Navigating Cultural Sensibilities: Respect and Provocation as Pedagogical Partners

Abstract

This paper explores how teachers employed in preparatory programs designed specifically for international tertiary students construct and navigate the moral dilemmas arising from differing cultural sensibilities, and how their positions can be shaped by an on-shore or off-shore setting. Teacher interview talk pertaining to the selection and avoidance of certain topics and pedagogical activities is analysed to display the ambivalence and moral dilemmas for teachers embedded in these programs as they try to show respect for cultural differences, yet seek to prepare students for a culturally biased, and potentially insensitive educational setting. Interviews with teachers employed in similar onshore and off-shore programs are contrasted to display the impact place has on teacher positions and discourses. A major dilemma arises for language teachers committed to communicative pedagogy, as they try to provoke classroom discussion for language learning, and participatory student behaviours as desirable Western pedagogic behaviour, through the use of controversial topics.