Title: Using the Database of Immigrant Narratives in a Class for Third-year English Majors

Pages: 2-28

Author(s): Ostman, D. & Xethakis, L. 

This article is open access and licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

Abstract: 

Containing forty interviews of immigrants from various countries residing in Japan, the Database of Immigrant Interviews (DIN; www.icnresearch.net) was launched in March 2022 to provide substitutional intercultural encounters through which learners gain the opportunity to encounter individuals to whom they lack physical access. Grounded in pedagogy from the field of Narrative Medicine, the primary objective of the DIN involves assisting learners to engage in perspective taking to consider how they would act and feel in culturally diverse situations. In addition to outlining the features of the DIN and its classroom applications, this research presents preliminary results from a pilot implementation of the DIN in a class for third-year English majors at a private university. An empathy scale and exit survey were employed indicating improvements in learner ability to engage in perspective taking from alternate cultural perspectives.

2022 年 3 月、日本在住の様々な国の移民 40 人のインタビューを収録した「移民インタビ ューデータベース」(DIN; www.icnresearch.net )は、学習者が物理的にアクセスできな い個人と出会う機会を得ることで、異文化間の出会いを代替することを目的に開設され た。DIN の主な目的は、ナラティブ・メディスンの教育学に基づき、学習者が文化的に多 様な状況下でどのように行動し、感じるかを考える機会を提供することである。本研究 は、DIN の特徴や授業への応用について概説するとともに、私立大学の英語専攻 3 年生の 授業で DIN を試験的に導入した結果について報告するものである。エンパシー・スケー ル(共感力評価基準)と終了時アンケートが実施され、異文化の視点から物事を捉える学習 者の能力が向上していることが示された。

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Please cite this article as follows:

Ostman, D. & Xethakis, L. (2023). Using the Database of Immigrant Narratives in a Class for Third-year English Majors . In: J. Salazar & G. Benthien (Eds.), ICLE SIG 2nd Conference Peer-Reviewed Proceedings. (pp. 2-28) Retrieved from: https://jalt.org/groups/sigs/intercultural-communication-language-education.