Experiences in teaching written intercultural communication (ICC) for healthcare students

Résumé

In an earlier conference paper (Bakó-Marshall, 2020) we explored the challenges of teaching intercultural communication (ICC) for health service manager students. That study focused mainly on oral communication, while in this account we would like to share our experiences in teaching written ICC. After presenting our unique methodology of teaching written ICC, we compared students’ attitudes to ICC and their written performance in two contexts: in an in-person classroom setting and a virtual Zoom classroom setting. A qualitative analysis was carried out based on short initial questionnaires on ICC attitudes, students’ in-class written compositions, their end-term assignments containing two writing tasks with reflections, as well as our own (the teachers’) personal assessment. The findings of this investigation show that instruments to elicit information on students’ ICC must be used with caution and heightened awareness in order to obtain reliable results. Furthermore, students’ levels of English proficiency largely limit the ways they can realize their ICC in terms of language production, which must be addressed both in learning and assessment environments. Additionally, the challenges of healthcare communication must be in balance with challenges of ICC.