lehman, 2002; Bandura, 2002). Markus and Kitayama (1999)
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suggested that East Asian students have formed the interdependent construal of self because
those nations underscore the reliance of human connection. Intangible social values eventually
guide students to adopt an interpersonal approach that avoids outperforming and losing face in
the public. Another study by Bandura (2002) argued that intracultural diversity, including
gender, religious beliefs, and personal background, might influence an individual student’s
perceptions. In other words, every individual student in an East Asian student group has
distinctive understanding and needs about learning due to the factors of intercultural diversity.
On skill, I argue that a competent U.S. professor needs the skills of critical reflection and
culturally responsive pedagogy, that would help them to improve his/her teaching and foster
postive student-faculty interactions. Dewey (1933) and many other education scholars (cf., Falk
& Darling-Hammond; Yost et al., 2000) consider critical reflection to be one of the most critical
skills for the teaching profession. Only through the process of critical reflection can a U.S.
professor systematically examine the effectiveness of his/her current teaching practices, and
challenge his/her beliefs about teaching and/or student learning. The skill of critical reflection
benefits multicultural instructors in particular. According to research conducted by Falk and
Darling-Hammond (2010) and Jeffrey (2007), an instructor’s persistent documentation of
students’ behaviors and interactions will help him/her discover verbal or non-verbal signs
provided by individual students. By detecting student learning signs, the instructor has a good
opportunity to improve the classroom climate or his/her instruction to better meet the needs of
the students.
The U.S. professor’s ability to engage in culturally responsive pedagogy also influences
their desire to teach to a cohort of students who are culturally and linguistically different from
them. Gay (2002) highlights five essential elements of culturally responsive pedagogy, namely:
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(1) developing a cultural diversity knowledge base, (2) developing culturally relevant curricula,
(3) demonstrating cultural caring and building a learning community, (4) cross-cultural
communication, and (5) cultural congruity in classroom instruction.
The above conceptual framework informed my hypothesis that a U.S. professor’s
instructional quality should be evaluated comprehensively through his or her knowledge,
awareness, and skills. The knowledge, the awareness, and the skill are three fundemental pillars
for educators of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Moreover, the three seemingly
disconnected aspects of multicultural competence intersect with each other. Therefore, the
enhancement of a U.S. professor’s multicultural competence in a single aspect would help them
to grow competence in the other areas, as well as improving the overall quality of instruction.
Conclusion
My conceptual framework was built on the literature on learning in higher education,
cultural diversity and student perceptions of learning, and teaching excellence in higher
education. I argued that culturally and linguistically diverse students’ personal qualities were
distinctive from what U.S. professors had experienced or expected based on their experiences in
U.S. based higher educational settings. I also contended that U.S. professors need to exhibit
multicultural teaching competencies, including knowledge, awareness, and skills to interact with
culturally and linguistically diverse students. Knowledge about East Asian students’ cultural
values and ideas about learning, awareness about personal stereotypes through critical reflection,
and the ability to perform culturally responsive pedagogies are crucial elements.

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CHAPTER 3
METHODS
This chapter describes the qualitative approach, instrumentation, and data collection
methods that I used to conduct this study. My dissertation was a qualitative case study inspired
by my personal experience of being an international student in the U.S., where U.S. professors
had limited opportunities, knowledge, and skills of working with East Asian students who were
culturally and linguistically different from them. This qualitative case study was informed by the
following research question: How, and in what ways are U.S. professors’ facilitation of student
learning influenced by the extent to which they are multiculturally competent? The purpose of
this study was to explore how an U.S. professor’s multicultural competencies including their
conscious or unconscious beliefs toward East Asian students teaching and learning, knowledge
of effective pedagogies for culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and skills for critical
reflection influenced their teaching quality and interaction with students who are culturally and
linguistically different from them. The dissertation exclusively focused on the U.S. based ESL
academy where U.S. professors had abundant experiences for providing East Asian students
majority instructions for cultural /linguistic immersion prior to their attendance of U.S. based
higher education institutions. Specifically, I examined the ways in which professors with
different levels of multicultural competence (i.e., knowledge, awareness, and skills) negotiated
their instructional practices with East Asian students’ perceptions of learning and needs.
Research Design
Qualitative research reflects the social constructivist worldview of a researcher whose
purpose of study is to reveal alternative voices and inductively develop their theory based on
data collection (Creswell, 2012). As one type of basic qualitative research, the qualitative case
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study empirically investigates a contemporary phenomenon within a bounded system by
gathering descriptive, observational, or textual evidences from the sites (Merriam, 2009). I
sought to understand what was like when the U.S. professors—more specifically U.S. based ESL
professors—taught a class of East Asian students armed with the knowledge and teaching
methods they believed corresponded with the requirements for multicultural competence.
Moreover, through the study, I explored how the U.S. professors’ knowledge about East Asian
learning culture and their role as an ESL teacher, awareness of perceptional differences about
learning and teaching between of the professors and the students, and their skill for engaging
students of distinctive learning traits in an American classroom, influenced their quality of
instruction.
Recent studies have focused on the interaction between U.S. professors and culturally and
linguistically diverse students on U.S. campuses. However, few studies had inquired into the
thoughts of U.S. professors whose students were mainly culturally and linguistically different
from them. I selected the case study as my research approach because of its particularistic,
descriptive, and heuristic features (Merriam, 2009). The case study is particularistic because it
induces contextual interpretations or solutions toward practical problems (Merriam, 2009). The
case study is filled with thick descriptions because researchers rely on respondents’ discourses to
explore issues and listen to those voices that have not yet discussed or included in relevant
studies (Merriam, 2009). The case study is also heuristic because its attempts to represent
marginalized voices, challenges the orthodox, and attempts to discover parts unknown (Merriam,
2009).

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Sample, Population, and Site Selection
This case study exclusively focused on one postsecondary institution where the U.S.
based ESL professors’ mission was to teach East Asian students, most of whom had limited
experience in linguistic/cultural immersion. The decision of the site selection was based on the
principles of purposeful sampling, which requires researchers to list a set of fundamental criteria
that the chosen sites have to meet (Merriam, 2009). The criteria must be directly connected to the
purpose of this study (Merriam, 2009). Based on the following criteria, I selected Nishiki
international college as my research site:
• The institution had to be a U.S. accredited postsecondary institution whose mission is
to provide non-American students or non-English native speakers with the
opportunity and experience of linguistic/cultural immersion as preparation of their
future enrollment in a 4-year college/ university in the United States. Faculty
members at the institution had to have received a academic degree from accredited
U.S. universities. The curriculum, language of instruction, criteria of grading, and
teaching pedagogy had to reflect the academic standard and requirements of 4-year
colleges in the United States.
• The institution should be an U.S. accredited postsecondary institution whose major
student population is culturally/linguistically diverse and those who don’t speak
English as the native language, or do not have any experience of staying in the United
States for more than 6 months prior to their enrollment at this institution. In
particular, the institution should mainly serve students from East Asian countries that
have a strong Confucian influence in their educational systems.

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Participant Selection
Purposeful sampling is based on the assumption that the investigator wants to discover,
understand, and gain insight and therefore must select a sample from which the most can be
learned (Merriam, 2009). Patton (2002) argues (as cited in Merriam, 2009) that the logic and
power of purposeful sampling lies in selecting information-rich cases to study in depth.
According to Merriam (2009), snowball sampling as a type of purposeful sampling, asks early
key participants or associated experts to recommend potential candidates who fulfill respondent
criteria for future data collection. This study adopted the snowball sampling approach of
participant selection by following three steps. In the initial step, I solicited recommendations for
two experienced and outperforming professors from five academic administrators at the
postsecondary institution—including a dean, a program director, two program coordinators (i.e.,
the ESL program and the liberal art program), and two academic advisors. It was expected that
the candidates should be able to represent the institution in terms of their knowledge, awareness,
and skills in teaching East Asian students. The second step took place after gathering a names list
from the recommendations of the academic administrators. I selected two professors who
received more endorsements than any of the other candidates. The two professors happened to
represent two different academic programs at the institution, the ESL program and their liberal
arts program. Then, as the third and final stage, I contacted the two professors via email and
asked for permission to conduct interviews and classroom observations with them, keeping with
the aims of my study. Data collection started after the two selected professors consented to
participate in my study.

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Professor Respondent Criteria
• Two experienced U.S. based ESL professors who should have a minimum of five
years of teaching experience in a U.S. based postsecondary institution (i.e., an ESL
program) where East Asian students were the majority. The U.S. professors were
expected to have a deep understanding of East Asian students’ learning needs and be
known to use effective instructional practices with their students.
• The two U.S. based ESL professors should possess abundant knowledge, awareness,
and skill of multicultural instruction, particularly with regards to East Asian students.
On knowledge, the professors should know how to provide meaningful instructions to
East Asian students; and they should know how the Confucianism tradition and
socio-political backgrounds influence East Asian students’ perception of learning. On
awareness, the professors should be sensitive to East Asian student stereotypes, the
intercultural/intracultural diversity of their classes, and the learning needs of diverse
students. On skills, the professors should be able to perform culturally responsive
pedagogy and critical reflection. It is assumed that professors with culturally
responsive teaching skills are able to develop culturally relevant curricula, create
cultural caring environment, communicate with students from different cultural
backgrounds, and accommodate cultural diversity in their classrooms.
Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures
This section outlines the process by which data were collected for the study. In order to
understand U.S. based ESL professors’ experiences of teaching East Asian students, to explore
their beliefs in East Asian learning traits, and to investigate their genuine practices and
interactions with students, the study collected two types of data, the interview data and the
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classroom observation data. Here, I explain in turn how the interview and observation data
collections were conducted and how the data was relevant to the study.
Interviews
Merriam (2009) proclaims that the interview is one of the most important sources for data
collection within a case study, because the process can accurately grasp the interviewee’s beliefs
and worldviews. Because the purpose of this study was to inquire into the experiences and
insights of U.S. based ESL professors, the majority of whose students are East Asian students, I
used the interview as the primary source of data collection. Interview design, including interview
frequency, interview type (i.e., pre-observation/post-observation), and the interview protocol was
guided by my conceptual framework and was based on a thorough consideration of my research
questions, the conditions of my potential respondents, and some possible validity threats.
In my conceptual framework, I argued that a U.S. professor’s multicultural competence,
including their knowledge, awareness, and skill in teaching might also influence the quality of
their teaching. Especially when they engaged East Asian students who did not own high English
proficiency and did not share a similar values of learning, teaching, and interpersonal interaction.
I then conducted two interviews (pre-observation/post-observation) to investigate how and in
what ways the respective professors’ knowledge, awareness, and skill had an impact on their
classroom practices. As an exploratory inquiry, the pre-observation protocol (Appendix A)
asked questions regarding the U.S. professor’s interpretation of their role as a multicultural
educator, their perceptions about East Asian students and the Confucian paradigm of learning,
and how they defined effective multicultural teaching pedagogies such as culturally responsive
pedagogies. As a confirmative inquiry, I drafted two post-observation protocols (Appendix B &
Appendix C) that reflected questions I might have, after I made two, three-hour classroom
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observations, to take note of their teaching practices, for each professor. The post-observation
interview protocols focused on the professor’s explanations about the strategies they adopted to
teach or interact with students, the professor’s description of rapport with individual students, the
professor’s elaboration about successful/unsuccessful teaching experiences, and the professor’s
reflections regarding the effectiveness of their pedagogy and classroom management policies.
Besides the above stated formal interviews, I conducted three informal interviews with
one professor (Ms. Lawrence) and two informal interviews with another professor (Ms. Dargo).
My informal interviews with both professors were mostly face-to-face lasting less than 30
minutes, and they were primarily for the purpose of rapport building. In particular, the initial
informal interview was conducted right before the pre-observation interviews. Through the initial
informal interview, I introduced my research project and myself. Moreover, through the initial
informal interview, I had a better chance of discovering my interviewee’s background and better
understand their current situation and concerns. The other informal interview sessions were
conducted in between my classroom observations and before the post-observation interview.
Those informal interview sessions provided me opportunities to clarify whatever questions I had
throughout the process of data collection. I used these precious opportunities to ensure the
validity of my pre-interview transcript and observation notes.
Observations
Patton (2002) contends that there are several benefits to conducting observations for they
allow the researcher to better capture the context within which the participants interact.
Additionally, first-hand experience allows the researcher to be open, discovery-oriented, and
inductive (Patton, 2002). The purpose of my study was to investigate the extent to which the
teaching practices of U.S. professors were influenced by their beliefs about East Asian cultures
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and their beliefs about the learning traits of East Asian students, and their awareness of the
learning needs and wants of East Asian students, and their skills for utilizing adequate teaching
methods to facilitate effective and meaningful learning. I couldn’t adequately assess the teaching
performances of my two participants, and their interactions with East Asian students, without
being on site for a good amount of time and gathering abundant and relevant observational data.
I visited the two professors’ classes twice and I spent three hours for each session of classroom
observation. This data collection process was guided by the classroom observation protocol
(Appendix D). During each observation session, I sat in the very back of the classroom which
enabled me to oversee the professor ability to utilize the classroom space, her interactions with
individual students or a student group, and her approaches for facilitating and engaging student
learning. In particular, my observations allowed me to note the ways the professors responded to
student’s behaviors, the content of their dialogues with individual students or the whole class,
and their approach to delivering the instructional content.
Data Analysis Procedures
Corbin and Strauss (2008) described analysis as the process of giving meaning to data by
taking apart the whole in order to identify the various components, taking a closer look at those
various components to understand how they function and their relationship to each other. I
started the process of analysis by open coding the data after completing the pre-observation
interview. An open coding approach to data analysis means that a researcher reads through the
data thoroughly and deeply, and without presumption and judgment. The researcher then tries to
seek key words or concepts emerging from the data, which correspond to the conceptual
framework and research questions (Strauss, 2008). Through the process of data analysis, I
examined relevant documents including the pre-observation interview transcripts, the post-
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observation interview transcripts, and the classroom observation notes. This inductive approach
to data analysis helped me to define who the two U.S. professors are as ESL instructors of East
Asian students, and to explore the intersections of the professors’ multicultural knowledge,
awareness, and skills.
There were three steps towards completing the pre-observation interview coding. The
first step was to closely read the respondents’ statements and interpret messages they tried to
convey by writing reflection notes. I also highlighted keywords the participant professors
brought up during the interviews. The second step was to relate key concepts extracted from the
interview reflection notes with the conceptual framework categories (i.e., knowledge, awareness,
skill). The conceptual framework asserts that a competent multicultural educator should have
knowledge about who their students are, how to better engage them, and what they need to shift
towards a Western learning mindset. My analysis particularly focused on key words addressing
the participant professors’ perceptions of East Asian learning traits and their interpretation of
effective instructional practices. The reflection notes revealed that both professors considered
reticence and passivity were two significant traits of East Asians. Nevertheless, the two
professors had divergent opinions about these traits. The notes also showed that both professors
considered student-centered activities to be effective. Yet, their discourses showed once again
that the two professors had distinctive understandings of what was implied by that term,
‘student-centered’. As for awareness, at this stage of data analysis I tried to identify the
professors’ conceptions or misconceptions about the East Asian culture and East Asian learning
traits. Specifically, my analysis tried to note emotionally charged or negative terms appearing in
their words that revealed potential biases. Through their discourses, I also tried to explore the
professors’ thoughts about the perceptual discrepancy between them and their students. In
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addition, the pre-observation data analysis helped me to generate some brief ideas about their
beliefs on meaningful teaching and effective pedagogy. Particularly, from the professors’
responses to interview questions such as “How do you define effective multicultural
instruction?” or “Can you explain what it means to be culturally relevant in the classroom?”, the
data analysis investigated the professors’ elaboration about their best practices in the classroom.
The third step was to write memos on the two professors on the basis of the highlighted
keywords, the conceptual framework categories, and my reflection notes. The memos also served
as a guide for my following field observation and the post-observation interview protocol design.
My analysis of the two professors’ pre-observation interviews provided me with a level
of fundamental understanding in regards to their perceptions of multicultural instruction,
especially for East Asian students. After I had completely examined the pre-observation data, I
tried to create what Merriam (2009) called a “case study database or method” (p.292) by cross-
investigating the classroom observation notes and the post-observation transcripts. Driven by the
conceptual framework and the general concepts of the pre-observation interview reflections, the
analysis of classroom observation notes explored some emerging themes and phenomena which
were undiscovered within the professors’ self-claims. To analyze the observation data, I wrote
notes to interpret interactions and dialogues among the participant professors, individual
students, and their peers. For example, the initial analysis revealed that in spite of her belief in
building student-faculty rapport and facilitating student-centered tasks, one professor adopted a
dogmatic approach of instruction and she used sarcastic or autocratic ways of communicating
when students’ performances did not meet her expectations. While the analysis of the classroom
observation data disclosed the actual teaching practices of the participant professors (as best as I
was able to surmise them), the analysis of the professors’ post-observation interviews provided
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me an opportunity to explain the reasons for the instructional decisions made by the participants,
and their beliefs in effective methods of teaching or classroom management policies that
addressed the needs of their students.
Ethical Considerations
This case study followed the principles outlined in the University of Southern
California’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines ensuring that all participants were
treated in an ethical manner designed to maximize the benefits to those involved in the research.
This investigation was conducted so that no individual was placed at risk of harm, each
individual was fully informed of the purpose and intent of the study, participation was
completely voluntary, and confidentiality of participant responses was assured to maintain the
anonymity of all participants. All data collection instruments and research methodologies utilized
in this study received full University of Southern California IRB approval before the research
began. Finally, use of all existing public records, written observations, and interviews were
handled with the utmost ethical care. Pseudonyms were used to maintain anonymity for all who
were involved in this study.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
The research study was conducted in a context where the U.S. professors who were
participants in the study, where the linguistic/cultural minority and the East Asian students were
the majority. In order for the findings of this study to be useful to others, they must be deemed
trustworthy. As a researcher who was born and raised in an East Asian country where the
Confucian paradigm of learning was the mainstream ideology, I was aware of the risk of bias on
my part towards both the U.S. professors and the East Asian students. I was further aware that
my biases may undermine the quality of my data collection and the eventual analysis of that data.
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Given this concern, credibility and trustworthiness was extremely critical. Trustworthiness can
be measured in terms of the validity and reliability of the data. This study was designed and
conducted in such a way as to ensure, as much as possible, the validity and reliability of the
findings.
Several steps were taken to encourage the credibility, or internal validity, of the data.
Merriam (2009) defines internal validity by asking the question, “How congruent are the findings
with reality?” (p. 213). Although reality cannot be proven, the goal of the researcher is to come
to a conclusion that makes sense in light of the collected data and to ensure that the
documentation of the data accurately reflects the perceived reality of the participant. One
strategy for testing internal validity used in this study was the use of member checks. After each
interview was transcribed, the participant was asked to review the transcript of their interview to
check accuracy and to correct misinterpretations. At that time, I also solicited any needed
clarification regarding the contents of the transcript. The design of this study, which included the
pre-observation and post-observation interviews for both participant professors, not only ensured
saturated of data collection but also provided chances to validate my interpretations in front of
the respondents. I took researcher’s notes on whatever corrections and feedback my respondents
had regarding the interview transcripts. In addition, in order to guard against misinterpretation
and bias, I continued to seek out data that might support alternative explanations while remaining
open to all possibilities. Data analysis is also subject to review by the dissertation committee,
whose duty it is to identify possible misinterpretations and researcher bias.
Limitations
As Maxwell (2013) asserts, the purpose of conducting qualitative research is not to
generalize knowledge but to search for ideas that might be transferable to other conditions or
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settings, this dissertation is not necessarily designed to produce generalizable findings. This
study is designed to explore the beliefs, awareness, and skills of two U.S. professors regarding
multicultural education, while they were specifically engaged in teaching a majority population
of East Asian students in their classroom. The aims of this study were to investigate the teaching
quality of two U.S. professors that reflected their individual values and unique experiences in
their classrooms. Although the in-depth analysis provided a chance to explore what that teaching
looked like when two U.S. processors taught in a classroom mainly composed of East Asian
learners, the findings can’t necessarily be applied to other institutions, nor can the data be
expected to speak for other U.S. professors.
Besides the inability to generalize the findings, the lack of students’ perspectives is also a
limitation of this study. This dissertation study specifically focused on the two participant
professors and their perceptions and knowledge about being a multicultural educator and how
their beliefs about the learning capacity of East Asian students set the tone of their instructional
practices. The dissertation didn’t present the insights of the East Asian students about the quality
of the multicultural instruction their professors may or may not have provided.
Delimitations
The following delimitations include factors within the researcher’s control yet may still
affect the data collected for the study or how the data are interpreted:
• I constructed the interview protocols and I was the instrument for the data collection.
My personal biases, especially my personal identification as an East Asian learner,
might have influenced the data I collected and my subsequent interpretation of that
data.

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Conclusion
This dissertation examined how two U.S. professor’s multicultural competencies—
including their conscious or unconscious beliefs about teaching East Asian students and how
they learn, their knowledge of effective pedagogies for culturally and linguistically diverse
learners, and their skill for critical reflection—influenced their teaching quality and interactions
with students who were culturally and linguistically different from them. Data were collected
through person-to-person semi-structured interviews with two participant professors.
To eliminate the possible validity threat, I conducted classroom observations and document
analysis. My conceptual framework guided the data analysis process.

