Unspoken assumptions, deep holes and boundless expectations

Abstract

This study examines the different institutional, disciplinary, and pedagogical factors that come into play when teaching literary works with the goal of fostering dialogue, understood in the sense of civic communication and tolerance. Drawing on an Action Research approach, the analysis probes a specific experience teaching the diverse English-language short story tradition in the Canadian and German university context. The results show that to maximize the potential of teaching literary works for nurturing dialogue, instructors must navigate among multiple and at times contradictory forces reflecting institutional and disciplinary teaching priorities, divergent conceptualisations of dialogue, theoretical incongruities, varied literary and critical traditions, and complex mediation techniques.

Reconceptualising how to internationalise-at-home: Using dialogue to stimulate intercultural capacity within university students.

“…This finding is supported by recent studies by Ramasamy and Zainal (2023), using dialogic interaction in the online space, and Collinsa and Callaghanb (2022), demonstrating an increase in intercultural interactions and relationships by using virtual classrooms for group work. Managing language barriers and power implications is noted as a challenge for educators working with diverse students, attempting to unpack complex ideas around culture to generate deeper understandings about these complex concepts (Whitfield, 2022). Returning to the earlier point raised by Tran et al (2023) highlighting a need for a more social and humanising approach to international education, recent work on engaging Students as Partners (Tran et al, 2023) in global learning has been offered as a valuable approach, and one that aligns well with the concepts of dialogic practice advocated for in this paper.…”