Don Snow
Don Snow has an MA in English/ TESOL (Michigan State University, 1983), and a PhD in East Asian Language and Culture (Indiana University, 1991). He was Executive Director of the English Language Center at Shantou University from 2011 to 2014, and since 2014 has been Director of the Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan University. In the field of sociolinguistics, he has published the monograph Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular (Hong Kong University Press, 2004), as well as a number of journal articles. His works on language teaching include More Than a Native Speaker (TESOL Publications, 3rd edition 2017; with Maxi Campbell), From Language Learner to Language Teacher (TESOL Publications, 2007), and Encounters with Westerners: Improving Skills in English and Intercultural Communication (Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, revised edition 2014).
In recent years, the English teaching profession has paid more attention to intercultural communication, in part because of the dramatic increase in China’s inter-connectedness with the rest of the world, and also because of a growing demand for an advanced English course to teach more than basic language skills. There is a general agreement that bringing intercultural communication into English courses is a good thing to do, but less clarity and consensus as to what aspects of intercultural communication should be taught and how. The danger is that too many concepts from intercultural communication courses will be incorporated into English language courses in ways that may confuse students more than build their intercultural competence. I will argue that intercultural competence training in English courses should give priority to exercises and activities that help students build skills and habits of thought that assist them in dealing effectively with intercultural encounters. To the extent that concepts of intercultural communication are taught at all, attention should be focused on a few carefully chosen concepts that play a role in many or most intercultural encounters.