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CHAPTER 4
FINDINGS
This was a study of the ways in which U.S. based ESL professors’ facilitation of student
learning was influenced by the extent to which they were multiculturally competent. This
dissertation focused exclusively on U.S. based postsecondary institutions where U.S. professors
taught East Asian students as the majority ethnicity in the classroom. Specifically, this
dissertation examined how an instructor’s multicultural competencies, including her conscious or
unconscious beliefs about teaching East Asian students, her approaches to learning, knowledge
of effective pedagogies for culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and skills for critical
reflection influenced the quality of her teaching and interaction with students who were
culturally and linguistically different from her. The first three chapters of this dissertation
presented the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the research question, a review
of the literature related to learning in higher education, cultural diversity and students’ perception
of learning, and teaching excellence in higher education. This chapter presents the findings of
this study derived from an analysis of the collected data.
This qualitative study utilized a case study methodology that involved interviews and
observations. Each academic institution, instructor, and student who participated in this study
was given a pseudonym to ensure confidentiality. The findings are presented using a within-case
analysis and are presented as separate case studies. The analyses presented takes into account the
contextual background for the study and examines the multicultural competencies of U.S. based
and educated professors, while they taught classes where East Asian students were the majority.
This study also presents relevant exchanges between professors and students that reveal the
professors’ beliefs about East Asian learning traits, knowledge of pedagogies for multicultural
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teaching, and their skills for critical reflection. The findings also include information about the
U.S. based higher education institutions and the backgrounds of each professor. These findings
seek to answer the following research questions:
1. What do professors of East Asian students believe they must know and be able to do
in order to support and facilitate their students’ learning?
2. What does teaching look like in the classrooms of higher education faculty who teach
East Asian students who are culturally and linguistically significant?
A Return to the Conceptual Framework
My conceptual framework delineated teaching in a culturally and linguistically diverse
classroom as a dynamic and reciprocal process, which critically involves the participant
professor’s perception about East Asian learning traits and her role as a multicultural educator.
This dynamic also takes into account the pedagogical practices applied by the instructor, and the
reactions the students had towards the instructor’s strategies. Although it is assumed that a U.S.
based/educated/prepared professor would inevitably frame her view of student learning by
utilizing Western theories of teaching and learning, what makes a professor better prepared to
teach a multicultural classroom is her culturally specific knowledge, awareness of intercultural
diversity, and skills for critical reflection.
Pedagogy and teaching practices are the material incarnations of a professor’s belief
about what it means to be a multicultural educator, how she perceives East Asian students’
learning needs, and how she evaluates the alignment of her practices with those needs. In
particular, this study was concerned with observing that while students respond to instructional
approaches through their own learned behaviors, whether or not the instructor could detect
underlying messages (be they cognitive, motivational, or emotional) and adjust her teaching
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accordingly. My conceptual framework suggests that good quality teaching lead to students’
willing and frequent engagement with peer and faculty. On the contrary, my framework
contends, that low quality teaching causes student passivity and inattentiveness, weakens their
motivation to participate, and results in less frequent peer/faculty interactions. Ideally, a
professor will engage in critical reflection, drawing from what they observe and interrogate their
knowledge of teaching and learning in order to better meet the needs of his/her students.
Setting the Context: Nishiki International College
Nishiki International College (NIC) is a 2-year Liberal arts college in the Western United
States. NIC is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges of
the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), and provides two academic
programs, the College Preparatory program and the Associate of Arts degree (also Liberal Arts)
program.
The College Preparatory program is an intensive English-as-Second Language (ESL)
program designed to help international students achieve the proficiency necessary to succeed in
NIC’s Associate in Arts degree program. The majority of the students in the ESL program were
Japanese International students. According to the NIC official statistics in 2013, there were 340
students in the ESL programs and among them, 330 students were from Japan. The College
Preparatory Program was divided into five levels, each with a different foci. The lower level
courses focused on the basic core skills of English listening, speaking, reading, writing,
grammar, and vocabulary. The middle to upper level courses featured a unified approach to
learning by cultivating the progressive development of students’ English language skills in core
courses that were linked to content-based courses intended to give students the experience of
studying an academic subject in English. With additional instruction in fundamental classroom
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and study skills, including critical thinking, discussion and presentation, information literacy,
note-taking, and exam-taking, these courses were intended to prepare students for academic
success in college-level study.
NIC offers an Associate in Arts degree program in Liberal Arts that introduces students
to various fields of knowledge, including the arts and humanities, language, social sciences,
natural sciences, and mathematics. The intent of the Liberal Arts Program, which places a strong
emphasis on the development of learning, critical thinking, and communication skills, was to
foster in students a broad intellectual understanding of the individual and society, the natural
environment, issues in the arts and humanities, and self-awareness. Over the years, students from
Germany, Chile, Peru, Thailand, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Korea, Micronesia,
Vietnam, Japan, and the U.S. had graduated from NIC with the Associate in Arts degree. The
official statistics for NIC in 2013 showed that Non-Japanese students accounted for 34.38% of
the student population. However, the student population within the Associates in Arts degree
program was comprised primarily of Japanese students.
Case Study #1: Ms. Lawrence of the College Preparatory Program
In her mid-50s, Ms. Lawrence was an Associate Professor of the College Preparatory
Program at Nishiki International College. As a Hispanic American from California, Ms.
Lawrence’s native language was Spanish and she started to acquire English in the United States
at the age of 7. Ms. Lawrence began teaching English as a second language in various higher
education institutions in the United States and abroad right after completing a TESOL master’s
degree from a state university in Southern California. Prior to teaching at NIC, Ms. Lawrence
had lived in Rome for 3 years and Japan for 2 years. Compared to the institutions where she had
previously taught, NIC had a dominant Japanese student population and her classes were less
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culturally and linguistically diverse than in the past. During the period of data collection, Ms.
Lawrence was teaching a middle level ESL class with eight Japanese students. There were three
female students and five male students in the class.
The data below reveals that prior to teaching at NIC, Ms. Lawrence lived in Japan for
years and married a native Japanese. Because of her overseas experience, Ms. Lawrence acquired
some basic understanding of the Japanese education system and the learning traits of Japanese
students. Ms. Lawrence’s knowledge about the Japan’s educational values and student learning
behaviors enabled her to provide her Japanese students with instruction that was more aligned to
what they had previously experienced in Japan. For example, Ms. Lawrence tolerated inactive
participation and passivity from her students as behaviors that were common in Japanese
classrooms. She adopted teacher-centered lectures to fill in the silence. Nevertheless, the trade-
off from this approach was that Ms. Lawrence’s practices did not foster essential skills for
Japanese students to be successful in Western classrooms.
The absence of critical reflection and the lack of insights for effective teaching,
eventually led to instruction that did not satisfy the principles advocated by Chickering and
Gamson (1987) for high quality instruction or Gay’s (2002) culturally responsive pedagogy. In
particular, observation notes indicated that Ms. Lawrence failed to inspire East Asian students to
engage in active learning, she suppressed their critical thinking, and she undermined their
motivation to overcome their barriers in wanting to learn English. The remainder of my case
study #1 addresses Ms. Lawrence’s misconceptions about East Asian students and their approach
to learning, her lack of awareness for critical reflection, and her inability to practice culturally
responsive pedagogy. In particular, the observation notes on Ms. Lawrence’s instructional
practices indicated that she failed to inspire her East Asian students to engage in active learning,
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she suppressed their critical thinking, and she undermined their motivation to overcome the
barriers towards learning English.
Misconceptions of East Asian Students and their Approach to Learning
Ms. Lawrence believed that her 30 years of experience in teaching ESL students, had
helped her to gain the necessary multicultural competencies for teaching East Asian students.
The statement below reveals how Ms. Lawrence’s perceived East Asian learners and their
learning traits. Ms. Lawrence said:
I have been teaching ESL for so many years. I have been teaching, I don’t know, maybe
30 years or something. And I taught different places, different colleges, different cultures,
and different ethnic groups. But the East Asian students, um...you know it is really hard
for me, even to...you know, I think Korean students, Chinese students, Japanese students;
these are all East Asian but at the same time they are different learners. It is quite difficult
for me to you know I can make generalization, but I don’t want to go into any
[stereotype].
By saying that “Korean students, Chinese students, Japanese students, these are all East
Asian but at the same time they are different learners,” Ms. Lawrence revealed her belief that
different geographic locations (i.e., China, Korea, and Japan) and their unique local cultures
might correspondingly cultivate culturally distinctive learning traits. Ms. Lawrence’s idea is
aligned with that of Markus and Kitayama’s (1999) finding that East Asian learners bring
specific learning traits acquired from their home-countries, including codes of communication
and socialization into the classrooms of the host countries. In the subsequent statement, “It is
quite difficult for me to...you know I can make generalizations, but I don’t want to go into any
[stereotype],” Ms. Lawrence appears to avoid generalizing her students because she perceives
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generalization as unethical conduct for a teacher. Ms. Lawrence seems to believe that to make
generalizations of the students’ learning traits based on their cultural origin would show
instructional bias toward certain groups of students and their inherited cultures.
However, despite Ms. Lawrence’s initial assertion that she should refrain from
generalizing students in order to avoid stereotyping, the following comment reflects Ms.
Lawrence’s preconceived ideas about Japanese students:
I have most Japanese [students], so…more, their passive learning is stronger than their
active and productive ability, meaning their reading and their writing is stronger than
their speaking and their listening. And it is no fault there, it is just how their second
language was taught [previously in Japan]. In their own country, you start with structure,
and reading, and writing, before speaking and listening, unfortunately. Because in their
classroom in their home country, very often, that have a teacher start to teach the
language from the books; unfortunately, I will use the comparison of a baby learning a
mother tongue: hear then they speak, then they read and they write. We got them all
backward on second language acquisition.
In the above statement, Ms. Lawrence asserts that Japanese students are passive learners
influenced by their previous educational experiences. She attributes their learning passivity to an
overemphasis in “input skills” (i.e., grammar, writing, and reading), and the neglect of “active
skills” (i.e., listening and speaking) in Japan’s English as a foreign language education. Ms.
Lawrence’s choices of terms such as “unfortunately” and “backward on second language
acquisition” implies the negative perceptions she held toward the approach used in Japan to teach
Japanese students. Ms. Lawrence seems to consider the characteristics of her Japanese students
as disadvantages rather than strengths towards academic development. Moreover, by using the
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analogy of a “baby learn talking,” Ms. Lawrence overlooks the fact that each adolescent
language learner had developed the competence for forming personal opinions, even if they were
not ready to express them in English.
In the following statement, Ms. Lawrence shares her thought on Japanese student
passivity as the embodiment of engrained learning traits, and the strategies she has adopted to
handle the issue. Ms. Lawrence’s statement reveals her perception that this Japanese learning
trait did affect her interpretation of effective instruction. The example starts with Ms. Lawrence
describing the common phenomenon of student silence whenever she provided them with
opportunities to express their individual voices. Ms. Lawrence said:
Here is the first thing. I will ask a question to the entire class and maybe one student will
answer. One student will naturally speak for the classroom. Here this is classic. So I will
say, how are you today (how is everybody today)? One student will say “fine.” The rest
will not answer; they are looking down. And then I have to go point by name and ask
“how are you” [to one specific student]. And they realize, oh no, I don’t know she is
going to ask me directly, so I better to be ready. So they begin to become nervous. They
know I will go around the room or maybe I won’t. So as much as possible, they try to fly
under the radar. Trying not to be called, not to be picked up. Very often, the one who
fully responds is the one who maybe knows me better, because we have another class
together, or that person is more westernized. For example, right now I have a Japanese
girl who was born and spent the first few years of childhood in England, and went back to
Japan. So she is much more natural and spontaneous in her response and makes more eye
contact. So that is a big thing with especially Japanese, they are looking down and I have
to teach them. I have to practice with them how to respond. Once the American teachers
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talked to the American students and ask questions, everybody answers, everybody. It is a
matter of cultivation too. It is America now, and this is what is expected. We tell them
that it is what we expect and you need to participate more.
In the beginning of Ms. Lawrence’s statement, she indicates that the majority of students
were inclined to be silent, with the expectation that one student would speak for them as their
representative. According to Ms. Lawrence, the class representative was very often “The one
who maybe knows me [Ms. Lawrence] better, because we have another class together, or that
person is more westernized.” The latter statement reveals Ms. Lawrence’s tendency to classify
her students into two subgroups: one major group who perpetually possess Japanese learning
traits and thus remained unresponsive to her inquiry, and another smaller group of learners (as
exemplified by a Japanese girl with a British educational background) who were willing to shift
to the Western learning mindset.
The comment: “Once the American teachers talked to the American students and asked
questions, everybody answers, everybody [sic]. It is a matter of cultivation too. It is America
now, and this is what is expected” demonstrates Ms. Lawrence’s belief in her obligation to
educate the silent majority to become more responsive because she believes that active
participation was the key to success in an American classroom. The inclination to divide students
into distinctive learning traits (Japanese and the Western learning traits) reveals Ms. Lawrence’s
subjective judgments about East Asian students being passive learners in general. This
misconception was particularly pronounced in Ms. Lawrence’s statement regarding her
understanding of the learning needs of Japanese students, she said:
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What they want is they want to learn the easiest way the possible, or least painful way
possible, they want teachers very often to spoon feed them. They will just say teach me,
don’t ask me to do anything.
Ms. Lawrence asserts that her Japanese students sought the “least painful way” to learn
and craved spoon-feed instruction from her. Ms. Lawrence defined the spoon-feed approach as
one where an instructor just teaches students what they needed to know without asking them to
actively engage in the process. Ms. Lawrence contrasts the disengagement and inactivity as
symptomatic of the Japanese mindset with what she perceives to be the more promising and
positive description of Western learning traits. This perceived dichotomy of learning traits not
only had a significant impact on Ms. Lawrence’s perception of what constituted instruction, it
also affected Ms. Lawrence’s judgment about individual students and their competence. One
example of this was Ms. Lawrence’s analysis of two students who performed well in her
classroom. Ige and Ryotaro were two active participants in classroom activities. The following
statement demonstrated that Ms. Lawrence apparently considered Ryotaro a more spontaneous
learner based on his application of Americanized learning strategies. Ms. Lawrence said:
I mean you know Ige will go off on . . . the strange thing about Ige is that he knows a lot,
but he’s quite passive in terms of responding to the teacher or you know, to be an active
participant. Ryotaro is a little more Americanized in the classroom because he had the
session previous in his high school. He has, I guess after he graduated from high school
in Japan in December, he came to our school for a special, what’s called a “flagship
program,” which is a high school kind of college prep, 6 weeks?
From the feedback Ms. Lawrence provides to describe Ige’s approach to learning, Ige
was identified as a passive and reticent learner like many of his peers. Although Ms. Lawrence
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agreed that Ige was intellectually capable, her comment: “The strange thing about Ige is that he
knows a lot, but he’s quite passive in terms of responding to the teacher or you know, to be an
active participant” implies a slight deprecation of Ige’s performance because of his passivity. On
the contrary, Ms. Lawrence praised Ryotaro for his ability to shift from Japanese to Western
learning traits; moreover, Ms. Lawrence attributes Roytaro’s achievement to his participation in
an immersion program.
Although Ms. Lawrence verbally underscores the importance of developing Western
learning traits among her Japanese students, the data below shows that Ms. Lawrence’s
perception of her role as an instructor, her educational philosophy, and her instructional
approaches did not support Japanese students in their efforts to further improve their skills. In
particular, she does not embrace or enact the Western view of education that aims to help
students see themselves as critical thinkers with personal autonomy who have an active
involvement in their own learning. (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Ms. Lawrence believed that her role as an ESL educator was to help her students to
establish a solid linguistic foundation (reading, listening, speaking, and writing) so that they
could have a better chance of becoming successful in a liberal arts program in the United States.
Ms. Lawrence’s definition of achievement was limited to the advancement of English language
proficiency without involving the above elements of independent construal. The following
statement demonstrates Ms. Lawrence’s thoughts about preparing her students for academic
success:
Get them to the level of being successful, that includes one of our primary measurement
for assessing their improvement, we use the TOEFL test, the institute test. So we teach at
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the different levels, for different skills that will be listening, the structure of expression,
and reading.
In this exchange, Ms. Lawrence expresses her belief in using the TOEFL score as the
main indicator of students’ academic performance. Ms. Lawrence also believed that her
instructional objectives should be aligned with the measurement of language proficiency. In
other words, Ms. Lawrence’s educational philosophy was partially test-driven. Besides, the
following statement shows that Ms. Lawrence’s instruction was also textbook-driven:
We [The academic program] use all skill-based textbooks, and our courses are quite
strong in textbook instruction. But my teaching style is, a lot of time, you [instructor]
follow a textbook but how you approach it is, often time, because of the nature of how
much we have to learn, I assign them [students] a few pages before we have covered it
and discussed in the class, and so they will come to the class having done their
homework, and then I present it and check on their comprehension, and from there we go
into practicing it.
The above statement shows that Ms. Lawrence designed her instructional practices on the
basis of the program’s text driven policy and her judgment of practices that were most applicable
to student learning. By saying “Because of the nature of how much we have to learn, I assign
them [students] a few pages before we have covered it,” Ms. Lawrence reveals that as a teacher-
centered instructor, she weighs the quantity of course materials to be covered more heavily than
the quality of learning each individual student gained from their interaction with her during class
time. It was not a part of the textbook-driven policy to encourage personal autonomy with
respect to studying. The textbook-driven policy demands that East Asian students passively
complete one task after another, and unconditionally absorb knowledge without reflection and
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questioning. Furthermore, Ms. Lawrence used assignments to check on students’ level of
comprehension and thus increase her chances to have them engage in drill practice. Her typical
approach, as she described it, and as will be demonstrated below, rarely triggered the active
engagement of her learners.
That Ms. Lawrence’s instructional task design was impromptu and often against her own
core values of instruction, is evident in the following statement where she explains her reasons
for starting a class with a pronunciation exercise:
Well, what I try to do is start the class with some kind of activity where they’re opening
their mouth [laughs]. Where they are producing something, whether it’s speaking you
know, in pairs or groups about what they did on the weekend ‘cause that’s usually what
we would do on Fridays and Mondays, you know? Or try to get them involved in some
kind of speaking activity. And yeah, the one time it was pronunciation because honestly I
had found that list that I had created some time back and I had just found it when I was
going through a folder and I thought oh, this is a good recap, where it’s kind of a good
review of what was done.
The statement “What I try to do is start the class with some kind of activity where they’re
opening their mouth” shows that Ms. Lawrence’s approach to designing lessons was limited and
that she did not contemplate, with any depth, whether her design was aligned with her stated goal
of ensuring that students actively engage in their own learning or in enhancing students’ critical
thinking abilities. By saying “They [the students] are producing something; whether it’s speaking
you know, in pairs or groups about what they did on the weekend,” Ms. Lawrence suggests that
she did not expect her students to construct meaningful opinions or demonstrate the ability of
thinking through the tasks in depth. Providing opportunities to construct meaningful opinions
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was especially crucial for East Asian students in order for them to acquire critical thinking skills
and the ability for active engagement. Moreover, Ms. Lawrence’s statement that “The one time it
was pronunciation because honestly I had found that list that I had created some time back and I
had just found it when I was going through a folder and I thought oh, this is a good recap”
demonstrates her impromptu approach to lesson design without addressing the specific learning
needs of individual students.
Ms. Lawrence’s neglect of individual student learning needs, without differentiating
learning in the classroom, was evident in the following example where she explains her attitude
towards high performing students like Roytaro and Ige. She said:
You know some teachers teach to the lowest level, some teachers teach to the highest
students, so to speak. And I teach right to the middle. I don’t try to . . . these two students
[Ryotaro and Ige] just have that more active type of style of response, and I appreciate it
but I don’t do anything to encourage or to teach to them, at all.
In the above example, Ms. Lawrence expresses her approach of teaching to the needs of
the average student, without providing additional intellectual challenges and academic
inspiration for those who were more advanced. Ms. Lawrence’s statement “The two students just
have that more active type of style of response, and I appreciate it but I don’t do anything to
encourage or to teach to them, at all” reveals that she believed that it was not her responsibility to
help all of her students to experience academic improvement.
Similarly, Ms. Lawrence did not provide additional support for struggling students. For
example, Yuya was a student who could barely keep up with his peers and who frequently
engaged in undesirable behaviors to release his frustration. Although Ms. Lawrence expressed
her concerns that Yuya might disrupt her students, the following excerpt shows that Ms.
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Lawrence had no intention of providing Yuya with the one-on-one support he needed to
improve. She said:
It was a motivational and confidence thing. And a lot of times, I knew that he was . . .
you know, there’s almost no eye contact with him. When I would teach, he was zooming
out for the most part, or in his own world, and I wasn’t going to confront him. I mean
there were times when I called him up to my office and I told him at least twice that his
energy was so negative that I could not teach him how to be more energetic, that I asked
him if he could figure out a way to not bring that into the class.
In the above example, Ms. Lawrence explains her observation of Yuya’s behaviors, such
as avoiding eye contact and zoning out. In a way, her interpretations here are similar to her
assessment of Ryotaro and Ige’s positive behaviors. In this case Ms. Lawrence believes it was
Yuya’s responsibility to gain motivation and confidence to become a successful learner.
Therefore, Ms. Lawrence often chose to overlook Yuya’s problematic behavior. While Ms.
Lawrence addressed the behavior issues with Yuya in person, she denounced those negative
actions instead of inquiring into the causes of Yuya’s negative emotions and seeking solutions.
In addition to her belief that it was the student’s responsibility to take care of their own
learning needs, Ms. Lawrence held some deficit attitudes toward East Asian student learning and
effective instructional strategies. The data continues to demonstrate that Ms. Lawrence was
unaware of the inconsistency between her stated beliefs and her actual practices in the classroom.
Ms. Lawrence perceived herself to be a “less-teacher-focused” instructor and she
provided her students with more “student-centered” tasks to learn. She identified herself as a
course facilitator rather than a teacher. By this she meant that she provided her students with
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autonomy to explore the value of their learning through activities such as team collaboration. She
said:
A teacher that has a lesson plan but is flexible to whatever happens during the time of
instruction, what turn out in the classroom, and keep less teacher-focused yet more
student-centered learning, meaning I will introduce a text or something, and the students
will be working through the exercise together. As much as possible, I turn to the students
to be working together, to discuss their homework. Again, it is more student-centered. I
am not a teacher. I am a facilitator.
Nevertheless, the exchange below between Ms. Lawrence and her students show that Ms.
Lawrence tends to dominate the talking time even during a pair discussion session. The exchange
also shows that Ms. Lawrence’s dominance over the conversation impedes the emergence of
unique ideas from individual learners. The following exchange took place when Ms. Lawrence
conducted a brainstorming activity before introducing the incoming research project related to
King Kamehameha. In this warm-up activity, Ms. Lawrence asked each student to share his/her
knowledge about the King with one peer. The conversation continued as follows:
T: Ok, now, I would like you take a few minutes to talk to your peers and share a
few things you know about King Kamehameha.
[The pair discussion starts]
SH: I guess King Kamehameha is the King of Hawaii and unites Hawaii. I don’t know
else.
SG: ......
SH: Maybe dragon ball.
SB: Ethnicity.
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T: I heard ethnicity? Thank you.
SA: Kamehameha is a king.
T: We all know Kamehameha is a king. That’s why we call him King Kamehameha.
The above exchange reveals that Ms. Lawrence abruptly intervened in the peer discussion
once she overheard SB mentioning a keyword “ethnicity.” Because of Ms. Lawrence’s
unexpected interference, students immediately ended the student-centered activity, including the
exchange of information and the possible generation of new ideas. After Ms. Lawrence thanked
SB for his word selection, SA attempted to engage by giving his answer, “Kamehameha is a
king.” Ms. Lawrence’s reply to SA’s contribution demonstrates a teacher-centered ideology
since she uses her authority to tell the student how obvious his answer was by saying, “We all
know Kamehameha is a king. That’s why we call him King Kamehameha.” In other words, the
excerpt demonstrates that Ms. Lawrence was a teacher-centered instructor who frequently
censored and regulated her students’ participation without offering them autonomy to develop
and express their independent thoughts.
With respect to teaching style, Ms. Lawrence asserted that she was dedicated to creating a
relaxed and positive learning environment and she believed that maintaining a good faculty-
student rapport and an amicable attitude toward students were keys to success. Ms. Lawrence’s
ideas about her interaction with students was best presented in the following statement:
My teaching style is pretty relaxed. I often time put out a lot of energy because some
more...and I make jokes. I try to get them to smile. Happy learners are usually better
learners. I tried to have more one-on-one contact so that they will feel a connection, a
relationship directly with me. And this is throughout the session. I will have meeting and
conference with them, or that type of things so that once you established that, it gets
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much easier to keep them motivated. I am very personal. It is a very personal and
personable approach.
However, in reality, Ms. Lawrence appears to struggle to foster a positive environment
and good faculty-student rapport which she said she valued. The following example
demonstrates her struggle. This conversation took place after Ms. Lawrence verbally greeted her
students. Ms. Lawrence then said:
T: So, how is everybody today?
Ss: ....
T: Come on. I usually ask my students “how are you today” and get no response.
This is really impolite. If one day your friend will ask you, “how are you today”
and you do not answer, how will he feel? So how are you doing?
SB: Tired.
T: Who said tired?
SB: I do.
T: Why do you say you are tired?
SB: I just finished my history test today.
T: So you have one more test to complete, right? Who would say “I am tired” today?
OC (SD raised his hand).
T: Why? (T to SD)
SD: TOEFL preparation.
T: Ok, who would say, “I am happy today?”
OC (SB/SH raised hands).
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T: Oh come on, today’s Friday, aren’t you folks happy that the weekend is
approaching?
The exchange shows that Ms. Lawrence’s initial reaction towards her students’ silence
was frustration and she expressed that frustration by criticizing their reticence, when she said:
“Come on. I usually ask my students ‘how are you today’ and get no response. This is really
impolite.” Her statement that she “usually” asked her students and got no response also suggests
that she often struggles to get her students to engage with her. Then, Ms. Lawrence makes a
second attempt to generate responses from students by asking, “So how are you doing?” After
SB told her that he felt “tired,” Ms. Lawrence expresses her desire to hear the student’s concern
by asking “Why do you say you are tired?” Knowing that SB’s feeling of exhaustion was the
result of his preparation for a history test, Ms. Lawrence turns to SB’s classmates and asks “Who
would say ‘I am tired’ today?” However, as soon as SD agreed with SB by saying he felt tired
because of the TOEFL preparation, Ms. Lawrence immediately stops inviting students to share
their emotions. Instead, Ms. Lawrence tries to guide her students to a more positive response by
asking “Ok, who would say ‘I am happy today’?” Once Ms. Lawrence finds out that only a few
students backed up her effort to change the topic, she expresses her frustration by scolding them:
“Oh come on, today’s Friday, aren’t you folks happy that the weekend is approaching?”
The exchange shows Ms. Lawrence’s eagerness to guide her students to at least verbally
deliver positive feedback; moreover, Ms. Lawrence apparently wants her students to tell her that
they felt good in the beginning of the day. When the students’ responses were not aligned with
her desired outcomes, Ms. Lawrence blamed her students for being quiet instead of working with
them to investigate their experiences further. Ms. Lawrence’s approach enhanced the tension
between the students and the instructor. Her comments above fail to demonstrate a positive
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attitude in her class, and become silencing acts instead because she communicates her
disappointment in them, and thus the effect is just the opposite of fostering a positive class
atmosphere where her students feel they can express their thoughts without fear of retribution.
A multicultural instructor’s knowledge of culturally relevant instruction is a crucial factor
in students’ academic success (Austin, 1996). The following excerpt presents Ms. Lawrence’s
perception of culturally relevant instruction. She said:
Culturally relevant? My take of that will be to respect the culture, if possible to show
similarity, commonality, so students can see that the teacher is not being lowering, or
basically recognizing the difference, they are trying to see how the culture or the
language might have meaning that is relevant to what they have studied in the classes.
Ms. Lawrence asserts that being culturally relevant implies that an instructor shows their
respect for and accommodates students’ cultural perspectives, be it similar to or different from
those of within American culture. Nevertheless, the dialogue below between Ms. Lawrence and
SB shows that because Ms. Lawrence had a superficial understanding of the students’ culture
(i.e., the Japanese culture), the effect of her trying to provide culturally relevant instruction
turned out to be limited. The conversation took place when Ms. Lawrence tried to relate the
Shogun history of Japan (a hereditary commander-in-chief in feudal Japan) with the history of
King Kamehameha. Ms. Lawrence then said:
T: Is King Kamehameha like Shogun in Japan. Do you have more than one Shoguns
in Japan. What does Shogun do? Do they just play with swords every day?
SB: No, conquer.
T: What does conquer mean?
SB: Invade and rule.
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Ms. Lawrence demonstrates her desire to find cultural commonalities between Hawaiian
and Japanese history. Ms. Lawrence refers to a proper noun “Shogun” to show her understanding
of Japanese culture. However, Ms. Lawrence’s subsequent comments, “Do you have more than
one Shoguns in Japan. What does Shogun do? Do they just play with swords every day?”
demonstrates her limited knowledge of Shogun culture. In particular, Ms. Lawrence
demonstrates a casual attitude by asking “Do they [Shoguns] just play with swords every day?”
Ms. Lawrence’s approach to questioning also reveals her inability to generate a culturally
relevant dialogue with the students. The key issue here was that she did not provide students with
enough autonomy to allow them to elaborate on what their native culture meant to them, and
what they perceived to be the viable connections between the Hawaiian and Japanese culture.
Instead, Ms. Lawrence set the tone for the discussion with a parochial question: “Do they
[Shoguns] just play with swords every day?” The student’s response, “No, conquer,” as a result,
was empty as the student did not show any intention to communicate in depth.
Another example shows that Ms. Lawrence’s classroom practices did not really match
her claim of cultural respect and accommodation. Here, she tries to communicate with SH in
regards to their different insights about the homeless in Waikiki. The incident took place when
Ms. Lawrence overheard SH sharing his experiences of meeting homeless people with SG:
T: I am so happy that you have lots of experiences about American cultures.
Remember there are many different types of people in America and they may
come from many different types of backgrounds. They might not think the same
way as we do.
SH: They are lazy....
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T: Um...be careful about judging. You know, I have traveled to many different
countries and see people from many different backgrounds. I also found out that
humans are common in several ways, like we all need love, people who care
with...And people are sometimes different because of the influence of culture.
Like why Japanese always take off shoes before entering other people’s houses?
SH: People in Hawai’i also take off shoes.
T: Yes, because there is a strong influence of Japanese culture in Hawaii. Or how
about why Japanese always take Ofulo before taking a shower? People from the
United States might think Japanese folks weird because they always need to take
bath and then shower. It is just cultural different. So be careful before you judge,
ok?
SH: Ok.
In this example, Ms. Lawrence explains that cultural diversity was a crucial part of
American culture, and she emphasizes that to be more Americanized, SH should learn to respect
people with different insights. In the beginning of their conversation, Ms. Lawrence maintained a
calm and amicable tone as she said,
I am so happy that you have lots of experiences about American cultures. Remember
there are many different types of people in America and they may come from many
different types of backgrounds. They might not think the same way as we do.
However, when SH spoke from his own cultural perspectives, saying “They [the
homeless] are lazy,” Ms. Lawrence seemed to see SH’s different perspective as a challenge to
her values. She went so far as to discourage him from his perspective. She said “You know, I
have been traveled to many different countries and see people from many different backgrounds.
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I also found out that humans are common in several ways, like we all need love, people who care
with...And people are sometimes different because of the influence of culture.” She uses her
authority to silence SH and to prevent him from expressing his opinion. Ms. Lawrence further
points out that taking off shoes before entering other people’s houses or taking a hot bath (ofulo)
before showering were Japanese customs that many Americans might find uncommon. Although
it was likely out of a positive place that Ms. Lawrence admonished SH’s interpretation of
homeless people’s behaviors as a sign that they were lazy, Ms. Lawrence’s subsequent statement
“People from the United States might think Japanese folks weird because they always need to
take bath and then shower” also shows the instructor was making a judgment about Japanese
culture.
Lacking Awareness for Critical Reflection
Those who engage in critical reflection are constantly attentive to signs revealed from
students’ behaviors and their reactions toward the instructor’s practices (Dewey, 1993). Dewey
also believed that the examination of unspoken messages from the students helped educators to
circumspectly examine some entrenched beliefs and improve his or her teaching. As previously
mentioned, Ms. Lawrence was capable of providing instructions in line with the prior learning
experiences of the Japanese. However, the following sections show that because Ms. Lawrence
was over confident about her knowledge of the Japanese people and culture, as well as her
competence of teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students, she did not see the need to
engage in critical reflection. Ms. Lawrence’s failure to engage in critical reflection led to her
inability to recognize and address students’ learning needs and provide effective instruction as
demonstrated in the previous section.
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The statement below demonstrates Ms. Lawrence’s confidence in her understanding of
Japanese people and culture. Although Ms. Lawrence indicated that a sound knowledge base of
the Japanese culture would be beneficial to her teaching, her statement showed that she neglected
to hear the culturally specific insights from her Japanese students. Similarly, she did not show
any intention of inviting students to exchange cultural perspectives. Ms. Lawrence’s statement
started from an explanation of how she had acquired knowledge of Japanese culture:
Well I lived there, I’ve been exposed to the Japanese culture for a big part of my life and
I just . . . you know, at least around the kids, and I used to live in Los Angeles and
honestly, my ex-husband is Japanese. Japanese from Japan. And my son goes to Japan
from time to time, so I do have a sense of the culture. And so I bring my own, they don’t
know any of that stuff and they don’t need to know any of that stuff, you know. Like
really don’t want to . . . they don’t need to know how much I do or don’t know of
Japanese. I always keep them guessing how much I do understand or I don’t understand.
As Ms. Lawrence stated,
I’ve been exposed to the Japanese culture for a big part of my life and I just . . . you
know, at least around the kids, and I used to live in Los Angeles and honestly, my ex-
husband is Japanese. Japanese from Japan. And my son goes to Japan from time to time,
so I do have a sense of the culture.
The quotes reveal that Ms. Lawrence believed that she already had sufficient knowledge
of the culture and was able to grasp the thoughts of her students. Ms. Lawrence apparently saw
herself as the authority delivering cross-cultural knowledge. But she only seems interested in
bringing her knowledge to the students without showing any desires to learn the culturally
specific perspectives that her students had to offer, and which might be different from her
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understanding. By not being receptive to insights her students might have through mutual
communication, Ms. Lawrence lost an opportunity to gauge the distance between herself and her
students. By neglecting the potential difference between her own and her students’ thinking, she
was unable to identify the genuine needs of her students and improve her teaching accordingly.
Nevertheless, Ms. Lawrence did not show any concerns about not being able to understand or
identify her students’ learning needs. In fact, her statement “They [the Japanese students] don’t
need to know how much I do or don’t know of Japanese” further reiterates her belief that she was
resistant to have her own knowledge contested in any way. This choice positioned her as the
ultimate authority in determining what students should know and how students should think. On
the other hand, students did not have any right to inquire into the rationality of the teacher’s
thinking. They could only passively obey the signals provided by the instructor and fit
themselves into the frame drawn by Ms. Lawrence based on her perceptions of Japanese culture.
Ms. Lawrence’s lack of critical reflection was evident in the following statement as she
discussed her thoughts about her teaching plan. Here she reveals her reasons for giving students
quizzes on a weekly basis:
Every week we are doing a weekly question and answer exercise and this is both core 1
and core 2, a program wide thing again. And so a lot of what I’m doing is just part of the
curriculum. And by the end of the week, we are supposed to be giving quizzes. Both
question and answer and dictation and I find that in core 2, it’s just too much of that. So I
alternate between question/answer one week, dictation one week, because sometimes we
