台灣國際交換學生接待家庭之跨文化學習歷程

Abstract

High quality education and providing a Chinese learning environment are two niches for attracting international students to study in Taiwan. While more international students chose to live with host families, especially teenagers and senior high school students, the number of host families in Taiwan was increasing rapidly. Hosting experiences has the potential to create more culturally aware and sensitive host families. However, previous studies on host families focused more on “how to increase international students’ language and cultural learning” than on understanding host families’ growth in intercultural competence. Among reviewing 15 studies about host families, we found no study that exclusively examined the host families’ learning process of attaining intercultural competence. By way of qualitative approaches of in-depth interview, observation and document review, the findings for the learning process of host families showed that the host family’s intercultural competence development came from two sources: 1). Learning provided by organization; 2). Individual Informal Learning. The researcher found that host families could develop their intercultural competence through formal learning, which refers to learning opportunities from the cross-cultural training provided by the relevant organizations. On the other hand, host families also enhanced their intercultural competence through individual informal learning, which refers to unplanned learning behaviors that host families undertake through face-to-face interactions with international students. This learning process put emphasis on intercultural experiences as well as formal training. In the end, the recommendations to the future research were presented.

High quality education and providing a Chinese learning environment are two niches for attracting international students to study in Taiwan. While more international students chose to live with host families, especially teenagers and senior high school students, the number of host families in Taiwan was increasing rapidly. Hosting experiences has the potential to create more culturally aware and sensitive host families. However, previous studies on host families focused more on “how to increase international students’ language and cultural learning” than on understanding host families’ growth in intercultural competence. Among reviewing 15 studies about host families, we found no study that exclusively examined the host families’ learning process of attaining intercultural competence. By way of qualitative approaches of in-depth interview, observation and document review, the findings for the learning process of host families showed that the host family’s intercultural competence development came from two sources: 1). Learning provided by organization; 2). Individual Informal Learning. The researcher found that host families could develop their intercultural competence through formal learning, which refers to learning opportunities from the cross-cultural training provided by the relevant organizations. On the other hand, host families also enhanced their intercultural competence through individual informal learning, which refers to unplanned learning behaviors that host families undertake through face-to-face interactions with international students. This learning process put emphasis on intercultural experiences as well as formal training. In the end, the recommendations to the future research were presented.