just get thrown off by other activities where the quiz isn’t on a Friday but I usually give
them about four leave days before the quiz to do the dictation, to repeat it, to you know.
Every day I’m kind of doing the same thing.
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Ms. Lawrence’s statement “And so a lot of what I’m doing is just part of the curriculum.
And by the end of the week, we are supposed to be giving quizzes” makes it clear that she
adopted the weekly test format to abide by the curriculum request without contemplating how
those test results might or might not help her to assess her students learning progress. The only
adjustment Ms. Lawrence made was in the reduction of the weekly assessment load
(question/answer one week, dictation one week) and this decision was based on out her intuitive
interpretations about students’ learning capacity, but without being validated by hearing from the
students. Ms. Lawrence felt comfortable with the fact that “Every day I’m kind of doing the
same thing,” which implies that Ms. Lawrence did not seek to experiment or adjust, which might
have led to a better quality of teaching.
While an instructor with the awareness of critical reflection might frequently investigate
individual student’s academic strengths and weaknesses and rearrange his or her instructional
approaches accordingly, the following statement shows Ms. Lawrence did not gather information
from her students’ performance to improve her teaching. The statement starts from Ms.
Lawrence’s explanation of her daily teaching practices:
I’ve taught the course a number of times now where I pretty much know that the first few
weeks of the course is going to be conversation in the morning, just for example,
listening and speaking, short conversations, and wake up and speak some English. And
then we go into TOEFL, we discuss the skill, they have to discuss what the homework
was to review the skill and then we do the listening and then they check their answers and
then there’s homework that they have to, you know, if there’s homework, I have to bring
that in the following day to follow up on that.
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In the above statement, Ms. Lawrence confesses that, for the first few weeks of the
courses, she tends to have a pretty predictable and rigid teaching plan that starts with short
conversation activities. The aim of conducting short conversations was to work on students’
abilities to speak and listen, and to “keep students awake.” However, Ms. Lawrence does not
elaborate on how she discerned the strengths and weaknesses of her students while using the
standardized teaching method. She also does not explain how she used evidence from students’
learning to inform her approach.
The Lacking of High Quality Teaching and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
While being asked to share some insights about the class she currently completed
teaching, Ms. Lawrence replied “Oh, well, to be honest with you, I’m glad it’s over. You know,
each class is very, very different and this was a fractured class.” Nevertheless, the analysis of
Ms. Lawrence’s teaching practices in the classroom revealed that at least some of the
responsibility for the “fractured class” rested with Ms. Lawrence and her approach to teaching
them.
The data below indicates that Ms. Lawrence’s instructional delivery and classroom
interactions did not reflect the universal principles of good teaching from Chickering and
Gamson (1987) and Gay’s (2002) culturally responsive pedagogy. Specifically, one could
surmise, that Ms. Lawrence’s teaching practices would not foster active learning which is a core
principle of Chckering and Gamson’s (2002) high quality teaching; and her practices also did not
meet the principles of cultural caring and building a learning community, and cultural congruity
from Gay’s concept of culturally responsive pedagogy. In the following section, I will address
each of these ideas as in turn.
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Fail to foster active learning. Contrary to the expectations associated with high quality
teaching theory (Chickering & Gamson, 1987), Ms. Lawrence did not engage students in active
learning, communicate with her students frequently, embrace their diverse perspectives or
talents. For example, the following exchange between Ms. Lawrence and her students shows that
mutual communication between her and her students barely existed because Ms. Lawrence had a
tendency to dominate the conversation in class. The following dialogue took place after students
completed a TOEFL practice test. Ms. Lawrence then asked her students about their test taking
experience:
T: Now, let’s talk about TOEFL. What is the difficult part of TOEFL? Which
part of the TOEFL test do you consider the most challenging? Let me ask
this way. How many how you would say TOEFL is very difficult?
OC: SD/SE/SH raised hands.
T: Ok, how many of you would say difficult?
OC (SF raised hand).
T: So, how many of you would say TOEFL is easy?
OC (None raised hand).
T: I am happy that nobody raised hands. I would be pretty worried if any of
you think TOEFL is easy before test taking.
Ms. Lawrence’s conversation with her students starts from relatively open-ended
questions, including: “What is the difficult part of TOEFL?” and “Which part of the TOEFL test
do you consider the most challenging?” The open-ended question forced students to think about
an answer without hiding in a yes or no response. The open questions served a more
sophisticated cognitive strategy, allowing the instructor to detect the current intellectual standing
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of her East Asian students. Asking open-ended questions also suggests that she was willing to
hear students respond to open-ended types of questions in a continuing dialogue. However, a
second after Ms. Lawrence asked those open-ended questions, she swiftly shifted to close ended
questions” “How many how you would say TOEFL is very difficult?” Ms. Lawrence asked
students to raise their hands as a showing of agreement instead of expressing ideas vocally.
Students lost the ability to really offer their thoughts, or be asked to think. While active learning
requires the learners to utilize more sophisticated cognitive strategies, Ms. Lawrence’s request
for the raising of hands did not demand any thinking at all.
Ms. Lawrence’s close-ended questions asked students whether they perceived the TOEFL
test as “very difficult,” “difficult,” or “easy.” However, the three options Ms. Lawrence provided
were vague and they did not really connect to the day-to-day learning experiences of individual
learners. Ms. Lawrence’s response “I am happy that nobody raised hands [for the statement
“TOEFL test is easy”]. I will be pretty worried if any of you think TOEFL is easy before test
taking” best exemplified her tendency to dominate the conversation with her students rather than
asking them to express their thinking. Ms. Lawrence apparently expected to hear a homogeneous
opinion from her students that the TOEFL test level was still beyond the current linguistic
competency of her students. In particular, by saying, “I will be pretty worried if any of you think
TOEFL is easy before test taking,” Ms. Lawrence underlying suggestion is that her students were
not academically ready yet.
Even when Ms. Lawrence allowed her students to speak out, she would terminate student
talking with autocratic or sarcastic tones once the ideas students shared were divergent from her
own perspectives. Ms. Lawrence used an autocratic tone whenever she wanted to demonstrate
her authority as a teacher, and the tone also delivered a message that her commands were not
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open to being questioned or challenged. For example, the following exchange shows Ms.
Lawrence used an autocratic tone to guide her students through a task completion. Ms. Lawrence
first verbally confirmed with students about the homework from the previous night:
T: Now, let’s do listening. What is our homework for last night?
SH: Read aloud!
T: Read aloud! Do you have any question?
SB said no but nodded his head up and down (in the affirmative).
T: Remember when I ask a question and you want to answer the question. I
said if you have any question. What should you do? You should shake
your head and say no...nothing. (T to SB)
SB: No, nothing. (SB shook his head)
T: Great.
T: Do you erase your answers on the book? Try to erase them. We want to do
those questions again. We should write with pencil so that we can erase
them again. (T to Ss)
Here Ms. Lawrence communicates through imperative sentences, correspondingly
communicating her authority over her students. She started her sentences with statements such
as, “Remember when I ask a question,” and “You should shake your head . . .” These statements
communicated that she had established her authority over their actions, “you want to answer the
question.” If you don’t have an answer, you “say nothing.” There was no room for the students to
participate in any way that did not align with Ms. Lawrence’s directives. Thus, there was no
room for them to be active in their own learning process. In addition, Ms. Lawrence sometimes
gave autocratic commands to communicate that those commands were not negotiable. As an
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example, although Ms. Lawrence told her students to “Try to erase them [answers written by the
previous textbook users],” the message Ms. Lawrence delivered was that students should not
object and they should erase the answers in the textbook. And in fact, students tended to keep
silent and passively accepted whatever decisions Ms. Lawrence made.
Besides the autocratic commands, Ms. Lawrence sometimes sounded sarcastic when she
expressed dissatisfaction (i.e., frustration and anger) or pointed out students’ behaviors that were
inconsistent with her expectations. For example, the exchange below shows that the interactions
between Ms. Lawrence and her students were lighthearted and pleasant until Kosei entered the
classroom. Kosei was constantly late to Ms. Lawrence’s class. Ms. Lawrence showed her
disappointment with the following sarcastic comment:
T: Ok. Do you know what is the music for the morning? Michael Jackson’s music!
Ss: …
T: Whenever I feel lazy in the mornings, I will turn on his music and feel energetic
again.
Ss: SA/SD laughed.
T: So, today’s Tuesday. Please turn off your cell phones and take out your book.
Today’s is Tuesday, the second day of week 8.
(Kosei entered the classroom)
T: Now is Week 8. Kosei, are you awake today?
SA: Yes!
SS: …
In the above exchange, Ms. Lawrence tries to tell Kosei that she was aware of his being
late and she would like Kosei to be on time. Nevertheless, Ms. Lawrence’s response to Kosei’s
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behavior communicates her personal feelings and she chose to reveal her discontent through
sarcasm in front of Kosei’s peers. Ms. Lawrence directly confronted Kosei by asking, “Now is
Week 8. Kosei, are you awake today?” Ms. Lawrence’s inquiry sounded like she was accusing
Kosei of not having been awake in class over the previous eight weeks. Kosei seemed to feel
offended by Ms. Lawrence’s indictment as he immediately replied, “Yes” in a forceful tone.
Inviting students to practice speaking in an ESL classroom is paramount to their learning.
However, Ms. Lawrence’s actions silenced her students from practicing. Moreover, Ms.
Lawrence’s conduct led to a vicious cycle because students’ verbal interactions with her became
less and less frequent. Yet as evidenced already, Ms. Lawrence had a low tolerance for student
reticence. When students chose not to speak, Ms. Lawrence would end up answering her own
questions. One incident took place while Ms. Lawrence tried to solicit the definition of a newly
acquired word “data” from her students:
OC (T looked at the textbook and looked for words that needed to be explained)
T: Data. When you purchased things online. Like one day I bought a smoothie maker
online yesterday. Then today, while I open my email and I found out a
commercial message introducing me new types of smoothie makers. How do they
know about me being interested in buying their products?
Ss: …
T: The companies collect my data. They gather customers’ data. Is it a smart
business?
SD: Yes.
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T: Absolutely, they know which customers might be interested in what types of
products by gathering data. You know in Nishiki international college we gather
your data too.
Ss: ...
The above exchange demonstrates that Ms. Lawrence tended to answer her own
questions even if what she wanted was for students to construct their own definitions for
unfamiliar vocabulary (in this case, the word, data) through the whole class discussion. Ms.
Lawrence’s initial question “How do they know about me interested in buying their products?”
tactically connected the new vocabulary with a context that could be applied to it; and this
question provided students with an opportunity to construct meaningful learning. Since students
remained silent, this might have been a sign that they needed more time to process the
information or that they did not have high enough levels of self-efficacy to speak out loud. Ms.
Lawrence’s solution was to provide them with a fixed answer: “The companies collect my data”
rather than to give them another guiding question as scaffolding. Furthermore, Ms. Lawrence
gave students another yes-or-no question, “Is it a smart business?” with very low cognitive
demands for students to proceed and answer. After SD answered, “Yes,” Ms. Lawrence again
provided her own definition by saying: “Absolutely, they know which customers might be
interested in what types of products by gathering data.” As always, students’ voices remained
suppressed during the whole process. Through her choices, Ms. Lawrence prevented the students
from engaging in active learning. Instead, she answered her own questions, directed them
towards a narrow way of responding to her, and directly inhibited students from participating by
offering autocratic or sarcastic comments.
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Suppress the critical thinking of students. Ms. Lawrence’s inability to provide cultural
scaffolding and culturally sensitive caring also meant that she did not build a culturally
responsive learning community that encouraged students to express independent opinions and
critical thinking. The building of a culturally responsive learning community is one core pillar of
Gay’s (2002) culturally responsive pedagogy.
Unlike Gay (2002) who believes a multicultural instructor should provide culturally
sensitive caring by showing respect and recognition toward students’ knowledge and
competence, Ms. Lawrence adopted a dogmatic approach of instruction, wherein she imposed
her own ideology on the students without give them opportunities to construct ideas on the basis
of their culturally situated knowledge. Ms. Lawrence’s dogmatic approach of instruction can be
best observed from the exchange below where she presents her teaching of two new vocabulary
“trend” and “hot:”
T: Ok now I want you to take out your quiz book and tell me what is “trend.” Is
“trend” for me or for you, young people?
SB: Young people.
T: Yes, because young people always crave for something new. Like you love new
books, new clothes, or you might like a new music style….
T: So what does hot mean? Are we here talking about today’s weather? Like it is hot
today?
SC: No, we are talking about popular things.
T: OMG, I saw a girl today wearing jeans this short that barely covered her bottom
(OC: T used body language) and her shirt was also very short and it didn’t cover
her belly. People said, “She is hot.” I know you boys might think she is hot. But
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I’m sorry, that kind of wearing style might be considered inappropriate in the
American culture. And yes, “hot” here we mean popular.
Culturally sensitive caring means that instructors are aware that students from
linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds need time and guidance to develop their
thoughts about the content they are learning (Gay, 2002). The above exchange shows that Ms.
Lawrence’s teaching did not give students enough time and resources to construct ideas. One
example of Ms. Lawrence’s constrained instructional approach took place when she helped
students to learn the definition of a new word, “trend.” Ms. Lawrence’s question “Is ‘trend’ for
me or for you, younger people?” did not help students to associate the new vocabulary with their
personal experiences and the question restricted students’ ability to generate meaning through
personal interpretation. Moreover, Ms. Lawrence’s question was misleading since the concept of
“trend” does not always apply to one specific group of people (in this case, the young people).
Ms. Lawrence reinforced her personal bias after hearing SB’s response that trend was for the
young people. Once Ms. Lawrence reiterated the statement “Yes, because young people always
crave for something new,” she terminated any attempt to explore the word’s meaning in a deeper
and more comprehensive way.
Ms. Lawrence imposed her understanding of “being hot” on her students. To launch a
discussion, Ms. Lawrence first asked her students: “So what does hot mean? Are we here talking
about today’s weather? Like it is hot today?” Obviously, these questions were intended to clarify
that the word might mean something other than the depiction of weather. Those introductory
questions seemingly helped students to connect the new word “hot,” with the previously acquired
word “trend,” and the sharing of students’ ideas of their association. As evidence, SC
immediately replied to Ms. Lawrence’s inquiry by saying “No, we are talking about popular
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things.” Unexpectedly, Ms. Lawrence redirected the conversation in progress by criticizing the
dressing style of young girls. In particular, her negative comment: “I know you boys might think
she is hot. But I’m sorry, that kind of wearing style might be considered inappropriate in the
American culture.” That comment reveals Ms. Lawrence’s assumption about the younger
generation in her classroom, without trying to know them. The excerpt also shows that in her
classroom, most of the time students were passive receivers of knowledge while Ms. Lawrence
was the sole generator of knowledge. Ms. Lawrence deprived her students of many opportunities
to develop their critical thinking skills.
The following exchange shows that while Ms. Lawrence utilized a teacher-centered
approach to teaching, she also did not provide students with cultural scaffolding. The lack of
scaffolding made it more difficult for students to follow the instructor’s thoughts. The exchange
also demonstrates that sometimes Ms. Lawrence gave information that was extraneous to the
subject matter being taught and this created unnecessary obstacles and confusion for students as
they attempted to process the information. The dialogue below starts with Ms. Lawrence trying
to define the word “manufacturer:”
T: What does manufacturer mean? (OC: Ss kept silent for 5 seconds. T
waited for response).
SB: Hand made.
T: No hand made. Machine made. Companies need to make a huge amount
of products in a given time, they use machines in factories. Companies are
manufacturers who make products. Ok, in your book, write down
“company/manufacturer makes products.”. You know what kind of tool
Japanese manufacturers are now using to make products?
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Ss: ...
T: A r-o-bo-t, a robot!
T: Advertiser. What does advertiser do to sell products?
SB: Make commercials for consumers.
Instructional scaffolding serves as a stepping-stone for students’ cognitive development
and it provides students more opportunities to integrate new knowledge into schema (Gay,
2002). The above excerpt shows, that while elaborating a new concept, Ms. Lawrence tended to
provide students with lengthy statements with too much information to comprehend at once. As
an example, Ms. Lawrence used 53 words to correct SB’s misrepresentation of the word
“manufacturer.” Ms. Lawrence first asserted that manufacturers did not make things by hands
but by machines, as she said, “No handmade Machine made.”
Without checking whether students fully understood the nuance between “handmade”
and “machine made,” Ms. Lawrence immediately explained the concept in even more complex
and abstract sentences by saying “Companies need to make a huge amount of products in a given
time, they use machines in factories. Companies are manufacturers who make products.” In order
to understand Ms. Lawrence’s explanation, students needed to know that a manufacturer stood
for a company rather than a person, that a manufacturer was always under time pressures, and
that a manufacturer needed to rely on machines to maximize production in a short time.
Because Ms. Lawrence was unaware of students’ confusion, she threw out another
question that could hardly help students to understand the meaning of manufacturer as she asked:
“You know what kind of tool Japanese manufacturers are now using to make products?” Before
students could realize how Ms. Lawrence’s new question might help them to better understand
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the concept, Ms. Lawrence already told them her answer “a robot.” Ms. Lawrence did not even
explain what a robot meant. She abruptly jumped to the next vocabulary word.
Unable to motivate students to overcome the language learning barrier. Ms.
Lawrence was not able to provide cultural congruity tasks that maximized Japanese students’
interest in learning. According to Gay (2002), students will be better engaged if the instructional
contents correspond to their learning needs and accommodate their culturally specific ideas. In
particular, Gay (2002) believes a well-designed cultural congruity task will include culturally
preferred issues from the students’ viewpoints, allow students to apply acquired knowledge to a
real social setting, and provide perceptual stimulation to diverse learners.
That Ms. Lawrence could not find culturally preferred issues from the students’
viewpoints is evident in the following dialogue, when she introduced the concept of
onomatopoeia from English poetry to her students. Ms. Lawrence started the conversation by
sharing an anecdote:
T: Now go to the quiz (textbook). I want you to go to page 107. Are you a good
listener? Who think that yourself is a good listener? My friend told me, Lori, you
should not listen with your mouth. You have too many opinions. Although I don’t
understand Japanese, I love to listen to Japanese women speaking, like so~desu-
ga.
SG: Ha.
T: Is this a way Japanese people usually speak to respond to others?
SB: Um.....
T: Do you say Um? Does that mean you agree with me?
SB: Yes.
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Here, Ms. Lawrence shows her willingness to entice students to participate by giving an
anecdote relevant to the students’ native culture. Her culturally relevant anecdote began with a
self-deprecating statement “Lori, you should not listen with mouth. You have too many
opinions” and ended up with a compliment of the Japanese way of talking “I love to listen to
Japanese women speaking, like so~desu-ga.” However, because Ms. Lawrence’s anecdote only
focused on her personal experience and preference, the story did not enhance students’
motivation and consequently engage in a deeper conversation. Realizing that students lacked
interest in her personal story, Ms. Lawrence tried to continue the conversation by asking students
“Is this [Sodesu ga] a way Japanese people usually speak to respond to others?” This factual
question failed to inspire students to analyze the Japanese way of demonstrating emotion through
their personal viewpoints. As a result, Ms. Lawrence could only receive a one word response
“um….” from one student, SB. Ms. Lawrence tried to further interact with SB by asking him
“Do you say Um? Does that mean you agree with me?” Again, this yes-or-no question closed an
opportunity for SB to share his thoughts and experience and the conversation was ended in a
very superficial level as SB could only reply “Yes.”
Ms. Lawrence adhered to test-driven and textbook-driven teaching approaches that
neglected students’ desire for applying their acquired knowledge to a real social setting. For
example, the following exchange demonstrates Ms. Lawrence’s test-driving teaching approach:
T: Ok, let me give you the answer. Number 1, a. Number 2 c, Number 3 b as boy,
number 4 c, number 5 d as dog...
T: Please raise your hand, if your score goes up. Yohei (SF), does your score go up?
SF: Yes.
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T: Our scores go up and we are almost 100% correct, right? Now, we are going to do
a new listening practice. Take out a paper now. Write skill 7 through 9 on the top
of your paper. And write 1 to 12 beside 7 through 9.
SE: 1 to 12?
T: Yes, we are going to do the next [set of] questions.
SE: Ok. How many tasks?
SH: Three.
T: Yes, and how many questions?
SB: Twelve questions.
T: Yes, basically, there are 3 talks and 12 questions. But we are not 100% sure there
will be 12 questions.
The above exchange shows that Ms. Lawrence tended to evaluate students’ learning
outcomes through the correct rates of their paper-based tests. Ms. Lawrence’s only concern in the
above exchange was the scores her students could achieve on the paper-based tests, not what
students might be able to do in real life situations as evidence of language acquisition. The
textbook-driven teaching approach quantified students’ achievement with numbers without
giving students any chance to explore how their learning might be valuable for their living in the
United States.
Moreover, the following exchange demonstrates that Ms. Lawrence’s textbook-driven
teaching approach translated into a mechanical and rigid learning experience for the students. In
the process, students could hardly transfer the book knowledge into meaningful academic skills:
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T: We talked about writing on Tuesday. We talked about the academic writing
process, how many steps, everybody remembers? (OC: Ss kept silent for 3
seconds).
SD: Six?
T: Six. Something like that. (OC: T checked the textbook). Please find page 190.
Remember we looked at this? What is the first step? First step is pre-write.
SB: Four steps.
T: Yes, there are four steps, and the first step is pre-write. What should we do when
we pre-write.
SB: Brainstorming.
T: Brainstorming to get ideas. You can create a list or to write in your journal to
generate some ideas. Second step?
SB: First draft.
T: Yes, third?
SB: Revise.
T: Yes, revise, maybe your second point should be the first point, or maybe I should
move my first point to somewhere later in the article. I revise the order of my
essay. How about editing?
Ss: ….
As in the earlier excerpt, here Ms. Lawrence only asked students to recite the four main
steps of academic writing (i.e., brainstorming, first draft, revise, and editing) without helping
them to connect back to their personal experiences of writing or contemplating how those
principles may help them to improve their writing skills. Ms. Lawrence’s teaching focused more
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on presenting the layout of the book content than having the students use that knowledge in order
to advance their writing competence. Therefore, Ms. Lawrence tended to adopt textbook
language like “Brainstorming to get ideas. You can create a list or to write in your journal to
generate some ideas” without explaining any of the abstract terms. Also, Ms. Lawrence’s
statement “Yes, revise, maybe your second point should be the first point, or maybe I should
move my first point to somewhere later in the article” shows that Ms. Lawrence’s primary
teaching objective was to present the four writing steps in a correct order, as presented in the
textbook.
Gay (2002) believes that instructional activities should serve as pedagogical bridges that
encourage culturally diverse students to connect culturally specific knowledge with new
information. However, the following exchange demonstrates that Ms. Lawrence failed to provide
instructional activities that did anything to stimulate the thinking of the culturally diverse
learners. To begin with, Ms. Lawrence tries to explain ‘TV commercial’ using a Japan related
example:
T: TV commercial (OC: T imitated Japanese pronunciation, sounding more like TV
comocio-lu.
(Ss laughed after hearing the T’s pronunciation)
T: Japan has amazing commercials, but why Japanese companies have American
idols in their commercials? I once saw an American idol selling Whiskey in
Japan.
SF: Leo-nadol?
T: Yes, Leonardo, why does Leonardo sell Whiskey in Japan?
SB: It is more cool.
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T: Maybe you will one day see Lori in Japanese TV commercials and sell something.
(OC: SH laughed).
Here Ms. Lawrence presented an insightful question to the students: “Japan has amazing
commercials, but why Japanese companies have American idols in their commercials?” which
allowed students to critically consider how the trend of globalization had significantly influenced
people’s daily experience of cross-cultural communication. Moreover, Ms. Lawrence tried to use
popularity of Leonardo DiCaprio as a way to engage the students. Nevertheless, the exchange
also shows that because Ms. Lawrence’s follow up questions did not continually guide the
students to think critically, they could not sustain their engagement with the topic, thus the
discussion stalled at a superficial level. Ms. Lawrence’s query: “Why does Leonardo sell
Whiskey in Japan?” sounded more like a factual question, which likely misled students to focus
on the actual reasons for Leonardo DiCaprio having commercials in Japan, rather than directing
their attention to the phenomenon of globalization. As the consequence of Ms. Lawrence’s vague
question, SB provided a weak answer, “It is more cool,” without offering any further personal
insight. Ms. Lawrence concluded the supposedly deep discussion with a humorous comment,
“Maybe you will one day see Lori in Japanese TV commercials and sell something,” which was
disconnected from her initial purpose of triggering the students’ ability to think critically about
cross-cultural communication trends in mass media.
Conclusion
Using the Conceptual Framework as my analytical lens, the data in the case study of Ms.
Lawrence revealed that Ms. Lawrence encountered many professional struggles while facilitating
learning for East Asian students. In particular, Ms. Lawrence adopted instructional strategies that
could not foster active learning and critical thinking. Those instructional practices were also
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unable to motivate students to overcome their language learning barriers. Ms. Lawrence could
not engage students for a deeper and more personalized learning experience because her teacher-
centered methods limited the opportunities for students to share their perspectives in the
classroom. Ms. Lawrence tended to deliver information through closed-ended questions,
imperative sentences, and sarcastic statements. Although Ms. Lawrence was ambitious in desires
to be a student-centered instructor, her choice of information and delivery approach made her the
only authority in the classroom and students became the passive receivers of knowledge.
Students in the classroom had rare opportunities to construct meaningful learning experiences
because of her pedagogical choices. Interactions among students, and between students and Ms.
Lawrence became less and less frequent because her approach to instruction. Also, the learning
environment Ms. Lawrence created did not provide sufficient cultural scaffolding, which would
have enabled students to process newly acquired information with more time and support. Ms.
Lawrence’s implementation of test-based and textbook-based teaching dampened students’
ambition of achieving English proficiency for interpersonal communication and the advancement
of academic communication (i.e., academic writing). Ms. Lawrence used instructional materials
based on her preference and convenience, rather than contemplating whether her students would
be able to apply the acquired knowledge in a real social setting, or whether the acquired
knowledge might intellectually challenge students’ pre-existing values.
Ms. Lawrence’s choices of teaching practices were extensions of her beliefs in relation to
Japanese student learning traits and her role as a multicultural educator. Ms. Lawrence believed
that Japanese students with a Japanese learning mindset tended to be passive in their learning and
they were seeking the least painful way to learn; as stated earlier, Ms. Lawrence believed her
students wanted to be spoon-fed. Ms. Lawrence interpreted student reticence during her time of
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instruction as a sign of students’ lack of readiness to shift into the western learning mindset,
which emphasized active engagement. The dichotomy of learning traits (i.e., Japanese learning
traits vs. the Western learning traits) also influenced Ms. Lawrence’s attitude towards her
students. Ms. Lawrence believed that a few students who had developed some Western learning
traits were higher achieving than their peers. Although Ms. Lawrence saw the development of
Western learning traits as crucial for the academic success of Japanese students in the United
States, Ms. Lawrence did not do much to cultivate the Western learning traits of her students.
Ms. Lawrence believed her role as a multicultural educator was to enhance students’ English
language proficiency and help them achieve on the language proficiency test for college
admission (the TOEFL). Ms. Lawrence believed it was the students’ responsibility to develop
those traits on their own.
Moreover, Ms. Lawrence’s self-depiction as a professor was not aligned with her actual
practices in the classroom and the lack of alignment revealed some misconceptions Ms.
Lawrence had about being an effective instructor. One example is that Ms. Lawrence perceived
herself as a “less-teacher-focused” instructor and she believed that she enhanced students’
autonomy as learners by frequently adopting pair works and team collaboration activities. Yet, in
reality, Ms. Lawrence abruptly intervened in activities such as peer discussion and dominated the
conversations between students. The actual conduct demonstrated Ms. Lawrence’s teacher-
centered approach. Similarly, Ms. Lawrence believed that she had maintained good faculty-
student rapport because of her dedication to creating a relaxing and positive learning
environment. However, Ms. Lawrence usually found students’ reticence in the classroom
frustrating and she would verbally denounced students in response to their behavior. These
verbal denouncements increased the tension between Ms. Lawrence and her students. In
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addition, Ms. Lawrence believed that as a multicultural instructor, she knew how to respect and
accommodate different perspectives from culturally and linguistically diverse students.
Nevertheless, Ms. Lawrence’s instruction showed her limited knowledge of, and dismissive
attitude toward, Japanese culture.
Ms. Lawrence’s bias toward Japanese students and their learning traits was ongoing
because she did not engage in critical reflection. Ms. Lawrence failed to detect subtle verbal or
non-verbal signs from her students and use those signs to examine the entrenched beliefs she had
toward her teaching. Ms. Lawrence apparently had strong confidence in her knowledge of the
Japanese people and their culture, and her competence in teaching culturally diverse students.
Consequently, she did not see a need to critically reflect on her teaching.
Case Study #2: Ms. Dargo of the Liberal Arts Program
Ms. Dargo was an Associate Professor in NIC’s Liberal Arts Program where she taught
courses in public speaking and communication, writing and composition, humanities, and
performing arts. Before Ms. Dargo started her English teaching career in higher education
institutions, Ms. Dargo completed her BA in performing arts at a state university on the East
Coast of the United States, her MA for public communication from a public university in a
Western state, and her TOESOL certificate from a public university in Western Europe. Ms.
Dargo used to teach in various higher education institutions in the same Western state where she
completed her MA and she worked with students from the U.S., Canada, Japan, China, South
Korea, Mongolia, France, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Mexico, and other
countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Ms. Dargo engaged in professional development throughout
her career. For example, in 2011, Ms. Dargo was recognized by the U.S. Embassy’s English
Language Specialist Program and traveled to Ukraine to conduct English language, drama, and
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communication workshops at the Luhansk State Institute of Culture and Arts. In 2012, Ms.
Dargo chaired the annual state TESOL Conference at NIC.
Despite Ms. Dargo having gained significant experiences and knowledge of teaching
English to Japanese students during her 8-year career at NIC, the data below will show that she
held a deficit idea of what East Asian students need and she appeared unaware of how her
instructional approach might align with or differ from her students’ prior learning experiences in
Japan. For example, Ms. Dargo asserted that one of her responsibilities as a U.S. professor was
to teach East Asian students critical thinking skills. Her discourse revealed that although she
believed in East Asian students’ potential for acquiring critical thinking skills, she did not
believe that her students could have already developed critical thinking strategies while studying
in Japan. As Salili and Lai (2003) have asserted, that while the East Asian educational system
reinforced students to reach expertise through repetitive practices or testing Li (2012), they
further argued that some seemly passive learning strategies such as mastery practicing, recitation,
and memorization were methods East Asian students adapted to achieve critical thinking.
However, Ms. Dargo apparently had a deep faith in her East Asian students’ abilities, and
therefore, she was willing to coordinate her instruction to correspond to her students’ linguistic
challenges and learning approaches. Ms. Dargo was an innovative educator who constantly
experimented with her teaching strategies. Additionally, Ms. Dargo frequently adjusted her
teaching approaches in response to student feedback and interaction. What Ms. Dargo perceived
about her students, and her role as an instructor, had a significant influence on her teaching. The
data presented below demonstrates that Ms. Dargo to be a student-centered educator who
engaged, inspired, and empowered her East Asian students through high quality teaching and
culturally responsive pedagogy. Those practices empowered her East Asian students to develop
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effective learning skills in order to be successful in a Western classroom. While Ms. Dargo
frequently reflected on her teaching, there was no sufficient evidence proving that Ms. Dargo
conducted critical reflection. In the words of Yost et al. (2000), Ms. Dargo underscored
“reflection-in-action” yet neglected “reflection-for-action” and “reflection-on-action”. What
differentiates critical reflection practices from daily teaching reflection was that during critical
reflection, an instructor constantly interrogates her preexisting philosophy of teaching or
reevaluates her perception of pedagogical effectiveness through a systematic and comprehensive
examination of student behaviors, learning outcomes, and interactions (Dewey, 1933). Because
of the absence of critical reflection, Ms. Dargo sometimes struggled to identify some complex
issues involving classroom policy and management (i.e., technology in her classroom). Neither
could she find effective solutions to address those emerging challenges.
Belief in the Competence of East Asian Students
Ms. Dargo’s perception about East Asian learning traits was constrained by her
experiences of teaching East Asian students in the United States. Although Ms. Dargo sensed
some fundamental differences between learners from East Asia and the U.S., the statement below
demonstrated that she was not fully aware whether her instructional practices aligned with or
differed from what Japanese students have experienced in the Confucius-oriented education
system:
I noticed that there are some differences between East Asian [and American students].
But to generalize, I think that they are coming from an educational or cultural
background in which that is maybe more passive. The teacher or instructor lectures and
students memorize or they just listen, take notes. For them, the biggest challenge is to
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introduce to them a more American education culture that values participation and being
more active in the process.
Here Ms. Dargo specified passivity as a significant learning trait of East Asian students
(i.e., Japanese) and she depicted East Asian students as those who tended to memorize
information and took notes during an instructor’s lecture, instead of actively and verbally
participating. Ms. Dargo’s depiction corresponds to Tweed and Lehman’s (2002) identification
of the Confucian ideology of learning as a mode of knowledge transmission. Accordingly, school
systems that adopt the Confucian philosophy and principles regard student passivity as a virtue,
which demonstrates a pupil’s admiration and respect for the teacher as the unimpeachable
authority (Tweed & Lehman, 2002). Her interpretation of East Asian students as passive learners
actually represented the predominant conception of western critical thinking as defined by
Durkin (2008). Ms. Dargo seemingly perceived East Asian students as lacking in critical
thinking skills because they did not demonstrate outward signs of intellectual questioning or
rational judgment. What Ms. Dargo neglected to take note of was that Eastern practices of
critical thinking was engaged through seemingly passive and redundant work, such as recitation
and memorization (Li, 2012; Salili & Lai, 2003).
East Asian learning passivity is often believed to be rendered visible as classroom
silence. As a consequence, Ms. Dargo attributed East Asian student passivity as evidence of their
lack of critical thinking skills. By saying, “East Asian students are not used to doing as much
critical thinking or utilizing or incorporating that into the class,” Ms. Dargo seemed to believe
that her Japanese students had a lower competence for critical thinking than their American
counterparts because they did not have the opportunity to develop the skill in their past learning
experiences. What Ms. Dargo neglected to account for was that East Asian students have
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developed critical thinking strategies in classrooms influenced by the Confucius culture even
though their approach to critical thinking, through passive memorization and recitation, might be
different from what an U.S. professor might be expecting (Li, 2012).
However, Ms. Dargo believed East Asian students were equally capable of acquiring the
Western paradigms of learning given the time and opportunity. She further explained that her
belief in student competence was based on her experience of working with East Asian students:
Because I see lots of examples of amazing . . . of really great critical thinking skills all
the time. Sometimes they surprise me, you know. It happens every term. I think they
don’t get something or I’m not sure if someone gets something and then I see and then
they come out and do something that I’m impressed with. Oh ok, so they do understand.
Or they did remember or something. Yeah, so I don’t think that that’s a weakness for
them at all.
Morita (2004) particularly attributes the reticence of East Asian students to their lack of
self-efficacy in English proficiency or their lack of knowledge about communicating in a
classroom where western students are the dominant. The following statement from Ms. Dargo
demonstrates her belief in East Asian students’ concerns about their English deficiency:
I feel like a lot of it is mental. A lot of times some of them will come in saying “you
know, I can’t speak English well” or thinking, feeling just not very confident in their
abilities. And sometimes if you’re really not confident and you’re afraid of making
mistakes then it’s hard to take chances, and the taking chances part is important. It’s
important for them to feel that they can take those chances I guess is what I’m saying. So
they can practice and experience. You know, expressing themselves freely in front of
people because it is scary, yeah.
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Ms. Dargo acknowledged that a given student’s silence might be due to anxiety as they
engage in the process of English language acquisition and application. East Asian students often
refrain from public speaking for fear of losing face. What seemed to be a Cacth-22 for Ms.
Dargo was her belief that language proficiency for East Asian students would never be
developed, unless these students took the risk of making mistakes. Ms. Dargo further elaborated
her attitude toward student reticence as a sign of low self-efficacy:
I think a lot of people feel, at least some teachers feel that the students may not have
opinions, or that they do not have ideas…that is not true, of course...uhm, it is just a
matter of helping them to feel comfortable to speak about it. I am ok with them speak up
without raising their hands. They just talk. I encourage them to do that.
Ms. Dargo’s statement represents her faith in the ability of East Asian students to
contribute their personal viewpoints as evidence of academic performance in an American
classroom. In accord with Austin’s (1996) perception of effective means of instruction as
practices that best generate student effort and investment of energy to bring about the desired
learning and development, Ms. Dargo affirmed that the responsibility was on an instructor’s
shoulder to create an amicable environment where a student’s spontaneous participation and
effort at verbal interaction was highly appreciated and rewarded.
Ms. Dargo intended to strengthen student-teacher rapport by expressing empathy. The
following excerpt indicates why Ms. Dargo conceived the establishment of rapport as a crucial
strategy for coping with student silence:
First I am really big on rapport and intimacy I guess. I tried to especially in a language
classroom when you work to make students to feel comfortable. You want them to be
engaged and willing to participate. I find that I am able to engage them by using a lot of
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strategies establishing intimacy and strong rapport. I have pretty good relationship with
students. They share things about their lives, and I share things about my lives and my
experiences. I guess good teaching practices, for me that is very important.
Ms. Dargo asserts that intimacy was a fundamental aspect of student engagement and
active participation, for it creates an amicable environment for students to exchange ideas with
faculty and peers. Ms. Dargo affirms that a firm student-faculty tie also bolsters mutual
understanding and trust. Her thoughts correspond to Chickering and Gamson’s ideas about
student-faculty contact (1987).
When students keep silent, be they East Asian or American, Ms. Dargo assumed they
were not ready to respond, instead of believing that it was simply an unwillingness to talk. As
Chickering and Gamson (1987) proclaim, providing students sufficient time and resources to
construct meaning out of their learning is a key to active learning, the statement below indicates
Ms. Dargo’s attitude about the hesitancy of East Asian students:
I think that if they’re not answering, I’m sure they’re thinking about it. Which is
important because sometimes I ask the question as more rhetorical. I just want them to
think about it. And I’m just seeing if any of them do want to verbally respond. I feel like
either they’re not sure how to answer or they’re not confident enough to answer. That’s
what I think when there’s a lot of silence.
The statement demonstrates Ms. Dargo’s faith in her East Asian students’ motivation to
participate in verbal interaction. Because Ms. Dargo trusted her students as dedicated and
enthusiastic learners, she invested more time in waiting for her students to indulge in the
discussion. As her students made progress towards concept formation, Ms. Dargo occasionally
threw out rhetorical questions which served as a means of scaffolding and inspiration.
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The socio-cultural element is another aspect an instructor should take into account while
trying to stimulate the cognitive development of students from diverse backgrounds (Vygotsky,
1978). In particular, Vygotsky (1978) accentuated the zone of proximal development with
reliance on external resources such as mentorship or peer collaboration to cultivate intellectual
growth. The statement below is evidence that Ms. Dargo was able to identify the unique socio-
cultural structure of East Asian students and further embrace of the zone of proximal
development as a strategy for multicultural teaching:
I noticed that sometimes people…students, some of them, well a lot of them will not
speak out if they figure out someone is older than them in the class. Even somebody is
like a few months older, they will defer to that older persons. I noticed also that when
there is a problem in the class, they may not tell me in the class. But they will choose a
representative, maybe a person they feel speak or communicate the best. That person will
come to me privately and speak on behave of everyone.
What Ms. Dargo says about East Asian students’ interaction with peers and instructors
demonstrates her understanding and accommodation of East Asian learning behaviors as a
reflection of socio-cultural value. Through her instructional experiences, Ms. Dargo realized that
whether or not an East Asian student spoke out or remained silent was often determined by the
student’s relation to others in terms of age discrepancy, power hierarchy, and level of
competency. Ms. Dargo’s observations correspond to Marku and Kitayama’s (1999)
classification of East Asian students as learners with an interdependent construal of self.
The above statements demonstrate Ms. Dargo’s understanding of East Asian students as
learners with divergent perspectives from American students in terms of motivation, approach of
acquisition, academic performance, and interpersonal relation. In spite of those differences, Ms.
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Dargo believed in the learning competence of East Asian students and her trust in her students
enabled her to define her role as an instructor in a classroom where East Asian students were the
majority and she saw the worth of culturally responsive pedagogy. An instructor’s interpretation
of a teacher’s role and their definition of effective instructional methods, are the foundation for a
myriad of pedagogical decisions including classroom policy, teacher’s position, and assessment
for student performance. Ms. Dargo saw herself as a role model, an advisor, and a mentor to her
students, and she believed that her mission was to prepare students to continue education in an
American or western university. In the words of Kolitch and Dean (1999), Ms. Dargo was an
instructor with an engaged-critical mindset who envisioned effective teaching as being able to
detect individual students’ learning strengths and inspire them to construct new knowledge on
the basis of their personal experiences of learning and being. Ms. Dargo’s elaboration of a
learner-centered approach to instruction may serve as evidence of her engaged-critical mindset:
I try to think about things as much as possible, from the student’s perspective. So
students get bored. I try to keep them engaged and I try to ensure as much as I can that
they’re not bored [laughs]. So that’s what I mean by “learner-centered.” Also, I know
how dependent they are for the internet and things like that, so you know, so I welcome
them to use technology in the class. I think that that’s being “learner-centered” for me.
Ms. Dargo understands that her role as a classroom facilitator and a mentor requires her
to put herself in the student’s position and to coordinate instructional approaches, medium, and
tasks with an eye to their preferred learning style, urgent need, and concept of learning. Ms.
Dargo’s statement affirms that she kept her students engaged by ensuring her instructional design
and applications addressed the needs and interests of her students. In the following excerpt, Ms.
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Dargo further explains what teaching means when viewed through the scope of the learner-
centered approach:
So they are participants in the process. They’re learning along with me, or they’re active
is what I’m saying. It’s not like me just telling them but I think that’s the power of having
the internet in class because they can . . . if something is interesting to them, they hear or
I say or something. Something comes up from another student, they look it up
immediately and they’re able to know. They’re able to speak about it. I think it’s great.
And I encourage it, I think they like it too. And I just like that they’re interacting and
usually they surprise me.
Ms. Dargo conceives teaching as a process of empowerment and inspiration.
Empowerment means the professor encourages students to claim authority over their knowledge
and allows students to become constructors of their own knowledge. By saying students “are
learning along with me,” Ms. Dargo presented her belief in teaching being practiced as a process
of dialogue. Her definition of teaching demonstrates that Ms. Dargo’s pedagogical approaches
are highly indebted to the Socratic philosophy. Socrates believed that all people have limitations
in terms of their knowledge as well as misconceptions about what they know, and that the
purpose of education was to reexamine what we have perceived as truths through intellectual
debates or research (Tweed & Lehman, 2002).
What we may learn from Ms. Dargo’s elucidation of multicultural education is to
understand who the students, as they may come from various traditions of learning, to respect
how the students perceive what learning should be and their means of acquisition, and to retain a
firm belief in the instructor’s philosophy of teaching. In the case of Ms. Dargo, it is her belief
that the Socratic principles with an emphasis on dialogue and enlightenment that can best prepare
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for the future readiness of East Asian students, including active learning and critical thinking.
Effective multicultural education also means that the instructor maintains faith in the student’s
ability to transform (their learning styles and ways of knowledge acquisition) and constantly
communicates with students about her expectations for their performance and well observe their
strength and weaknesses. One example of Ms. Dargo’s sensitivity to multicultural education was
her recognition and treatment of the hesitancy among East Asian students to speak up in public
as demonstrated in the following excerpt:
Sometimes if I sensed something, even if it is really small, like a small facial expression
or an eye movement, or whatever, I will ask. Or if I think someone else has a question,
but they are like hesitant, I would say, ok, you look like you have a question, right, and I
would encourage him to ask. So, yeah, I guess it is different level of awareness, you have
to really look. I guess you have to look for it (the expressions), you have to constantly be
watching them. You know I think I mentioned to the students that for American culture,
we focused more on individualism. So, speaking out is part of that, I think. Expressing
your ideas or what you think is part of that. So I tried to help them see, because they
know, I think we have offered some American culture courses, I think they kinda get that.
But actually seeing an example of how it plays out in a real life is another story.
Here, Ms. Dargo demonstrates her attentiveness to all types of clues that indicate
students’ learning progress, even if these clues were as subtle as non-verbal expressions. She
seems to believe that creating an amicable classroom climate, as Gay (2002) states, means to
demonstrate culturally sensitive caring. Once she discerns signs of confusion among her
students, Ms. Dargo tended to empower her students through clarification instead of directly
providing them with an answer. Her insistent aim was to sharpen the cross-cultural
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communication skills of her students. Also, Ms. Dargo showed her understanding of East Asians
as learners who come from a collectivist culture. Yet, she communicated with her students the
expectations she had for them to adapt to American culture. Being able to create a culturally
diverse knowledge base and being a capable cross-cultural communicator, fits in with her
definition of being multiculturally competent. These elements fulfill the core principles of
culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2002).
Instructions Reflecting High Quality Teaching and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
As previously discussed, Ms. Dargo’s belief in the competence of East Asian students
and her acceptance of diverse perspectives of learning, was an asset she had for effective
multicultural teaching. The statements presented above demonstrate that Ms. Dargo understood
that the interdependent construal of self, developed through the Confucian tradition had
significant consequences for East Asian students (i.e., Japanese) with respect to cognition,
emotion, and motivation (Markus & Kitavama, 1991). While teaching East Asian students, Ms.
Dargo adopted instructional practices consistent with the universal principles of good teaching as
articulated by Chickering and Gamson (1987) and culturally responsive pedagogy, as articulated
by Gay (2002). In particular, Ms. Dargo’s instructional practices underscored the key elements of
culturally responsive pedagogy including the development of a cultural diversity knowledge
base, the expression of cultural caring, and the enhancement of cross-cultural communication.
Ms. Dargo applied these key elements in response to classroom silence, in order to cultivate
critical thinking in students, and in the hope of empowering students to overcome English
language barriers to become active participants in their own learning. In the following section, I
will address each of these ideas as in turn.
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Handle student silence. Ms. Dargo showed her competence in multicultural instruction
by demonstrating culturally caring response to the silence of East Asian students in order to
foster their active participation in their learning. As Gay (2002) mentioned in his theory of
culturally responsive pedagogy, a multicultural instructor’s expression of cultural caring will
help building trust and an amicable classroom climate that enhance academic involvement and
engagement of culturally diverse students. Ms. Dargo perceived the fact that East Asian students
are inclined to stay silent, rather than participate in classroom discourse. She attributed their
silence to emotional factors such as low efficacy in English proficiency and a fear of losing face,
not as an unwillingness to participate.
Ms. Dargo then expressed her cultural caring by developing common ground and
expressing empathy towards the students. The adoption of common ground building and the
expression of empathy helped Ms. Dargo to establish a safe learning environment where the
students were willing to trust that she was interested in their learning and where mistakes where
an important part of the learning process.
Ms. Dargo responded to her students’ silence by exchanging mutual insights and showing
her passion for reaching an understanding. Ms. Dargo was always seeking opportunities to make
connections between their experiences and her own. For example, Ms. Dargo regularly greeted
her students as they entered the classroom. In one instance she said, “Hey, how is it going,
guys?” Although students did not respond, Ms. Dargo looked around the room and remained
silent. Approximately 20 seconds later, SD responded by saying “sleep”. Ms. Dargo then
continued:
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T: I know, yes, yes...It is pretty warm today and the sun makes us feel dozy. Well,
you know that there is a coffee machine downstairs; and next to the machine is a
vending machine. It sells the Red Bull.
SC: How long did you sleep?
T: I don’t know. Maybe 10 hours (raise voice)? Folks at my age tend to sleep more.
But you know what? When I was at your age, I only sleep 3 to 4 hours. So I rely
on red bull so much to keep me awake. But it is so unhealthy. It always raise your
heartbeat like bum bum bum bum, and sometimes you will get too high. I just
quit this year.
In this exchange, Ms. Dargo invited students to interact with her from the moment they
entered the classroom. She did this by asking them how things are going. When no student
responded immediately, she looked around the room, allowing the silence to remain in place.
When one student responded by saying he was sleepy, Ms. Dargo made a personal connection by
saying “I know, yes, yes...It is pretty warm today and the sun makes us feel dozy.” Here she was
demonstrating that she shared his experience. She made another connection to her students’
experience when she says,” When I was your age, I only slept 3 to 4 hours” and now she needs
Red Bull to stay awake. She again looked for common ground as she recommended Red Bull as
a solution to their drowsiness. Here, her initial question and her willingness to wait for students
to engage with her, provided her with an opportunity to draw students past their initial silence.
Another attribute of cultural caring evident in Ms. Dargo’s practice was empathy. In the
following excerpt, which starts with Ms. Dargo’s inquiry about students’ current learning load,
She tries to reach students by asking “During the summer, you guys just have two classes right?”
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and “Are you guys doing ok?” Students continued to take care of their personal business without
having any interaction with Ms. Dargo. Then, the conversation continued:
T: But luckily, this class only has a little bit of homework, at least so far. We
don’t have too much assignment yet so that you can soon get used to doing
research and presentation. (T was sitting at her desk and she turned on her
computer. She linked to her class webpage named SP151/Personal and Public
Speech: Organizing and Outlining the Informative Speech. The webpage shows
structure and definition of public speaking, and her expectation of presentation
quality).
SE sneezed.
T: Bless you. (T looked toward the direction of SE. SE did not have eye contact with
T. SE looked down on her computer and she did not say anything)
The exchange shows that although Ms. Dargo could not entice students to respond
immediately to her inquiry, she persisted in expressed her care by making a statement like “But
luckily, this class only has a little bit of homework, at least so far. We don’t have too much
assignment yet so that you can soon get used to doing research and presentation.” This statement
makes clear that Ms. Dargo understands that her students endure a lot of stress, and she was there
for their best academic interests and was willing to be flexibile. Ms. Dargo also showed caring
toward individual students. For example, Ms. Dargo immediately looked toward SE and said,
“Bless you!” after she heard a sneeze. Meanwhile, although Ms. Dargo adopted various
strategies to express her empathy and enhance individual and class participation, students
remained passive and avoided interacting with her.
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East Asian reticence and passivity are behaviors that require an instructor to be persistent
and patient in tackling those issues. When East Asian students avoided interactions with an
instructor, they were concurrently testing the bottom-line of the instructor and waiting to see how
the instructor would react. The former exchange showed that Ms. Dargo tried to break student
silence by cultural caring strategies, including building common ground and showing empathy.
The next excerpt shows Ms. Dargo’s perseverance in providing cultural caring even when her
East Asian students use reticence as a means of resisting her instruction.
The exchange took place after Ms. Dargo told her students that they were going to start
pronunciation practice:
TOB: Pronunciation
Lesser leather never weathered
Wetter weather better
T: Remember that?
Ss: ....
SG suddenly giggled and T looked at SA.
T: Ok, thank you for remembering about what I have taught last week. She is
smiling. (T to SG & Ss)
T looked around the classroom. SG looked down to avoid eye contact.
Ss: ...
This excerpt shows that Ms. Dargo asked students to review a pronunciation exercise
which they had routinely worked on in the past two weeks. Ms. Dargo asked her students
“Remember that [two sentences]?” in order to connect this current activity with the students’
previous learning experience. However, none responded to Ms. Dargo’s inquiry. In the silence,
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Ms. Dargo heard SG was giggling and obviously this behavior was a sign of disengagement. Ms.
Dargo’s reaction toward SG’s behaviors demonstrates her attitude of student caring and her
expectation of gradually nurturing the spirit of active participation. Instead of denouncing SG,
Ms. Dargo praised SG in front of her classmates by saying “Ok, thank you for remembering
about what I have taught last week. She is smiling.” Ms. Dargo appeared to realize that criticism
would only undermine the trust and rapport between the instructor and her students, and it would
further disincline her students towards active participation. Ms. Dargo chose to offer a positive
comment in response to SG’s inappropriate behavior with a focus on the students’ willingness to
participate. By setting the interaction with SG’s as a positive example, Ms. Dargo also tried to
make known her expectation of spontaneous participation from all students.
To change students’ learning mindset is always a long process, and it demands an
instructor’s patience and requires skill to clearly communicate their expectation and eagerness to
work with the students to develop their competence. The next exchange reveals that Ms. Dargo is
capable of expressing her caring through non-verbal language. As a consequence, she gradually
breaks down students’ reliance on the East Asian learning approaches and is able to develop their
competence in performing through Western learning strategies. This exchange took place after
Ms. Dargo presented the correct way to pronounce the “TH” sound by drawing the oral cavity on
the whiteboard:
T: I want to hear from everybody this time. I want to hear a perfect “s” from all of
you. I need lots of energy from you. Try to be awake. Don’t be like....(T acted like
she was extremely tired). This time, give me lots of energy, ok?
T: Thick socks.
Ss: Thick socks.
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The pronunciation exercise continues for 5 more minutes. While students practice
pronunciation, T walks around to check students’ pronunciation. T bowed down to
students’ eye level and saw their mouth.
The excerpt shows that in the beginning of the exercise, Ms. Dargo made an attempt to
strengthen the faculty-student tie by relating “I” with “you.” Ms. Dargo used phrases such as “I
want to hear from everybody,” “I want to hear a perfect ‘s’,” and “I need lots of energy” to
articulate that she was working with them to refine their pronunciation skills, and that she is an
instructor who really wanted to see vigor and diligence from the students. Ms. Dargo
demonstrated her expectation for her students’ success by standing on the foundation of caring.
To build a trusting relation on a person-to-person level, Ms. Dargo also seized on this group
activity as an opportunity to develop contact with individual students. During the practice, Ms.
Dargo went to each student’s desk to check their progress. She also demonstrates her ability to
utilize the physicality of language to shorten the psychological distance between her and the
students. This example demonstrates how Ms. Dargo used her body language to effectively build
trust and intimacy.
The following excerpt indicates that once a trusting relationship has been built, body
language can become a powerful tool for Ms. Dargo to push her students to do what she wants
them to do. After SG voluntarily completed a pronunciation practice in front of the whole class,
Ms. Dargo was seeking for a second volunteer:
T: Ok, we are looking for a second volunteer. Who wants to do this for us? (T looked
around the classroom and she particularly looked at SD. SD seemed to realize the
teacher was watching her and she stood up).
T: Wow, you are so brave and so kind. Thank you. Now, let’s try this one.
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SD: Le-s-er le-z-er.
T smiled and nodded her head while SD was reading.
T: I like your “s.” Good job!
SD sat down and T looked around the classroom.
In this exchange, Ms. Dargo’s eyes swept over the classroom while she said she was
looking for a second volunteer. Her swift eye contact with most students created both tension and
engagement. However, Ms. Dargo tactically looked toward SD as a hint that she wanted her to
be the next volunteer. When SD picked up Ms. Dargo’s message and stood up spontaneously,
Ms. Dargo expressed her acknowledgement and excitement toward SD’s courage. SD then
became the role model of an active participant. While SD demonstrated, Ms. Dargo acclaimed
her performance with a smile and head nod. In closing, she reiterated her satisfaction with SD’s
output through verbal praise.
As previously discussed, Ms. Dargo was aware that her East Asian students in general
had low self-efficacy in English proficiency. She also knew that students hesitated to speak out
in the classroom due to their anxiety of making mistakes and losing face. However, Ms. Dargo
was also very clear that without making mistakes, it was impossible to develop proficiency. The
following excerpt is an example of how Ms. Dargo empowered her students to take the risk of
making mistakes through sharing her personal story of learning English. Personal story sharing is
a good strategy for showing empathy and building common ground. This sharing took place after
Ms. Dargo corrected one student’s pronunciation of “s:”
T: So this is a true story. I couldn’t pronounce “s” even when I was seven, and my
parents were so worried about me. They even hired a private tutor who taught me
how to pronounce.
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Ss: ...
T: Ok, who will be the third person?
SF stood up spontaneously. Without waiting for T, she automatically read the line.
SF: Le-z-er lea-s’-r never wea-s’-ered.
Ms. Dargo’s told her students she could totally understand their frustration of not being
able to pronounce ‘s’ well because she her could not pronounce that consonant well while she
was learning. This common ground building statement connected Ms. Dargo’s personal anecdote
with her students’ current struggle. Students seemed to trust Ms. Dargo because she could realize
how difficult it was to make an accurate pronunciation. The students’ invested trust in Ms. Dargo
was evident in a student’s (SF) action after her announcement. SF immediately stood up and
volunteered herself for the pronunciation practice.
Cultivate the skill of critical thinking. Another way in which Ms. Dargo demonstrated
high quality instruction and culturally responsive pedagogy was by cultivating critical thinking.
She did this through the use of a learner-based project. Consistent with culturally responsive
pedagogy, tasks in Ms. Dargo’s project required East Asian students to engage in a more
sophisticated cognitive act by explaining abstract ideas or concepts, applying acquired
information in new conditions, drawing connections among ideas, and producing an original
work.
While pushing for higher-level thinking, Ms. Dargo showed an accurate grasp of East
Asian students’ current cognitive functions and she knew how to constantly challenge students’
ideas by asking questions or assigning tasks which were slightly more complex than their current
levels of competency. Ms. Dargo’s awareness of the current cognitive function of her students
and her aspirations for their higher level thinking abilities (through inquiry), were evident in the
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following excerpt. To help East Asian students to recall content previously taught, Ms. Dargo
first wrote a “specific purpose statement” on the whiteboard and asked for student inputs. The
exchange began after Ms. Dargo wrote on the whiteboard:
TOB: Specific purpose statement
T: Who still remembers the principles of specific purpose statement?
Ss: ...
T: Come on, we just talked about it yesterday, anyone?
Ss: ...
T: How about this, the purpose of statement is for?
Ss: ...
SC spoke in a quiet voice: Inform.
T: To inform, right. This is the principle number one. To inform. Thank you.
In the exchange, Ms. Dargo first asks students to recite key principles of the specific
purpose statement, which she had previously taught. Recitation and memorization are
predominant learning strategies of East Asian students and could serve well as a scaffolding
activity. Despite encountering some initial resistance, Ms. Dargo pressed for student output by
saying “Come on, we just talked about it yesterday, anyone?” Students still remained
unresponsive. Ms. Dargo continued to push for student response, and rephrased the question:
“How about this, the purpose of [the] statement is for?” The question asks students to
contemplate the reasons for a thesis statement rather than asking them for mechanical recall. Ms.
Dargo stood in silence until SC whispered “inform” 25 seconds later. Ms. Dargo immediately
praised SC and wrote “inform” on the whiteboard. This particular exchange reveals that Ms.
Dargo had a strong belief in the competence of East Asian students even if they could not offer
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an immediately answer to her questions; she made allowances for the language barrier by giving
them a longer time to process the information.
Ms. Dargo frequently asked explanatory questions that helped students to translate
abstract concepts into relevant experiences or to utilize their class notes to solve the problem.
The following exchange shows how Ms. Dargo guided her students to co-author a thesis
statement by asking a series of explanatory questions. To begin with, Ms. Dargo asked students
to collaborate with her to write a thesis statement regarding a water park in Oahu:
T: I see some of you are checking your note. We need to use thesis principle number
two to continue the thesis writing, anyone? What is thesis principle number 2?
Ss: ...
T: I believe it is “controlling idea,” remember?
TOB: Controlling idea. But what does that mean?
Ss: ...
T: By the way, I heard the admission ticket is pretty cheap, the water park offer
decent price for the tourists. Does anyone know how much it costs to visit the
park?
SC responded with a very weak voice: 15 dollars for a season.
SG/SH looked at SC while she was talking.
T: Wow, I assume this means a very cheap price. So the continuing idea who may
add here will be “an affordable water park,” agree?
Ss: ...
TOB: an affordable water park.
T: And the third component for the thesis is...?
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SC: Reason.
T: Yes, because...?
TOB: Two to three reasons
T: Why do you need reasons? How can reasons serve your thesis statement?
SC: To tell people why you study.
T: Yes, your reasons are your supporting evidences that demonstrate the value of
research.
In this exchange, Ms. Dargo first refers students to “the principle number two” in the
notes. She then followed up with a closed question “I believe it [the principle number two] is
‘controlling idea,’ remember?” to ensure that all students were on the same page. The next
question asked for an explanation from the students: “What does that [controlling idea] mean?”
As a question that required students to process an abstract idea through their own vocabulary, the
question solicits answers that must go beyond the low cognitive levels of memorization.
However, sensing from the silence that her students were not yet ready to explain an
abstract idea, Ms. Dargo changed her strategy by asking a concrete question instead: “Does
anyone knows how much it costs to visit the park?” SC quickly replied by saying “[The ticket
price is]15 dollars for a season.” The seemingly irrelevant question actually helped the East
Asian students to relate the abstract concept of “controlling idea” with the tangible experience of
ticket purchasing. Based on SC’s answer, Ms. Dargo concluded 15 dollars for a season was an
affordable price. She then connected this tangible example of pricing with the abstract concept of
“controlling idea” by writing “an affordable water park” on the whiteboard. Ms. Dargo’s next
question was a recall question that simply asked students to tell her the third component of a
thesis statement. A Question of this type was easy to answer and attracted student engagement.
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After SC provided an answer “reason,” Ms. Dargo once again challenged her students by
following up with additional interpretative questions. Ms. Dargo asked: “Why do you need
reasons?” and “How can reasons serve your thesis statement?” These questions required students
to elaborate on the importance of “reason” to academic inquiry and writing. A brief statement
from SC “To tell people why you study” indicates that she had not only internalized the
knowledge she had gained from the book, but also able to explain it in personal terms.
This exchange best exemplified that an instructor needs to be persistent in challenging
students by asking students explanatory questions that take them higher than their current
cognitive level. The exchange also revealed that an effective approach for cognitive inspiration
was to ask a mixture of questions at higher and lower levels of cognitive function. In the case of
Ms. Dargo, she sometimes asked lower level cognitive questions (i.e., recall questions) to
encourage participation or confirm student understanding. She occasionally used open or
interpretive questions to push students to think or help them claim ownership of their acquired
knowledge.
An even higher level of critical thinking skill requires a student to draw connections
among ideas and to be able to state the person’s independent viewpoint on an issue and provide
supportive evidence for their argument. This level of thinking can also require students to
conduct intensive research and have the instructor guide them through directed study sessions.
To assist East Asian students in developing critical thinking of this type, an instructor must
accommodate culturally specific knowledge and perspectives that appropriately represent the
backgrounds of the learners. In other words, an instructor must allow for cultural congruity in the
classroom instruction as suggested by Gay’s (2002) concept of culturally responsive pedagogy.
In addition, the nature of one-on-one consulting and taking a hands-on approach to tasks requires
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an instructor to master Chicerking and Gamson’s (1987) principles of good teaching which
includes providing prompt feedback and communicating the high expectations the instructor has
for their students. One exchange between Ms. Dargo and a student (SJ), represents her
competence in providing in-depth personal guidance for the achievement of higher-level
thinking:
T: So diet, you need to be more specific here and gives me more evidences. What
makes people believe the diet approach does really work? How many people lost
weight by how many pounds in a certain period of time. And you need to cite the
sources of your evidence. Like here (T pointed to SJ’s draft), you don’t have
source here and you will need one.
SJ nodded her head while listening.
T: You have a very clear thesis statement here though. Telling me that why diet
becomes more and more important in the daily life. Maybe you can also talk
about the “obesity” issue here in the United States. You know what obesity is?
SJ shook her head.
T: Overweight. Too fat (T used her arms to show the figure of a fat person).
SJ smiled and nodded her head.
T: Great. Adding that will make your draft perfect. Good job.
In this exchange, Ms. Dargo points out that SG’s statement should be more focused. Ms.
Dargo then provided a series of suggestions that might help narrow the topic, clarify the
definition of what it means to be successful as well as the meaning of community. Through her
feedback, Ms. Dargo connected SG’s production with previously taught principles of thesis
statement writing such as the controlling idea and reasoning. Ms. Dargo further challenged SG
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by asking how the statement might be revised in order to elaborate “what kind of dream you
want to help the community to achieve” (controlling idea). Furthermore, Ms. Dargo urged SG to
find supportive reasons by conducting relevant research. She also reminded SG to comply with
the MLA format while using external sources to defend her argument.
Empower students to overcome English language barriers. As previously discussed,
Ms. Dargo believed that low English proficiency was one of the primary causes for the low self-
efficacy of East Asian students, which also leads to low active participation rates and reticence.
To address this issue, Ms. Dargo demonstrated the ability to empower students to develop
English proficiency through culturally responsive pedagogy, including the practice of scaffolding
techniques, the integration of symbolic and societal curricula, and by providing opportunities for
students of diverse linguistic levels and cultural experiences to engage as a group.
According to Gay’s (2002) theory of culturally responsive pedagogy, providing effective
scaffolding techniques to culturally and linguistically diverse students is premised on the fact
that the instructor has sound knowledge about their students’ current linguistic and academic
standing, the students’ preferred learning approaches and what topics are of particular interest to
them. Moreover, the scaffolding techniques should be aligned with the instructor’s vision of
instructional achievement that may have been assessed by students’ reactions and formative
productions. The next example shows how Ms. Dargo helped East Asian students to produce a
thesis statement by utilizing a metaphor and simile and by implementing various scaffolding
activities. Her efforts to improve the rhetorical skills of her students started with Ms. Dargo’s
introduction of two keywords--metaphor and simile, and their connotations. Ms. Dargo first
wrote metaphor and simile on the whiteboard, then she launched a scaffolding activity by sharing
a personal anecdote:
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T: You know. I used to meet a UH basketball player (T sounded excited) and he was
so tall. When I tried to see his face, I was like (T raised her head to perform how
difficult to see the basket ball player’s face due to height discrepancy) This door
(T walked toward and touched the frame of classroom door). I think he might be
able to manage to enter this room but he has to walk like this to enter into the
room (T bended over her back).
SD/SL/SJ watched T with smile. Other students also watched T carefully.
T: So what am I comparing in my story? Door and player!
Ss: ......
In this exchange, Ms. Dargo describes her meeting with a tall UH basketball player by
using vivid body language. This use of body language was Ms. Dargo’s initial strategy for the
instructional scaffolding. She physically demonstrated to her students that the basketball player
was so tall she could barely see his face without raising her head. Also, Ms. Dargo compared the
height of the basketball player with a realia, the classroom door. Ms. Dargo stood on tiptoes to
reach the upper edge of the doorframe. Then, she told her students that the basketball player was
not be able to enter through the door without bending his back. The student reactions, such as
smiles and eye contact showed that Ms. Dargo’s strategies had successfully engaged them. Ms.
Dargo followed up with a question “So what am I comparing in my story?” Ms. Dargo seemed
not to expect responses from her students in this demo activity, because she immediately
provided them with the answer: “Door and player!”
While Ms. Dargo’s initial scaffolding activity dealt with the concept of “comparaison”,
she continued to elaborate the meaning of “metaphor” by utilizing the Romeo and Juliet story.
Shakespeare’s tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is widely known by many East Asian students. The
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next exchange demonstrates how Ms. Dago utilized the familiar story as part of her second
scaffolding activity. This activity not only validated students’ grasp of “comparaison” as an
academic concept, it also elaborated the particular function that “metaphor” plays when one is
attempting to compare two objects. As usual, Ms. Dargo wrote the key sentence “Juliet is the
sun” on the whiteboard before the exchange started:
T: Ok, another example.
TOB: Juliet is the sun.
T: You know, another great example is from Romeo and Julie. Romeo told Julie that
you are my sun. So what did Romeo compare Julie to?
SB: Sun to Julie.
T: Right, Romeo compared Julie to the sun. He tried to explain how important Julie
is to him. Julie is as important as the sun to Romeo. He cannot live without her.
So this is a metaphor. Metaphor is a word picture that you show your audiences so
that they can imagine by themselves.
Students kept silent and took notes.
In this exchange, Ms. Dargo states that Romeo expressed his love to Julie by saying “You
are my sun.” She then related this statement to the concept of comparison by asking “What did
Romeo compare Juliet to?” SB’s quick response, “Sun to Julie” demonstrated his engagement
with Ms. Dargo’s question. Ms. Dargo further built up the meaning of metaphor based on SB’s
feedback, she said “Right, Romeo compared Juliet to the sun. He tried to explain how important
Juliet is to him. Juliet is as important as the sun to Romeo. He cannot live without her. So this is
a metaphor.” As she continued with the scaffolding, Ms. Dargo extended SB’s idea by using
simple words and grammatical structures so that students would grasp her point more easily.
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After making a strong connection between metaphor and the Romeo and Juliet story, Ms. Dargo
provided an abstract definition of metaphor by saying: “Metaphor is a word picture that you
show your audiences so that they can imagine by themselves.”
Besides scaffolding activities, Ms. Dargo also utilized symbolic and societal resources to
enhance student involvement. Culturally responsive pedagogy accentuates the use of multimedia
as essential and authentic resources for culturally diverse students, to acquire as well as to reflect
upon, their understanding of the target culture (Gay, 2002). For example, Ms. Dargo frequently
referred to American pop culture in her instruction and she invited her students to provide
comments about pop culture they may have been familiar with. By critiquing American pop
culture, East Asian students practice the presentation of individual values and opinions. The
following excerpt took place while the students worked in pairs to create their own thesis
statements by using metaphors and similes. Before this task started, Ms. Dargo had already asked
students to think of any example in pop songs that utilizes metaphors and similes. During the
pair discussion session, Ms. Dargo overheard SB whistling a tune. Ms. Dargo then started the
following conversation:
T: Who whistled the tune? (Everybody looked at Shun). Thank you, Shun, that song
[Let it go] has many good metaphors and similes in it. I think I can find the lyric
on the internet (meanwhile Shun continued to whistle the tune) Oh! I found it!!!
Did you folks all know about the song? Everyone likes the song right now (T then
sang the lyric by herself “Do you want to build a snowman?”) So, snowman and
happiness. Good metaphor.
Ss: ...
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T: So anybody has watched the Disney movie frozen, right? What else did Anna
want from the outside world? What else did she want?
SB: Hang around.
T: Hang out, right! I want to hang out with you.
This exchange shows that Ms. Dargo paid constant attention to what students said and
did, even during a pair work session. She utilized SB’s whistling into the lesson, and generated
an in-depth discussion of how metaphor and simile play out in the song. Ms. Dargo found the
lyric of “Let it go” from the Internet and she sang the song while pointing out an example of
metaphor in the song (i.e., Snowman and happiness). Noticing that students were not responsive
to her example, Ms. Dargo tried to find out whether her students were familiar with this movie
by asking “So anybody has watched the Disney movie frozen, right?” Subsequently, Ms. Dargo
pushed students to share their thoughts about the protagonist, Ana, by asking an explanatory
question “What else did Anna want from the outside world?” SB’s immediate reply to Ms.
Dargo’s inquiry showed his confidence and interest in this topic. Ms. Dargo tactically made SB’s
statement even more complete by saying, “Hang out, right! I want to hang out with you.”
The next exchange demonstrates Ms. Dargo’s utilization of multimedia resources to
further entice students’ own curiosity to explore more external resources. The extant scholarship
also reveals that the personal research that students do, using relevant online resources,
maximize their chances to overcome issues of language proficiency and more fully participate in
idea contribution. The next example took place after Ms. Dargo completed the topic of “Let it
go.” Meanwhile, she noticed SI was watching a video clip. SI was a very introverted student who
seldom made any comments in the classroom. Ms. Dargo directly addressed to SI:
T: Taku (SI), what are you watching?
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SI paused for 3 seconds and replied “Simile and metaphor in song.”
T: Taku, do you want me to show this video in the class so that everybody can also
learn similes and metaphors in pop songs?
SI nodded his head to show agreement.
T: How long is the video? Is it from youtube.
SI: Yes, youtube. It’s about 3 minutes.
T found the video from youtube and showed it to students. The 3 minute long videos
contain lyrics from many popular songs including “fly likes a G6.”
T: Thank you Taku, those are excellent examples of metaphors and similes. Your
video is a really helpful resource. So continue your discussion, there are still 5
minutes, go!
While a student remains quiet, it does not mean that he or she is not thinking. This
exchange demonstrates that Ms. Dargo not only sees the value of an idea from an inarticulate
student (SI), she also invited him to share and gave him a minute to shine in front of his
classmates. Ms. Dargo also demonstrated her respect for SI’s by asking for his permission to
share the resource he had found, as she said “Do you want me to show this video in the class so
that everybody can also learn similes and metaphors in pop songs?” She also reveals her
appreciation of SI’s contribution by saying: “Thank you Taku, those are excellent examples of
metaphors and similes. Your video is a really helpful resource.”
Another strategy Ms. Dargo adopted to provide opportunities for students of diverse
linguistic levels to engage together was by sharing their refined learning outcomes with
classmates. One example took place after Ms. Dargo asked all students to write their sentences
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that utilized similes on the whiteboard. The following excerpt presents students’ creativity and
how Ms. Dargo’s comments on their performance:
Under similes:
Taku is brave like a lion (Se; while T read the sentence, she gave Se an immediate
response,
T: I believe Taku will be very happy to hear that. Right? Taku? Taku smirked
without saying a word).
Atsuo can run as fast as a cockroach (T laughed when she read the sentence and
she said “Poor Atsuo! But she did run fast.
Her cheeks are like apples. (T: Wow, this is a beautiful simile since you compare
cheek to apple. However, should cheek be ‘‘eek’? Not eak; T used red pen to
correct the spelling error).
I am like a shooting star (T: Great sentence, so beautiful.)
--Shine bright like a diamond (T: Wow, there are so many talented writers in my class, I
am so happy.)
Ms. Dargo asked students write one sentence to describe some unique traits of a
classmate. Student responses such as “Taku is brave like a lion” and “Atsuo can run as fast as a
cockroach” indicated that when given autonomy and sufficient guidance, students of different
linguistic proficiency were all capable of producing high quality outcomes with originality.
Instead of correcting their grammar or word usage, Ms. Dargo’s comments specifically focused
on content (i.e., how student used similes to describe a person) and she usually provided positive
feedback such as “Wow, there are so many talented writers in my class, I am so happy.”

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Constant Practices of Reflection and the Absence of Critical Reflection
The above data provided evidence of Ms. Dargo’s ability to translate her perspectives of
East Asian students’ learning needs into effective multicultural teaching strategies with a specific
focus on handling student silence, cultivating skills for critical thinking, and empowering
students to overcome their English language barrier. The above data also showed that Ms.
Dargo’s instructional practices fulfilled the principles of high quality teaching as articulated by
Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) and Gay’s (2002) concept of culturally responsive pedagogy.
In addition to the fact that Ms. Dargo believed in the capabilities of East Asians students
for student achievement, she adopted effective strategies to make student achievement happen.
The data below reveals Ms. Dargo to be an instructor who frequently experiments with new
teaching strategies and constantly adjusts her teaching strategies in response to student feedback.
Despite these many positive traits, Ms. Dargo did not engage in critical reflection. Critical
reflection means an instructor will systematically examine student learning outcomes as a
consequent production of their teaching beliefs; moreover, enlightenment through self-value
debates of pedagogical effectiveness help the instructor to challenge their preexisting
philosophies of teaching (Falk & Darling-Hammond, 2010; Jeffrey, 2007). The results of the
data analysis do not show that Ms. Dargo regularly investigated her established teaching ideas as
a core element of critical reflection.
That Ms. Dargo is an instructor who constantly experiments with her instructional
strategies and reflects on those practices, was evident in her personal comments on what good
instructional strategy for student engagement should look like, she said:
I am really good, although I am not sure if this is a good thing, now, I think I can come
up with an activity within a short time, I can make it up quickly, if I notice ok, this
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activity is not working, I can change that activity a little bit, so that will work better for
the students. So I do that. Um…sometimes I just have an idea of engaging or maybe
somewhat an interesting activity, and I try it. So, sometimes I do experiments a lot.
Ms. Dargo’s statement shows that she is always seeking for teaching strategies that
provided a better chance to invite active, individual student participation. Because her primary
indicator of instructional efficacy was the level of active participation by students, Ms. Dargo
constantly discarded activities she realized were ineffective and replaced them with sometimes
impromptu activities that she had thought of. She would then evaluate the use of those
impromptu activities through students’ reactions. By saying “I am really good, although I am not
sure if this is a good thing, now, I think I can come up with an activity within a short time”, Ms.
Dargo’s reveals that she reflects on her pedagogy, and if her ideas and approaches are germane
to her students’ needs. Her reflection reveals her sincere interest in the actual knowledge gain of
her culturally and linguistically diverse students, not just that she presumes to know what her
students need. Although it is certain that Ms. Dargo reflects upon her teaching process, the
evidence is not sufficient to say that such reflection is necessarily critical in nature.
Yost, Sentner, and Forlenza-Bailey (2000) acclaim that the practice of instructional
reflection means an instructor needs to regularly assess the effectiveness of his or her classroom
practices by gathering information through student feedback, assessing the classroom
atmosphere, and other non-verbal signs. Likewise, Ms. Dargo believed that the best way to
gather information about students’ urgent learning needs was through direct inquiry, she said:
I asked them directly. Um…I am trying to, since you mentioned that, one of my classes is
a conversation class. Actually I asked them in class just yesterday for feedback. Of
course, many few of them say anything. So I gave them some options and finally they did
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speak. You know [I asked like] what do you want to do more in this class. And I am
going to send them a written survey, so they can kind of, just a few questions like how is
the class going. Just a check in with them to see their opinions. And then, based on their
feedback, I can kind of make some changes at this point.
In these comments, Ms. Dargo points out a challenge in trying to solicit feedback from
East Asian students, noting that “few of them say anything”. In encountering the silence of East
Asian students while soliciting feedback from the class, Ms. Dargo adopted a strategy called
communicative scaffolding by offering several tangible options to them, for example, she might
ask a less abstract question like “What do you want to do more in this class?”
One example of Ms. Dargo’s efforts to solicit feedback from East Asian students who
generally prefer to remain silent, is her strategy of asking guiding/optional questions. This
exchange took place after students completed their drafts of thesis statements and verbally shared
the statements in front of the classmates. As a wrap up, Ms. Dargo asked students to share their
feelings about the oral presentation experience:
T: So, what does[was] the experience like? (T to all students)
Ss: ....
T: The sharing is easy? Difficult?
SD: Difficult.
T: This is probably a little bit difficult, but also it is interesting to hear so many vivid
stories from you folks. Good job. (T nodded her head to show agreement)
The exchange shows that East Asian students were hesitant to provide feedback for a
less-focused question like “What does[was] the experience like?” Ms. Dargo sensed that her
students were not ready to respond to a general inquiry and she changed her strategy by
narrowing the scope of the question to: “The sharing is easy? Difficult?” The adoption of a
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communicative scaffolding approach made it easier for the students to generate a response. This
is evident by SD’s prompt response regarding her thought on the oral presentation, that it had
been a difficult experience.
Another way to solicit feedback from quiet East Asian students was through the
instrument of a written survey. The survey invited her students to make specific comments
regarding their thoughts about the current course operation and their concerns. No matter the
nature of the information gathered through guided verbal feedback or a written survey, Ms.
Dargo’s statement below reveals how had she gained benefits from collecting feedback:
You know they tell me what is useful or what they find helpful about classes and I
checked in with them, you know like are you using or practicing the skills I taught, or are
you applying them to your other classes because for every classes they have to write
almost, you know…Is there something that you would like to do or need that we are not
doing more of? You know I make so many adjustments.
Instead of asking static questions that students tended to avoid, like “How do you like the
course?” Ms. Dargo’s understanding of effective inquiries led her to ask questions that gauged
the potential gap between her teaching and students’ perceptions of her teaching. Ms. Dargo’s
questions required her students to conduct metacognitive reflections by judging whether skills or
knowledge acquired in her class had been applied to advance their studies in other research
focused classes, or whether her instruction has made it easier for students to solve problems in
other courses, including those that were writing intensive. Because she asked questions that were
specifically articulated to determine which part of her instruction provided (or did not provide)
transferable knowledge, Ms. Dargo believed that she generated more meaningful information
about her student learning through her approach.
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In her comments below, Ms. Dargo provides insight in the ways she makes connections
between her instructional objectives and her exploration of individual students’ learning progress
through attentive observation and frequent interaction:
A lot of times if I’m telling them about something, somebody will go ahead and Google it
and find the image or you know. So as I’m talking it’s really cool, ‘cause as I’m talking
about it they are “ahh,” and I’m like “oh, do you see what I’m talking about? Did you
find it?” And they’ll say “Yes I found it.” And they’re sharing it with their classmates,
and I’ll have them oh, can you show this to everybody about what you found.
The excerpt shows that an approach Ms. Dargo has adopted to ensure that her students
truly grasp a concept, had to do with her encouragement of individual students and having them
share their meaning construction processes. Even if students were not prepared to verbally
generate coherent responses, she still expected students to offer some tangible outcomes as
evidence of the cognitive development. Ms. Dargo would ask students to contemplate how their
classmates’ findings might be relevant to her teaching by saying “Oh, do you see what I’m
talking about?” Meanwhile, the performance of the students themselves would offer Ms. Dargo
relevant information so she could make informed instructional decisions.
One example that illustrates how Ms. Dargo configures her instruction based on the
examination of individual student’s academic performance, is demonstrated in the following
exchange. After Ms. Dargo checked on SG’s draft of his thesis statement, she made some
comments:
T read SG’s statement: To inform community about ways to help dorm success.
T: This is going to be hard because your statement is too broad. What do you mean
here about being successful? Like what kind of dream you want to help the
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community to achieve? Do you want all dorm students successfully graduate from
Tokai? And attend colleges?
SG: Um... (SG shows agreement).
T: So you need to be more specific. You can say, a student’s dream is to graduate
from college. And you have to tell me who says that, so you need to cite your
source by using MLA format.
T: (T looked around the classroom and talked to all students). I will mention about
these again cause they are very important. Two things, please make sure your
statement is specific enough. Not too broad, so that your audiences can easily
follow you. Also, you need to follow the MLA format when using resources from
magazines or websites.
In this exchange, by reading SG’s draft as evidence of academic outcome, Ms. Dargo was
aware that SG couldn’t make her statement specific enough and SG did not use the MLA format
properly. Ms. Dargo then asked SG “Like what kind of dream you want to help the community
to achieve?” along with another question “Do you want all dorm students [to] successfully
graduate from Tokai?” as a demonstration of how to narrow down her topic. By reading SG’s
statement, Ms. Dargo also realized that maybe many of SG’s classmates had similar issue of not
knowing how to further narrow their statement or properly utilize the MLA format. Thus, Ms.
Dargo decided to address SG’s individual issues to the entire class.
The above data provides insights into how Ms. Dargo continually adjusts her teaching
practices by reflecting on the information gathered from direct student feedback, the written
surveys, non-verbal behaviors, and tangible learning outcomes. The above data also showed that
Ms. Dargo regularly guided her students to be expressive about their learning experiences by
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using a communicative scaffolding approach. However, once again the data did not show that
Ms. Dargo engaged in critical reflection. The lack of critical thinking became apparent when Ms.
Dargo was put into the position of having identifying complex issues relevant to classroom
management, or when Ms. Dargo had to find solutions to remedy the emerging policy problems
in her classroom. One example had to do with Ms. Dargo’s policy of applying educational
technology in the classroom. The following statement demonstrates Ms. Dargo’s reasons for
utilizing educational technology in the classroom:
I just think that that is . . . I guess I was just at some conferences focused on educational
technology and I think you know, this is the way that they use technology in their day-to-
day lives. Yeah, so I just incorporate that in ‘cause I think it’s relatable and I try to model
the use of it I guess.
Ms. Dargo affirms that it is valuable to integrate educational technology into her current
instructional practices, because she had been told at a conference that technology had become the
new teaching norm. Ms. Dargo appeared to adopt technology use based on the opinions of
others, without reflecting upon the possible risks of utilizing technology, or whether technology
use might actually disturb student learning. The next excerpt took place when Ms. Dargo taught
students how to locate good academic sources (for research). This excerpt reveals how the lack
of critical reflection on technology use might actually threaten her classroom administration:
T walked to her computer desk and showed the HTLC library website.
T: So now let me show you how to find resources you need for research. You might
go to links, then reference, click articles, and you will find search bars on the top
like here (T showed the search bar by using mouse). And the keywords you put
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should be as specific as possible. That will make it easier to find resources you
need.
SE was checking on a shopping website while T did the demo; SB/SF/SI were on
personal emails.
The excerpt shows that at least four students were distracted from the assigned task, and
were engaged in personal activities such as online shopping and checking email. Failing to state
a comprehensive policy regarding internet use, is representative of the lack of critical evaluation
she had invested in this issue. The statement below shows that Ms. Dargo was at a loss in
identifying a more effective way of administrating in-class Internet use, she said:
So I don’t know. I mean I don’t know if that’s the best way but I like to leave it open
because I think they [like an instructor] to be open about it. And you know, sometimes
I’ll say “Wait, are you researching this?” and I see them on the computer like “Oh no, I
[the students] was doing this.” I also will thank you [the students] for your honesty even
if it’s not related to the topic and I try to steer them back to what we’re supposed to be
doing.
The excerpt shows that because Ms. Dargo had not critically reflected on her current
policy regarding Internet use, and she passively tolerated students using the Internet for activities
that were not relevant to course instruction. Ms. Dargo’s statement such as “I also will thank you
[the students] for your honesty … etc.” indicates that she chose a rather gentle approach instead
of denouncing them for inappropriate activities. Ms. Dargo did not see that her tolerance might
actually reinforce negative disengagement by the students.
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Additionally, the following excerpt demonstrates that the lack of critical reflection
actually created a struggle within her, as to how Ms. Dargo would solve the problem of student
distraction due to inappropriate Internet use:
Until there’s another reasonable approach, I’m waiting. If something else is available, I
will jump on it of course. But I haven’t come across anything yet I think is effective.
Because I don’t think it’s effective to just ban it all from the classroom. I don’t think that
that’s effective.
The above statement shows that Ms. Dargo did not have a systemic remedy to stop
students from inappropriately using the Internet usage during course instruction. Ms. Dargo did
not want to enforce an outright ban to keep students from using Internet, however, she also
confessed that she had not yet figured out a way to solve the problem of student disengagement.
The statement “I am waiting if something else is available” shows that Ms. Dargo was passively
seeking any external solution.
Conclusion
Using the Conceptual Framework as my analytical lens, the data in the case study of Ms.
Dargo demonstrated her weaknesses as well as her strengths in facilitating learning for culturally
and linguistically diverse students. The data showed that Ms. Dargo held a deficit idea of what
East Asian students need, and she apparently was unaware of how her instructional approach
might align with or differ from her students’ prior learning experiences in Japan. Nevertheless,
the strength of Ms. Dargo’s instructional practices was that she had a deep faith in her students
and she persistently fostered Western learning skills through teaching strategies like scaffolding.
Ms. Dargo successfully transformed the reticence and inactive learning mode of the Japanese
students into a more engaging and proactive way of learning, she constantly challenged students’
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values and thoughts, and she empowered students to overcome their English language barrier
with tactics like instructional scaffolding, the integration of symbolic and societal curricula, or
by providing differentiated instruction for students with diverse linguistic levels and cultural
experiences.
Ms. Dargo helped her students to enhance academic involvement by building a cultural
caring environment where students felt comfortable to contribute personal insights. To establish
a trusting and amicable learning environment, Ms. Dargo tolerated student reticence in the earlier
stage of her instruction. Ms. Dargo provided students abundant opportunities to practice
interactions with her and other classmates, and with patience, she waited for her students to
become willing and ready to actively engage in open discussions. Building trust also meant that
Ms. Dargo would search for connections with individual students by building common ground or
by expressing empathy toward students’ struggles. Ms. Dargo was especially good at putting
herself in her students’ place and provided timely suggestions to remedy their concerns. Ms.
Dargo accompanied her students through their downtimes and her consistent support gradually
turned into a trusting relationship that led to a more open and frequent opinion sharing during the
class sessions.
Ms. Dargo knew the current cognitive standing of her Japanese students and she helped
them to develop critical thinking skills by assigning learner-based projects, and asking questions
that were of a slightly higher level than their current level of competence. When Ms. Dargo
found that her students were not prepared to comprehend a more abstract concept or to resolve a
more complicated question, she guided her students through the thinking process by asking
explanatory questions, delegated students to collaborate with peers or herself to construct
problem solutions, and created directed study sessions which trained students to draw
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connections among various ideas through intensive research, academic writing, and oral
presentations. Ms. Dargo also encouraged students to connect the newly acquired information
with their culturally specific knowledge, thus demonstrating a correspondence with Gay’s (2002)
concept of culturally responsive pedagogy.
Ms. Dargo set up a clear teaching goal which was basically designed to enhance students’
self-efficacy in using English as a communicative tool in both academic and non-academic
environments, and she empowered her students by offering scaffolding tasks, integrating
multimedia resources as symbolic/societal curricular into her instruction, and requesting
individual students to share written or oral productions. The scaffolding tasks functioned as a
bridge between students’ current linguistic and academic levels and Ms. Dargo’s expectation of
them. She utilized vivid body language, storytelling, the assessments of students’ reactions and
formative productions with hand-on activities as a way to gauge student learning. In addition,
Ms. Dargo included multimedia resources (i.e., music videos, webpages, and visual aids) to
stimulate students’ interest in American pop culture, which she used as a vehicle of instruction.
Ms. Dargo also invited students to share their findings within multimedia resources and she
encouraged students to provide personal input that reflected their cultural perspectives. Ms.
Dargo was not satisfied to see only the better achieving students speak, and she always made an
effort to hear the voices from all ability levels. For example, Ms. Dargo would provide individual
students sufficient time and assistance to produce a topic relevant task like making a sentence
with metaphors before asking them to share their productions on the whiteboard. Then, Ms.
Dargo and her students would go through each student’s production, which generated a sense of
participation and interaction in the learning community.
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Ms. Dargo’s belief in the competence of her East Asian students, and her acceptance of
diverse perspectives on learning proved to be her assets in being an effective multicultural
teacher. First of all, Ms. Dargo identified the influence of the Confucian paradigm of learning
that affected the learning traits of her Japanese students; but this did not cause Ms. Dargo to
depreciate her students’ abilities because they had not yet mastered western learning approaches.
Ms. Dargo remained strong in her faith, that her students would achieve competence in terms of
critical thinking and being able to express their personal opinions. Ms. Dargo firmly believed
that as long as her students persevered in their efforts to develop the skills inherent to western
paradigms of learning, they would be as capable as their American counterparts in the near
future. Ms. Dargo believed that the responsibility was on her shoulders to continue to encourage,
if her students hesitated to engage in classroom activities. She also believed, that it was her
responsibility to create an amicable learning environment where students and faculty had formed
a trusting relationship. As to trust, Ms. Dargo demonstrated herself to be a trustworthy instructor,
as well as her trust that her students were motivated and had the potential of becoming better
learners. Moreover, Ms. Dargo recognized that even though her Japanese students had Confucian
learning traits in common, they were not a homogeneous group but were rather different learners
with diverse talents and life experiences. Thus she believed in empowering her students to
express their unique viewpoints through learner-centered approaches of instruction which
encouraged her students to claim authority over their knowledge and allowed them to become
constructors of their own thinking.
The practice of reflection helped Ms. Dargo to maintain her faith in her students’
capabilities and she understood how best to apply effective strategies to help her student achieve
their full potential. Ms. Dargo was sensitive to both verbal and non-verbal cues from her
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students, and she used those signs to reflect on her teaching values and instructional practices.
The practice of reflection also meant that Ms. Dargo frequently experimented with new teaching
strategies and she constantly adjusted her teaching strategies as well in response to student
feedback. However, as I have stated before, there was insufficient evidence to prove that Ms.
Dargo engaged in critical reflection. This was especially evident when Ms. Dargo was not able to
identify complex issues regarding classroom management and instructional policy (i.e., the
integration of technology in the classroom as previously discussed.)
A Cross-Case Analysis
This section explores the similarities and differences between Ms. Lawrence and Ms.
Dargo’s beliefs, knowledge of pedagogy, and the ability to engage in reflection/critical
reflection, and how these factors influenced their approach to teaching culturally and
linguistically diverse students. As illustrated in Figure 3., the comparison and analysis of the two
instructors’ cases reveals that an instructor’s engagement with reflection and critical reflection as
a core practice, will bolster her beliefs in teaching and student learning that leads to different
pedagogical approaches and teaching practices that will have significant impact on serving
culturally and linguistically diverse students. In particular, the following patterns and themes
emerged when comparing the cases of Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Dargo:
• Approach to cross-cultural communication and interaction
• Conceptions of culture and knowledge and effective ways of multicultural teaching
• Cultural caring and the classroom atmosphere
• Classroom policy and management
Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Dargo were two distinct U.S. professors in terms of their
engagement in reflection or critical reflection with regards to their teaching, their beliefs about
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East Asian teaching and learning, and their knowledge of effective pedagogy for culturally and
linguistically diverse learners. The data analysis demonstrates both significant advantages and
disadvantages in the instructional practices of these two professors. The findings show that
deeper self-reflection results in an instructor who had greater belief in asset ideology. For
example, Ms. Dargo, an instructor with a higher degree of self-reflective awareness, tended to
recognize that her students’ needs were different from her own, or that she had an obligation to
service those needs, whether or not they aligned with her own needs as a person and/or teacher.
This asset ideology was demonstrated through her pedagogical choices. The pedagogical choices
executed, and the environment that a professor constructed, seemed to be an extension of her
reflectiveness and therefore her ability to recognize that her students had different needs as a
result of their cultural and linguistic differences. The teacher who was less aware, as was the case
with Ms. Lawrence, was less able to recognize her students’ needs, made assumptions about their
needs and utilized the pedagogical practices that she liked, regardless of those needs. She was
not focused on her students’ learning, and had rather assumed the degree to which they would
either learn or not in a pre-determined fashion. She also seemed to believe that her students’
learning was not within her control. Whereas the more reflective instructor goes out of her way
to identify student needs and chooses pedagogical practices that address those needs and
constructs a climate that fosters their learning. The two professors’ competencies in cross-
cultural communication and interaction, culturally specific knowledge as it relates to
multicultural instruction, culturing caring, and classroom management, were elaborated in turn
by examining the intertwined relationship between the instructors’ level of engagement in self-
reflection, the impact this self-reflection had in challenging her instructional biases.

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Figure 3. The multicultural competences of an instructor

Approach to Cross-Cultural Communication and Interaction
The data from the observations and interviews show that as a result of the influence of the
Confucian paradigm of learning, reticence and inactive participation were the dominant traits of
Japanese students. The data also shows that an instructor’s self-reflection with regards to her
interaction with students had a significant impact towards her beliefs in student competence and
the instructional choices she might make.
Falk and Darling-Hammond (2010) believed that when an instructor documents their
performance, it helps them to reflect on possible biases or even (counter)intuitive perceptions
that they may have. Ms. Lawrence’s strength was that she was familiar with the Japanese
learning traits and she knew how to make her teaching more in line with her students’ study
habits. Moreover, Ms. Lawrence was attentive to each student’s learning status and she was
aware of the higher and lower achieving students in her classroom. However, her weakness was
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that she did not practice daily teaching reflection by regularly reviewing her perceptions toward
the East Asian students. As a consequence, she was unable to challenge her own stereotypes. Nor
did Ms. Lawrence practice critical reflection by systematically considering her students’
feedback as a way to examine her own instructional values and student learning. Ms. Lawrence
believed that reticence and inactive participation were negative influences of the Confucian
paradigm that were evident in her Japanese students. Ms. Lawrence believed it was her students’
choice to passively memorize instructional input, and resist sharing personal viewpoints in
public. Ms. Lawrence believed, that as an instructor, there was not much she could do to teach
her students to be more outspoken and engaging. Because Ms. Lawrence believed that the
Japanese were passive learners by nature, she chose to adopt a correspondingly spoon-feed
approach to her instruction. Ms. Lawrence frequently used autocratic and sarcastic tones without
giving students many opportunities to practice the skills of cross-cultural communication. Even
if students were given some chances to speak, often Ms. Lawrence would end up dominating the
conversation as though she believed the students were incapable of delivering their own ideas.
Ms. Lawrence’s belief in the absolute dichotomy between eastern and the western learning traits
also influenced her attitudes towards individual students. Ms. Lawrence tended to praise students
who had better communication skills and she gave them more opportunities to interact with her.
Thus, in Ms. Lawrence’s classroom, the student majority continued to be inactive and silent
during the period of instruction. Her teacher-led approach did not successfully guide students to
develop better skills of interpersonal communication and interaction.
In comparison with Ms. Lawrence, Ms. Dargo had less knowledge and experience about
what teaching might look like in a Japanese classroom. Thus Ms. Dargo relied more on
documenting student feedback to ensure the effectiveness of her instruction. The data has shown
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that Ms. Dargo constantly collected written surveys from her students or engaged in verbal
inquiries. Consequently, Ms. Dargo adjusted her teaching approaches based on that student input.
The invitation of student feedback also had the effect of imperceptibly cultivating students’ skills
in expressing personal concerns directly to the instructor. Ms. Dargo had a strong faith in the
learning competence of her students, and she believed that given enough time and support,
students would be able to shift into the western learning mindset and engage in more frequent
student-faculty interaction and verbal communication. Ms. Dargo also believed that every
student had the potential to achieve in an U.S. classroom despite their present academic standing.
Ms. Dargo perception of her students caused her to adopt a student-centered approach in her
classroom and to practice differentiated instruction. Ms. Dargo used multiple tasks to
differentiate her instruction including whole class discussion, pair work, and self-directed
research to stimulate oral presentations with different counterparts. Ms. Dargo frequently used
verbal and non-verbal messages to encourage students to share their ideas. Ms. Dargo provided
every student with opportunities to develop their communication skills. As a result, Ms. Dargo’s
students developed more confidence in public speaking and they interacted with peers and the
instructor more frequently.
Conceptions of Culture and Knowledge and Effective Ways of Multicultural Teaching
The data analysis for this study revealed that an instructor’s awareness of the culture of
their students, had a significant impact on the instructor’s beliefs about multicultural instruction
and the classroom practices they chose to utilize to solicit the best learning outcomes. In his
theory of culturally responsive pedagogy, Gay (2002) asserted that a competent multicultural
instructor should be aware of the nuances in terms of what was valued in another culture, as well
as the traditions of that culture and the communication patterns and interpersonal relationships
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generated by the culture. Moreover, the instructor should continuously reflect her cultural
knowledge throughout the teaching process.
Ms. Lawrence had a better grasp of Japanese culture and the Confucius learning
ideology. However, the data showed that Ms. Lawrence was overconfident in that knowledge
because of her personal experience of having lived in the country and having married a native
Japanese. Ms. Lawrence did not see a need for further reflection on her prior knowledge, and
thus she did not pause to consider more effective teaching methods for her East Asian learners.
Although Ms. Lawrence did have a narrow and somewhat superficial understanding of Japanese
culture, she made no effort to learn culturally specific insights from her students. Although Ms.
Lawrence believed that she included many topics she believed would be relevant to Japanese
culture as a way to express her respect for that culture, Ms. Lawrence’s choices mostly reflected
her personal preferences and she was not successful in engaging her students. Ms. Lawrence’s
unawareness of her knowledge bias, sometimes caused her to make profane comments about the
Japanese culture.
In contrast, Ms. Dargo acknowledged her lack of knowledge about Japanese culture, and
she showed a consistent interest in her students’ thinking, which reflected culturally specific
insights. Ms. Dargo demonstrated her passion for learning Japanese cultural perspectives by her
instructional practice of asking explorative questions during the whole class and one-on-one
discussions. She eagerly provided feedback on individual research projects where the issue might
have particular relevance for a Japanese student, yet the concept was foreign to her.
Cultural Caring and the Classroom Atmosphere
The creation of a positive learning environment that encourages physical and
psychological involvement from the student, facilitated through the instructor’s expression of
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cultural caring, is the key component of Austin’s (1999) theory of learning engagement for
culturally diverse students. Corresponding to Austin’s assertion, the data revealed that the two
instructors perceived students’ behavioral signs differently, and this in turn led to their distinctive
interpretations of students’ motives and actions. The different perceptions of student behaviors
led to two divergent beliefs about cultural caring that could be observed through their classroom
interactions with the students. The instructors’ attitudes and conduct also influenced the class
climate and the degree of student involvement.
Gay (2002) defines cultural caring as an instructor’s ethical, emotional, and academic
partnership with the students during the process of their transformation and shift from one socio-
cultural identity to another, and the corresponding development of new learning skills and
acquiring a new mindset, leading to academic achievement in the new cultural setting. The data
showed that Ms. Lawrence had a lower competence for expressing cultural caring and the
learning climate of her classes tended to be more tense than that of Ms. Dargo’s. However, Ms.
Lawrence’s statement during an interview demonstrated her willingness to build caring
relationships with her students:
Sometimes I will catch the student at break time or after class, and say is something
going on or how are you doing. Or I will say, I see that you are having a trouble here and
I will like you to come to my office. Once they come, we establish a more personal
relationship and I could find out what the need is, and maybe they will come again, or I
will know how to address that more. Students know my door is open to that. If it is a
serious case like the student is failing then we need to talk about this, like what is going
on and how can I help you to do better.
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Ms. Lawrence’s statement shows that she believed an instructor’s care would further
strengthen the student-faculty bond. Moreover, Ms. Lawrence believed that she had established a
positive student faculty rapport by showing her care. Nevertheless, the classroom observation
data revealed that Ms. Lawrence was not aware that her teaching practices were actually causing
classroom tension. The discrepancy between Ms. Lawrence’s beliefs and the classroom reality
was due to the absence of self-reflection. Ms. Lawrence believed that learning excellence should
best be assessed by the students’ performance scores and the observation notes revealed that Ms.
Lawrence often expressed her concern about the improvement of student scores, while she was
much more reticent about the learning conditions in her classroom or the concerns of the
individual students. She failed to connect the lack of student participation and attention as being
a result of her instruction. And she did not adjust her teaching methods as a result of this low
students engagement.
Given her preference for test-driven and textbook-driven teaching, she treated student’s
personal learning experiences as something that could be quantified by the scores. Because Ms.
Lawrence believed that her instruction should primarily address the needs of the general student
population, she did not engage in-depth personal interactions with students who were either low
or high achieving. Ms. Lawrence even admitted that she intentionally ignored a struggling
student, Yuya, and his negative behaviors in the classroom and she referred to the student as a
troublemaker. Even when Ms. Lawrence engaged Yuya individually, she did so to denounce
Yuya for disturbing the learning of her peers; she did not provide any assistance to resolve the
issues that were causing the negative behavior. Ms. Lawrence’s emphasis on student scores also
caused her to ignore the fact that student learning was equally demonstrated by their expressions
of personal ideas and culturally specific perspectives. There were many times Ms. Lawrence
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terminated student exchanges either because she thought their ideas were not important or the
student answers did not meet with her expectations. There were also times Ms. Lawrence
answered her own questions rather than giving students sufficient time to process her queries and
produce the best answers they could offer.
The data demonstrated that Ms. Dargo was an instructor with higher cultural caring
because she was attentive to all available signs that might inform her about current learning
conditions and obstacles that her students were facing. In addition to using formal questionnaires
to solicit student feedback (i.e., the written survey), Ms. Dargo was able to discern student
emotions such as confusion or uneasiness through her observation of verbal and non-verbal
signs. For example, by observing student behaviors under different conditions, Ms. Dargo could
identify whether the student silence was due to a lack of confidence, lack of interest, that they
needed more time to comprehend new information, or were simply lost. Once Ms. Dargo noticed
the signs of student struggles, she adopted various approaches to allay their concerns and
provided timely assistance. At the same time, Ms. Dargo constantly encouraged her students by
sharing her own stories of overcoming academic challenges or by showing her empathy for their
struggles.
Ms. Dargo believed the being attentive to the behavioral signals students were putting
out, was crucial to her efforts to offer the best instructional quality that she could. Ms. Dargo
believed that all students had the potential to become academically successful in the U.S.
classroom, and her mission as an instructor was to maximize the opportunities for student
centered practices so each learner could grow. Ms. Dargo made sure that she invited the less
active students to contribute their opinions on issues that interested, or she wanted students to
share research resources or publicly demonstrate their success on a given assignment. After
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student sharing, Ms. Dargo would verbally praise the student and ask others in the class to
endorse the accomplishment by clapping their hands. The focus on cultural caring, as
demonstrated by the attention given to individual students, eventually established a positive
learning climate in her classroom. This positive learning climate even turned some of the quieter
or more introverted students to become more proactive participants.
Classroom Policy and Management
The data analysis revealed that neither Ms. Lawrence nor Ms. Dargo could make
comprehensive and effective classroom management policies to regulate student behaviors or
enhance students’ level of concentration and participation. Checkering and Gamson (1987) assert
that good teaching principles are ones that encourage student-faculty contact, that stimulate
collaborative and active learning among students, and that push students to achieve their
academic best. In the case of Ms. Lawrence, her language policy in the classroom was
indeterminate. The interview excerpt below shows that though Ms. Lawrence believed the
implementation of an all-English policy would benefit students to develop prerequisite
knowledge and skills to be successful in an U.S. institution, she hesitated to ban Japanese in the
classroom. Ms. Lawrence explained:
I understand that at time they might need to use their mother tongue language, as much as
possible. We are talking about, when they are reading, they are going to write in
Chinese/Japanese characters, and they are going to translate. I recognize that. However,
what I was always trying to do in a multicultural language situation is to have certain
awareness, but to teach as an American teacher in an American institution and to teach
them that this is the reality they will face in multicultural but center is English. The more
they use it, the better they will be. And what I mean is here we have predominantly the
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Japanese student body, and there will be moments when I will simply say how do you say
that in your language.
Ms. Lawrence states her hesitation to prohibit Japanese in her classroom as a
consequence of her experiences with the second language learners who needed to rely on the
native languages for better memorization and text comprehension. Despite Ms. Lawrence’s
belief that an ideal English acquisition environment would force students to maximize their
English usage, she sometimes broke this principle by asking students to translate English words
into Japanese (as she said “I will simply say how do you say that in your language”). Ms.
Lawrence further elaborated her dilemma in the following excerpt:
The reference to the mother tongue is so minimal in any of my classes. It is very minimal.
It is because there could be a multicultural classroom but the goal is to all learn English.
So the instruction is in English and it is ok if they are going to be thinking to the process
sometimes. But I emphasize only English in my class. It is a fight, a real fight. But I keep
saying, the more they practice, the better they will be.
Ms. Lawrence’s statement demonstrates that as a teacher-centered instructor she was
making the language policy based on her intuitive judgment rather than working with her
students to finalize a policy that best fulfill their needs and interests. Ms. Lawrence did not filter
her language policy through the perspective of the students, since she does not even mention
student input in her statement. Ms. Lawrence believed “the mother tongue is so minimal in any
of my classes”, yet she did not explain how her students perceived the restrain on the mother
language that she (ostensibly) wanted to impose. Ms. Lawrence emphasized “the more they
[students] practice, the better they will be”, yet she ask how her students felt about the all-in-
English policy, nor did she attempt to assess any non-verbal feedback they might have been
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giving her as evidence of their reactions towards her policy/practice. Neither did Ms. Lawrence
clearly explain the parameters of her all-English policy, which she did not adhere to consistently.
As a result of this ambiguity, Ms. Lawrence’s teaching practices failed to provide students with
clear learning objectives and may even have come across as capricious. Sometimes, Ms.
Lawrence would spontaneously use Japanese terms such as “Shogun” and “Ofulo” in hopes of
inviting student engagement. However, on other occasions, Ms. Lawrence used the phrase
“monkey policy” to discourage Japanese language use among the students. The following
excerpt explains Ms. Lawrence’s “monkey policy”:
The monkey is so effective in reducing the amount of Japanese spoken in the class. There
are times when I introduce it from the very beginning, but because this is their first
session, I tolerated a certain level of you know, just getting acculturated, acclimated and
everything to . . . yeah they just need to speak sometimes, you know, in their mother
tongue just to communicate simple things. But when it . . . at a certain point it can
become just too much, and when I hear that I’m “say in English, say in English”, this
group is really conscientious by the way, they do a really great job. I mean the other
classes, higher levels that are just horrible.
The monkey policy refers to a monkey doll Ms. Lawrence gave to students who were
caught communicating in Japanese during the instruction hours. The monkey policy required the
student to deliver a one-minute English speech in front of the classroom as punishment for
violating the all-in-English rule. Nevertheless, as Ms. Lawrence’s own words reveal, she would
sometimes use Japanese as a learning tool in her classroom. This double standard generated
understandable confusion among the students. The observation data demonstrated that for fear of
losing face, many students chose not to talk or interact at all with peers in the classroom. Ms.
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Lawrence language policy was a policy of contradiction and it caused uneasiness and did nothing
to actively engage or encourage proactive interaction.
Compared to Ms. Lawrence, Ms. Dargo had greater competence in reflecting on her
language teaching policy, based on student feedback. This competence is reflected in the
following excerpt:
I do it [feedback collection] verbally in the class. But if they don’t feel comfortable
speaking up, but sometimes they speak so that was good like yesterday. But today I will
get a written version of it, you know. Hum…you know they tell me what is useful or
what they find helpful about classes and I checked in with them, you know like are you
using or practicing the skills I taught, or are you applying them to your other classes
because for every classes they have to write almost, you know…Is there something that
you would like to do or need that we are not doing more of? You know I make so many
adjustments. So anyway, that’s what I will do today.
The statement demonstrated that Ms. Dargo was very flexible with her language policy
and she accepted students’ requests for policy adjustments as long as those inputs represented the
genuine interests of the learners. Even though Ms. Dargo’s engagement and reflection made her
a more competent in terms of classroom management, her lack of critical reflection also caused
her some problems such as her inability to regulate inappropriate internet use by students as fully
discussed previously.
Conclusion
The cases of Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Dargo show us the level of instructor engagement in
reflection/critical reflection; belief in East Asian students and their capabilities; and that the
pedagogical choices made determined their competence as a multicultural instructor. Moreover,
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the multicultural competences of an instructor are enacted by the ways in which they conduct
cross-cultural communication and interaction, accumulate knowledge about the culture and
multicultural teaching, express cultural caring and build the classroom climate, and make
classroom policy that best matches with student needs. Figure 4 delineates what teaching should
look like in the classroom of a mulitculturally competent instructor.

Figure 4. Teaching in a classroom of a more multiculturally competent instructor

The illustration reveals that a more competent instructor has good cross-cultural
communication skills, demonstrated by their ability to invite and document student feedback as
evidence of instructional reflection, have faith in the students’ potential for active engagement
and academic achievement, adopt student-centered activities and encourage opinion sharing
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among students. The illustration reveals that a more competent instructor is an instructor who
accumulates knowledge about the student’s native culture and multicultural teaching by asking
explorative questions about culturally specific knowledge, by acknowledging that they may have
knowledge limitations about the culture of their students, and by offering students various
chances to contribute their culturally specific insights so that the instructor can learn from them.
The illustration also reveals that a more competent instructor is an instructor who knows
how to express cultural caring and who can establish a positive learning environment. A cultural
caring instructor is also a culturally sensitive educator who can discern verbal and non-verbal
messages from students that are inflected by their cultural diversity. The instructor believes that
culturally diverse students can only maximize their achievements if they are provided with an
amicable learning environment. The establishment of a positive learning environment means that
the instructor will provide every student with various opportunities for maximal academic
achievement. Moreover, the instructor will give timely rewards to those who make positive
efforts to learn. The illustration reveals that a more competent instructor should be capable of
making comprehensive classroom management policy through systematical investigation and
critical reflection. The instructor needs to constantly examines the pros and cons of their current
policies and perpetually seek better ones. A comprehensive policy can only be made through
bilateral communication between the instructor and the students by addressing the gap between
teaching expectations and student performance. Based on the results of genuine mutual
communication, a tacit agreement can be reached that can guide the classroom operations.
Students will also find the classroom policies to be meaningful if they have been formulated
through discussion and consensus.

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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
What constitutes the multicultural competence of a U.S. professor when S/he teaches a
class of East Asian students who are culturally and linguistically diverse, remains a generally
unexplored topic in higher education. However, the continuing trends of economic globalization
and the internationalization of higher education make this an urgent topic that warrants careful
and extended study. This dissertation examined the interrelationship between knowledge,
awareness, and skills of two U.S. professors and how that affected their teaching quality when
instructing East Asian students. Based on the conceptual framework, the study closely examined
two U.S. Professors knowledge about the Confucian (East Asian) concept of student learning, the
western theories of teaching, and culturally specific theories of teaching. Additionally, the
researcher observed the professors’ awareness of diverse student-learning needs, personal
stereotypes toward culturally and linguistically diverse students, including
intercultural/intracultural diversity; and the professors’ skills for conducting reflection, and more
importantly, critical reflection on culturally responsive pedagogy.
The data revealed how two U.S. professors at Nishiki International College performed at
distinctive levels of teaching proficiency, due to their different degrees of awareness: How able
were they in conducting reflection and critical reflection? What were their personal beliefs about
East Asian students and East their learning traits? How able were they in adopting their
pedagogies and teaching practices to best address the learning needs of East Asian student?
Pseudonyms for the school sites, faculty participants, and students were created to ensure that all
participant identities were protected. All data collected was transcribed and analyzed with
attention focused on the proposed themes outlined in my Conceptual Framework, which was
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utilized for this study. A cross-study analysis was also conducted to draw upon the similarities
and differences between the two cases.
This final chapter reviews the comprehensive lessons learned as a result of this study.
The remaining sections of this chapter summarize the study’s findings, address the implications
for the two U.S. professors, the institution and administrators, and the research community, and
engaged in a discussion emerging from the findings. Recommendations for further research are
also included.
Summary of Findings
This multi-case study interviewed two experienced professors recommended by the
program administrators at the Nishiki international college, and observed their classroom
practices as well. A core contribution of this study was the examination of two U.S. professors’
multicultural competence in four specific aspects: (1) the professors’ approach to cross-cultural
communication and interaction, (2) the professors’ conceptions of culture knowledge and
effective ways of engaging in multicultural teaching, (3) ways that the professors used to express
cultural caring and establishing an inclusive classroom atmosphere, and (4) the professors’
classroom policies and their approaches to classroom management. The comparison of Ms.
Lawrence and Ms. Dargo’s cases revealed that what critically affected an instructor’s teaching
quality when teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students, was the level of her ability to
reflect and/or critical reflect on their pedagogy, her perception of teaching and student learning,
and her pedagogical approaches.
The data analysis showed that Ms. Lawrence was a professor with low multicultural
competence. The fact that the HIC recommended Ms. Lawrence as an exemplary instructor,
reveals that the program administrators did not aware of what made a professor multilaterally
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competent when they were engaged in teaching a class where East Asian students were the
majority. The results of the study also suggest that although Ms. Dargo was a professor with high
multicultural competence, she did not know how to provide a more comprehensive classroom
management policy by engaging in critical reflection. Ms. Dargo’s case revealed that even a
multiculturally competent professor had her skill and knowledge limits, and consequently there
was a need for further professional development to advance the professor’s practices.
Ms. Lawrence had a lower capacity for cross-cultural communication and interaction,
because she usually perceived herself as the owner of knowledge and the students as passive
recipients of that knowledge. The instructor randomly solicited verbal responses from the
students. However, her intention during such exchanges was to validate that her students
concurred with her idea, rather than genuinely soliciting opinions from them. Secondly, it was
apparent that the instructor had very limited knowledge about the students’ culture, yet she
seemed disinclined to extend her understanding by learning from, or learning with, her students.
The instructor could not engage her students by bringing up culturally relevant topics of interest
to her students. Third, the instructor did not know how to establish an amicable environment for
student learning through cultural caring. The observation data showed that the tension between
the instructor and students persisted, not only because she often adopted an autocratic or
sarcastic tones when she spoke, but also because she berated and punished her students whenever
their behaviors did not meet her expectations. Fourth, the instructor did not know how to
effectively facilitate student learning and manage her classroom utilizing good classroom
principles. Her decisions related to her classroom instruction were made out of her intuitive
interpretation of students’ needs and wants, not through the process of critical reflection and the
objective assessment of her current teaching practices.
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The data demonstrated that an instructor like Ms. Dargo was more multiculturally
competent. On cross-cultural communication and interaction, the instructor accepted the fact that
East Asian students tended to be quieter in the earlier stage of language immersion due to the
influences of Confucian ideology with which they were familiar. She clearly believed that her
students were capable learners and she fully expected them to be able to shift into western
paradigms of learning. She created multiple opportunities for individual students to engage in
student-faculty interaction, sharing perspectives in a small group, or making an oral presentation
in front of the class. The instructor was also good at asking explorative questions and arranging
scaffolding exercises to bolster student achievement. The enhancement of cross-cultural
communication also meant that the instructor conceived students as constructors of their learning
experiences and respected their unique insights. In her student-centered classroom, the instructor
frequently expressed appreciation for the contributions the students made; moreover, she
constantly expressed her empathy when she observed that students were anxious or frustrated.
Implications for the Professor, Institution, and the Research Community
The previous section presented the significant findings from the respective case studies of
Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Dargo. This section provides an extended discussion of how the findings
might further contribute to the development of multicultural competence among U. S. professors.
The section also offers an evaluation of, and provides support for, the enhancement of
professionalism for U.S. professors at the institution level. Finally, the section provides
suggestions for future academic research on U.S. professors teaching East Asian students. The
discussion will connect the case study findings with the conceptual framework and the extant
literature.

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Implications for the Institutions
Many higher education institutions are under the pressure to provide academic programs
to non-U.S. students as an impact of globalization (Huang, 2007). One significant challenge
those institutions encounter is how to evaluate and improve the multicultural competence of their
U.S. professors. The multicultural competence of U.S. professors to teach East Asian students is
an emerging phenomenon that needs further exploration. The study of Ms. Lawrence and Ms.
Dargo’s cases demonstrated what distinguished the multicultural competence of the instructors
was their knowledge, skill, and awareness of themselves as a multicultural educator and what
they needed to do in order to better inspire and engage students from different cultural/linguistic
backgrounds. The institutional administrators might consider designing professional
development activities and better assessment procedures to determine the multicultural
competence of their professors on the basis of these factors.
Any study of an instructor’s multicultural competence has traditionally been rooted in the
extant literature, which has dealt with universal concepts of student learning, the western theories
of teaching, and culturally specific theories of teaching. The universal concept of student
learning has investigated effective ways to motivate and engage all learners, despite their cultural
origins, through the lens of social cognitive theory and socio-cultural theory (Zimmerman, 2000;
Vygotsky, 1978). In particular, the theory of self-regulation proclaimed that effective teaching
methods correspondingly developed students’ methods of learning and time usage, as well as
created good physical and social environments for engagement (Zimmerman, 2000). The socio-
cultural theory of Vygotsky (1978) suggested that learners of distinctive experiences of learning
and socio-cultural backgrounds would bring different academic abilities, levels of achievement,
and insights into the classroom. The duty of a U.S. professor is to create the zone of proximal
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development where students can learn with peers through scaffolding activities or collaboration
with others.
Under the influence of Socratic philosophy, U.S. higher education practices have
underscored the cultivation of the student’s ability for critical thinking, active participation, and
making independent arguments (Bandura, 2002). U.S. professors shoulder the responsibility of
transforming culturally and linguistically diverse students to become competent learners in the
American education system. This case study showed that while both professors concurred that
the East Asian students could/should eventually acquire the western paradigms of learning, Ms.
Lawrence and Ms. Dargo had divergent capacities for facilitating student-centered activities,
inspiring critical thinking, and enhancing learning engagement. In particular, the observation and
interview data of Ms. Lawrence showed that the professor had very limited knowledge about
western theories of teaching. As a consequence, she frequently dominated the classroom and
instructed with a dogmatic approach.
Markus and Kitayama (1999), and Tweed and Lehman (2002) have argued that U.S.
professors need to have solid knowledge about the significant learning traits of East Asian
students who have been influenced by Confucian ideology, including their interdependent
construal, emphasis on memorization and note taking, and introverted characteristics. This study
showed that like many other U.S. professors, Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Dargo sometimes did not
know what their East Asian students were thinking and how to meet their learning needs. In
particular, both professors perceived the reticence of their East Asian students as the most
daunting challenge of their teaching. Ms. Dargo’s comment best illustrates the professional
struggles of a U.S. professor:
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I have encountered a lots of teachers, not only from this schools, but also from other
schools in Hawaii, you know…they asked me, oh, you have experiences working with
East Asian students, do you have hard time understanding them or you know, they don’t
say anything, or not expressive or communicative, I don’t know what to do. People asked
and said things like that. You know it is common who are new to this, and thus they don’t
get used to the subtlety of it, and sometimes if I sensed something, even if it is really
small, like a small facial expression or an eye movement, or whatever, I will ask. Or if I
think someone else has a question, but they are like hesitant, I would say, ok, you look
like you have a question, right, and I would encourage him to ask. So, yeah, I guess it is
different level of awareness, you have to really look. I guess you have to look for it (the
expressions), you have to constantly be watching them.
The findings suggest that higher education institutions need to provide regular training of
multicultural educators to enhance their awareness, knowledge, and skills for handling the
different learning traits of culturally and linguistically diverse students, especially East Asian
students.
This study of two multicultural instructors’ awareness was rooted in the extant literature
dealing with the learning needs of diverse students, stereotypes about these students professors
might engage in, and intercultural/intracultural dynamics of diversity. Empirical studies (Salili &
Lai, 2003; Watkins, 2000) have suggested that the substantial differences between the learning
paradigms advocated by Confucian ideology and Socratic methods, have left unexamined the
biases of U.S. professors towards East Asian students. Liu (1998) has summarized some typical
stereotypes the U.S. professors have toward East Asian students, including: unconditional
obedience to authority, lack of critical thinking, and passivity and reticence. Bandura (2002) has
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stated that higher education institutions in the U.S. need to help their professors better understand
the cultural and historical foundations of intercultural diversity. Reviewing the social-cultural
contexts of East Asian countries might help U.S professors to better accommodate and respect
the differences between them and their East Asian students. Besides the intercultural differences,
Bandura (2002) also reminded U.S. professors not to neglect the perspective differences of
people even when they share a cultural/linguistic origin. Thus pointing out, that higher education
institutions should also train U.S. professors to handle issues of intracultural diversity.
This study of the multicultural skills of two U.S. professors was rooted in the field
literature dealing with critical reflection and culturally responsive pedagogy. Yost et al. (2000)
considered critical reflection to be one of the most crucial, yet the most difficult skill, of the
teacher’s profession. In addition, Falk and Darling-Hammond (2010) and Jeffrey (2007) have
presented some practical guidelines for practicing critical reflection in the classroom. Gay’s
(2002) theory of culturally responsive pedagogy has underscored the importance of the cultural
diversity knowledge base that a professor has, the development of culturally relevant curricula,
the demonstration of cultural caring, the facilitation of cross-cultural communication, and
cultural congruity in classroom instruction when teaching students who are culturally and
linguistically diversity.
Implications for U.S. Professors
Given the continuing internationalization of higher education, more U.S. professors have
to teach in untraditional classrooms where the professors are the only native English speakers
and the only representatives of the American culture (Brustein, 2007). Thus U.S. professors are
facing an immediate challenge in having to teach students who are culturally and linguistically
different from them. Not surprisingly, a significant amount of an U.S. professor’s instructional
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approach has been necessarily based on their intuitive judgment which has been mediated by
their past teaching experiences (Stromquist, 2007). Nevertheless, the study of Ms. Lawrence and
Ms. Dargo’s cases show that some professors outperformed others despite their limited
opportunities for professional development. The findings suggested that the engagement in
reflection/critical reflection, the faith in the learning abilities of East Asian students, the respect
for their learning traits, and the adoption of effective teaching methods, determine the teaching
quality of an U.S. professor. U.S. professors should consider advancing their multicultural
competence by improving their skills for reflection/critical reflection, accommodating East Asian
learning traits, and adopting the most effective teaching approaches.
Critical reflection is especially crucial for multicultural educators. Jeffrey (2007) claims
that by following the three phrases of critical reflection, a professor can reach gradual
professional advancement. In the initial phase, a professor systematically investigates and
documents student feedback via verbal inquiries and the written surveys. Student feedback
representing the thoughts and feeling of individual students can help the professor contemplate
how student interaction should be adjusted to achieve better results. In the second phase, a
professor utilizes the documentation of student feedback to thoroughly examine the effectiveness
of their current classroom management policy or instructional philosophy. The process allows
the professor to gauge the discrepancy between the students’ genuine needs and wants and thus
tailor their current offerings more accurately. In the third phrase, the professor interrogates their
perceptual stereotypes toward culturally/linguistically diverse students in tandem with
ethical/moral reflection.
Though limited in sample size, this study suggests that U.S. professors lack the awareness
and knowledge to engage in critical reflection. The case study of Ms. Lawrence revealed that as a
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teacher-centered instructor, she neglected to collect student feedback. On the contrary, Ms.
Dargo demonstrated her capacity for reflection by frequently expressing her interest and care in
accounting for student opinions. Ms. Dargo demonstrated that she would change her instructional
approach based on student feedback. However, Ms. Dargo did not analyze the student feedback
she received in any deep or comprehensive way. As a consequence, Ms. Dargo couldn’t reach
the second phase of critical reflection, which is the re-examination of her existing beliefs in
teaching to further the improvement of her teaching practices and classroom management, and
achieving the third phase of critical reflection which is ethical/moral in nature.
Empirical studies (Cheng, 2000; Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Morita, 2004) have argued that
East Asian students are as capable of independent thinking and the construction of meaningful
learning, as their western counterparts, given a less teacher-centered environment. However, the
research also suggests that U.S. professors need to take time and be patience in their efforts to
help East Asian students familiarize themselves with the western approaches to learning. In
particular, Jackson (2003) suggests that U.S. professors should facilitate more case-based
projects, not only for the purpose of cultivating the problem solving or independent thinking
skills of the students, but to also express the professor’s trust in the students’ intellectual
competence. Ms. Dargo set a good example of implementing project-based tasks in the
classroom. In the process of finalizing the project, be it a written essay or an oral presentation,
Ms. Dargo provided numerous opportunities for students to contribute their personal ideas,
discuss their drafts, and even share a multimedia resource they might have found. The findings
of this study also suggest that a successful facilitation of student-based tasks can drastically ease
East Asian students’ anxieties and low self-efficacy, as well as strengthen the student-teacher
rapport.
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Effective teaching in a culturally and linguistically diverse classroom should fulfill
Austin’s (1996) theory of student involvement, Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) seven
principles for good practice, and Gay’s (2002) culturally responsive pedagogy. Austin argued
that an effective instructional practice should maximize the duration and quality of students’
effort investment. The key was to stimulate students’ intellectual interests by providing tasks that
were a bit beyond their current academic standings and also by providing timely rewards to those
who achieved the professor’s expectation. However, the findings of this study also demonstrate
that a major challenge to enhance the involvement of all students is to be able to assess the
learning conditions of individual students and to provide each student adequate scaffolding
support. In the case of Ms. Dargo, she constantly observed students’ non-verbal behaviors and
judged whether some of them were confused. She attentively selected those who were seemingly
struggling and asked explorative questions to detect their concerns. Meanwhile, she would invite
other students to share their thinking maps. The invitation of perspectives from peers allowed
students to take in ideas from different resources and analyze the vales of various suggestions.
Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) proclaim that good teaching practices encourage
frequent student-faculty contact, cooperation among students, active learning, and time on task.
Moreover, good practices provide prompt feedback, communicate high expectations, and respect
diverse talents and their ways of learning. Yet those seemly simple principles are often hard to
realize. Ms. Lawrence’s example demonstrate a paradoxical situation when some professors
intellectually support the good principles, yet their material conduct violates the very ideals they
believe in. Ms. Lawrence believed herself to be a flexible instructor who promoted student-
centered learning and encouraged active engagement from her students. However, what she was
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not aware of, was that her classroom practices suppressed the autonomous learning of the
students and impeded their critical thinking.
As previously discussed, Gay’s (2002) culturally responsive pedagogy encourages
minority students to exhibit their insights so that all of the student population can benefit from
the intellectual stimulation. Gay’s theory is equally valuable when applied to U.S. professors
who teach East Asian students when they are the student majority. The cases of Ms. Lawrence
and Ms. Dargo teaches us that the design of culturally responsive pedagogy should not be
random and impromptu. The inclusion and representation of another’s culture should have the
clear and genuine intention of bridging ideological gaps among different groups of people. The
misrepresentation and misinterpretation of another’s culture might lead to misunderstanding and
even perpetual stereotype.
Implications for the Research Community
Despite the drastic changes in the higher education ecology, the research community is
slow to grasp potential impact that internationalization of higher education might bring to those
teaching in the United States. Research addressing the multicultural competences of U.S.
professors whose students are mainly East Asian students, are even more difficult to find. To
construct my conceptual framework, I borrowed from the literature on multicultural education
literatures from K-12 researchers. The K-12 administration scholars have studied teachers’
experiences of working with culturally and linguistically diverse groups for years because of the
trend of immigration (Cockrell et al., 1999). However, Dwyer (2006) reminded us of the limit of
K-12 research to solve the problems of higher education considering the divergent socio-political
contexts of the two systems. The study findings show that U.S. professors struggled to seek
pragmatic and research proven solutions for their day to day problems. The study urges scholars
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of higher education policy and administration to conduct more thorough and comprehensive
investigations for developing the multicultural competence of U.S. professors.
Recommendation for Future Study
This dissertation served as a pilot study that tested a set of ideas drawn from the existing
literatures grounded in learning in higher education, cultural diversity and students’ perception of
learning, and teaching excellence in higher education. While the study’s findings are constrained
by the conditions surrounding the time spent in the field collecting data and the amount of data
gathered within that limited time frame, the findings provide a window of opportunity to conduct
more longitude examinations using larger data sets in order to study and confirm the integrity of
the Conceptual framework I proposed for this dissertation study. Furthermore, much of the focus
of this study was placed upon the U.S. professor’s multicultural competence for teaching East
Asian students, in particular, Japanese students. Future studies would further benefit from
exploring the instructional competence of teaching students from even a broader sociocultural
context.
Due to my Japanese language barrier, I could not coordinate a focus group and inquire
into the genuine needs and wants of the culturally/linguistically diverse students, apart from their
U.S. professors. Future studies might look into what culturally and linguistically diverse higher
education students believe their professors must know and be able to do in order to support and
facilitate their learning. The comparison of both U.S. professor and students’ insights and the
observation of their classroom interaction can help us to better understand how the professor’s
beliefs about their students’ instructional needs and their instructional approaches are aligned and
work with the beliefs and learning needs of their culturally diverse students.
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APPENDIX A
U.S. FACULTY IDEOLOGY INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
School Name: _______________________________ Date: ___________
Name of Person Interviewed: _____________________________________________________
Position: _____________________________________________________________________
Time Started: ______________ Time Completed: ___________ Total Time: _______
Researcher: ___________________________________________________________________

My name is Chengwei Chen. I am thankful for giving me the opportunity to do this interview,
and for the time you are investing. At this time, I would like to ask for your permission to record
this interview.

I am conducting this interview to gather qualitative data for my USC Ed.D dissertation. My
dissertation focuses on seasoned U.S. faculty’s challenges and thoughts about teaching East
Asian students in a global based program. I would like to ask you some questions about your
experiences to work with East Asian students, your perception about East Asian students and
their learning styles, and your multicultural instruction practices in the classroom. The interview
should take about 45-60 minutes. Are you available to respond to some question at this time?

Interview Questions:

1. How would you describe your role as a faculty member in the global program?

2. How do you define effective multicultural instructions?

3. How would you define good teaching practices?

4. How would you define East Asian students and East Asian learning styles?

5. Describe your experience of teaching East Asian students?

6. How do you relate to your students?

7. What do you think a U.S. professor need to know to teach East Asian students?

8. Some people say that it is impossible that an educator can satisfy the learning needs of all
his/her students, how do you feel about that point of view?

9. Some people say it is impossible to learn about all of their students’ cultures – that there’s
just too many, what do you think about that?
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10. In what ways do you identify what your students need and want?

11. If you were a student, how would you know a teacher understood your wants and needs?

12. Can you describe what you did in a situation in which a lesson or interaction with a
student did not go as planned.

13. How will you describe diversity in your classroom?

14. Can you explain what it means to be culturally relevant in the classroom?

15. Walk me through a typical day of your instruction. How do you encourage student
involvement and student-teacher interaction?

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APPENDIX B
POST-OBSERVATION INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR MS. LAWRENCE
1. Could you talk a little bit about your relationship with Kosei and Yohei? Could you talk a
little bit about your relationship with these two students? How would you describe your
interactions with them? Are there particular reasons or occasions when you interact with
them or don’t interact with them?

2. Talk a little bit about the way you approach teaching each of these students. What, if any
instructional decisions do you make that are specific to their learning needs?

I noticed that Kosei and Yohei are quite. Are there choices you make during your
planning or instruction that are specifically about helping them learn? Could you talk a
little about those choices?

I noticed that SB and SH are not as quiet. Are there choices you make during your
planning or instruction that are specifically about helping them learn? Could you talk a
little about those choices?

3. I find out that you started your classes from practicing pronunciation, then you would
work on student listening, then you would talked about grammar and writing. Why do
you plan your instruction this way?

4. I noticed that you used a monkey doll during class time. Would you talk about the
purpose of the monkey and how you believe it helps your students? What would you
point to as evidence of the way it helps?

5. I noticed that you occasionally praised student improvement. For example, you told your
students that their listening performances are above average. Under what conditions
might you praise your students? How you believe it helps your students and would you
point to as evidence of the way it helps?

6. I understand that your classroom has an all-English policy; and you as an instructor, teach
students mostly in English. How do you know that your students may or may not
understand what you are trying to deliver? When you find out that the content of your
message is too complicated for them to comprehend, what will you do?

7. In our pre-observation interview, you mentioned that student outputs/productions, grades,
classroom behaviors are three important indicators of student engagement. By observing
peer discussions, I noticed that SG/SH often had extensive and deeper conversations
while SE/SF are much quieter. What do you think about the differences in their
interactions?

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8. I noticed you asked students what they say in Japanese, how do they think about a
Japanese commercial that have Leonardo to sell Whiskey. Would you say those are
examples of being culturally relevant in the classroom? What about them do you think of
as culturally relevant? Have you had a recent experience of choosing something you
thought would help the students connect to the content of the lesson and having it not
work out? Would you talk a bit about that?

9. I noticed that sometimes you shared your personal experiences of living in California and
Hawai’i with students. Also, you sometimes asked students to share their experiences of
living in Japan or Hawai’i to you as well as other classmates. Tell me a little bit about
this approach. What did you want the students to get out of this activity? Did they? What
is your evidence?

10. During a TOEFL listening exercise, you played three conversational clips and asked
students to write down key words. Then, on the white board, you wrote:

(1) “The assignment”
(2) Greg got stung
(3) The_______ _____________ _____________ system

Tell me a little bit about this approach. What did you want the students to get out of this
activity? Did they? What is your evidence?

11. You asked students to conduct some researches about King Kamehameha, and you asked
students to write three interesting facts about the King and orally reported to classmates.
Why did you design this assignment? What do you like to see as student outcomes? Did
you see what you were hoping for? What would you point to as the evidence that the
students accomplished what you hoped for?

12. I noticed that you facilitate the following exercises in your classes, including whole class
discussion, peer discussion/ practices, teacher lead conversation or exercise (ex: dictation
activity). What makes you decide when to utilize certain types of exercises in class?
What would you point to as evidence of the way it helps?

13. You asked students to conduct some researches about advertisements in American
magazines and produce written /oral reports and posters. Why did you design this
assignment? What do you like to see as student outcomes? Did you see what you were
hoping for? What would you point to as the evidence that the students accomplished what
you hoped for?

14. I noticed that many times during the classes, you asked students questions like “how
many of you think your listening scores get better?” or “what is the difficult part of
TOEFL test?” Why do you ask students those questions?

15. I noticed that during the break time, you seldom leave the classroom. Why?

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16. I noticed that you occasionally shared with students tips of test taking or cultural
adaptation of American classroom. For example, you encouraged students to clarify with
you the spelling of a unfamiliar word by using the phrase “how should I spell...” instead
of checking dictionary on their own. Why did you do that? How you believe it helps your
students and would you point to as evidence of the way it helps?

17. There are certain times in your classes that you throw out questions and students keep
silent. How do you think about their silences? How do you handle their silence?

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APPENDIX C
POST-OBSERVATION INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR MS. LAWRENCE
1. Talk a little bit about the way you approach teaching each of these students. What, if any
instructional decisions do you make that are specific to their learning needs?

2. There are certain times in your classes that you throw out questions and students keep
silent. How do you think about their silences? How do you handle their silence?

3. In our previous conversations, you mentioned that researching is a new academic topic
for most of your East Asian students and they have encountered many challenges while
learning to do research. Please recall your experience of teaching research to East Asian
students, and share with me your thoughts about the following questions:

(1) What does teaching research skills to East Asian mean to you?
(2) What do you think research skills mean to East Asian students?
(3) What kinds of challenges do you perceive East Asian students encounter while
learning to do research?
(4) As a teacher, how do you help your East Asian students to learn research skills?
(5) How do you ensure your pedagogy improve East Asian students’ researching skills?

4. During our pre-observation interview, you mentioned that you tried to integrate many
multimedia resources with your instruction. Please recall your current teaching
experience and share with me your thoughts about the following questions:

(1) During instruction time, you frequently projected teaching outlines, guidance, and
learning cores on the screen. Why did you do this? Why would you believe projection on
the screen would be more effective than writing on the white board?
(2) During instruction time, you frequently use internet to share with students like news
articles, library resources, and videos. Why did you do this? How do you think sharing
internet resources in class will better serve students’ learning?
(3) There are occasions when you shared with students internet resources on the screen
and they kept their head down. How would you interpret their reactions?
(4) While using multimedia resources as instruction tool, what do you usually do to
facilitate student learning and make sure that they have maximize their learning in the
experience?

5. While there is no doubt that technology proficiency is one core skill of the 21st century
learning, using technology in the classroom might cause challenges to teacher’s
instruction. Please recall your current teaching experience and share with me your
thoughts about the following questions:

(1) How do you think about East Asian students using technology during your time of
instruction?

WHAT DOES MULTICULTURAL TEACHING LOOK LIKE

213
(2) What kinds of challenges you have encountered regarding student’s use of technology
in the classroom?
(3) Do you have any classroom policy that address those challenges? How effective are
those current policies?

6. While conducting classroom observation, I observed an instruction routine of your
instruction. You will start your class by practicing pronunciation, then you will introduce
some general principles regarding research, and then you will leave a portion of
instruction time for students to practice doing research. Please recall your current
teaching experience and share with me your thoughts about the following questions:

(1) Are there some significant reasons for you to plan your instruction this way?
(2) In our pre-observation interview, you mentioned that “student-centered” learning is a
key of your teaching. How do you think of your teaching plan maximizes student-
centered learning?
(3) During the time student practice on their researching skills, what do you do to make
sure that your students are maximizing their learning?

7. Student motivation and classroom involvement are two keys of effective instruction. May
you walk me through a typical day of your teaching and share with me how you use the
following techniques to enhance student involvement and motivation.

(1) Intonation and body language
(2) Personal story or anecdote
(3) Sense of humor
(4) Tasks and activities

WHAT DOES MULTICULTURAL TEACHING LOOK LIKE

214
APPENDIX D
CLASSROOM OBSERVATION PROTOCOL
Start: End: Total minutes: _____________
1. Basic information about the virtual classroom setting (What is the class about? What objects,
resources, technologies are in the setting? Who is in the scene, how many people are their
roles? How many East Asian students are in the classroom?)

______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Interactions and conversations among participants: What is the content of conversations in
this setting? Who speaks to whom? Who listens? How do the East Asian students interact
with people (i.e., professors and classmates)? How do the East Asian students engage? Quote
directly, paraphrase, and summarize conversations. Note silences and nonverbal behavior
that add meaning to the exchange.

______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Instructors’ teaching strategies and students’ responses: How instructors deliver the course
contents and engage students in the classrooms? How do East Asian students respond to
instructors’ verbal or nonverbal messages? How do instructors facilitate classroom activities
and what happen in the activities?

______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation served as a pilot study that tested a set of ideas drawn from the existing literature grounded in learning in higher education, cultural diversity and students’ perception of learning, and teaching excellence in higher education. The study examined how a U.S. professor’s knowledge, awareness, and skills in teaching a majority of East Asian students, influenced teaching quality in a postsecondary institution where providing non-English speaking learners linguistic/cultural immersion experiences was the primary mission. To answer the following research question, “How and in what ways is a U.S. professors’ facilitation of student learning influenced by the extent to which they are multiculturally competent?” a multi-case study method was employed using both a single-case and a cross-case inductive analysis. This approach enabled the researcher to examine the interactions and intersections of the professors’ beliefs, awareness, instructional methods, and teaching practices as they occurred within the postsecondary and multicultural context. Interviews and observations collected from two experienced U.S. professors from one U.S. college preparatory ESL academy served as the primary methods and source for data collection. The findings suggest that a U.S. professor’s teaching quality may be observed through his/her approach to cross-cultural communication and interaction, their conceptions of culture knowledge and effective ways of fostering multicultural teaching, ways of expressing culture, and their capability for effective classroom management policy. The qualities were assessed by looking at his/her knowledge about universal conceptions of student learning, Western theories of teaching, as well as culturally specific theories of teaching

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Asset Metadata

Creator Chen, Chengwei (author)

Core Title What does multicultural teaching look like when U.S. professors teach classes mainly composed of East Asian students?

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 09/08/2016

Defense Date 08/17/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag cross-cultural education,culturally responsive pedagogy,globalization of higher education,multicultural competence,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Slayton, Julie (committee chair), Crawford, Jenifer (committee member), Filback, Robert A. (committee member)

Creator Email chengwec@usc.edu,warren.wei@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-302804

Unique identifier UC11280671

Identifier etd-ChenChengw-4781.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-302804 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ChenChengw-4781.pdf

Dmrecord 302804

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Chen, Chengwei

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA