. ·• VOLUNTEER
· PREPARATION FOR ·
INTE·RCUL TURAL
'
.
. ..
Thursday, July 10 Volunteer Preparation for Intercultural Encounter
The Peace Corps Volunteer's experience by the nature of P.C. 's mandate, a call for people to people overseas development program, is dominated by the intercultural experience. All work done by PCVs must be accomplished on this two way path of
cultural encounter. Thus, in order to give Volunteers the greatest opportunity for success in their term overseas every effort must be made in their training to prepare them to deal successfully with cross cultural relations. We do not believe that Peace Corps is currently making a strong enough effort to train P.C. trainees in cross cultural skills and cultural
understanding. To imporve this situation we have prepared three major Recommendations:
1) A task force should be appointed by Director Ruppe to study and evaluate the "state of the art" in cross-cultural
training and to make detailed recommendations for upgrading Peace Corps overall cross-cultural performance. This task force should be made up of five to seven people drawn from P.C. staff, civilians, RPCVs and PCVs - one or more of these people should have previous knowledge of the field of cross-cultural training. They should glean information from such sources as PVOs/ NGOs/ StateDept./ Corporations/ AID/ UN/ Missionaries/ Universities/ Consultants/ WIC and others. Upon completion of the task force's work their report should
be presented to Director Ruppe and disseminated to the "public."
2)
A full time P.C. staff person should be appointed by Director Ruppe to provide "technical" leadership in the cross-cultural training area. This position should be analogous to theposition of other P.C. Staff "Tech" specialists. This staff person's responsibilities should include, but not be limited to:
A) Coordinate and implement into training information on cross-cultural technology.
B) Provide directions, guidance and support for the
establishment of a repository of cross-cultural information and training of trainers information. This might be done by expanding ICE's mandate.
C) Advise on and design cross-cultural skills component of training for Country Directors, Training Contractors, In Country Reps., Recruiters, P.C. Washington Staff.
D) Implementation of the findings of the task force on cross-cultural training methods.
E) Develop cross-cultural training specifications for RFPs (Requests for Proposals).
F) Become the permanent primary linkage between P.C. and professional cross-cultural organizations.
G) Design a training program for recruiters to enable them to better assess the cross-cultural suitability of
interested citizens.
preparation for all P.C. programs. These people should learn "state of the art" training skills and skills in training design. The information for this state of the art training of trainers will come first from the work of the previously mentioned task force and after that from the full time cross-cultural "tech" staff person. This training of trainers, many of whom may be host country nationals, could best take place at reinstated regional training centers for trainers. Although this panel's mandate only covers cross-cultural training we feel that state of
the art training of trainers in the language, tech, etc. fields should also be investigated. Training of trainers must be done on a continuing in-service basis.
In addition to these three specific primary recommendations we have. a number of other recommendations which are no less
important but which we feel should be studied along with many other ideas by the aformentioned task force. For ease of study they are arranged by several catagories.
1) Overall Principles
A) Integrates cross-cultural principles with all other training components.
B) Cross cultural suitability should be a factor in P.C. staff selection
2) Components of Training
A) Trainees should be guided to know and understand their own personal and cultural identity.
B) Trainees should be trained in methods of explaining their culture to their hosts.
C) Transition training and cultural stress management training should be part of training programs
-preferably a segment held in U.S. before departure for in-country training.
D) In order to build trainees self confidence they should be made aware that they already have some cross cultural skills simply as a result of their life in USA.
E) Make trainees aware of the cultural similarities as well as the cultural differences between the U.S. and
the host country.
F) The role of men and women in the U.S. and the host country should be explored as part of training
especially as these roles affect 1) Development work
2) Personal values and decision making
3) the PCV's choice of roles in the host country 4) the ways in which Male and Female PCVs can support each other within the cultural context of the host country.
G) P.C. training ought to create and promote self reliance rather then dependence on the training staff. 3) Training Methodology
A) P.C. should hereafter differentiate between general cross-cultural training which should be held in the US and country/site specific cultural training which should be held in the host country.
B) There should be a clear bias toward the use of experiential, participative, interactive, competency-based training methods.
C) Appropriate stateside sub-cultures should be used
in U.S. training.
D) Language training should use a variety of state-of-the-art methodologies to accommodate all ages and types of learners.
E) Peace Corps should acquire or produce and use themselves, or require contractors to use, specific cross-cultural training video tapes.
4) Training Contracting
A) Contracting must be streamlined to be faster, allowing for more notice to trainees and sites as to the time and place of the training program. The
awarding of the contract should be based on merit and not just on dollars.
5) Post Training Strategy
A) A book set should be provided to Volunteers on topics such as cross-cultural relations,
communications, host and US country specific topics, such as statistics. None on US focused material should be political or palemical.
B) Cross cultural training programs should be
evaluated by studying PCU after one or two years in the field.
VOLUNTEER PR EP A1~A T I ON FOR I ITERCULTURAL ENC0 UNTER Ii'uture Di rections for the Pea ce Corps
Seminar---July 8-12, 1 986
It isn't everyone who has the unfortunate experience of bein g responsible and/or overseeing an inadequate Peace Corps training pro p;ram, and then having to g o overseas to live with the results. Standing before you is one such individual! Let me explain.
It all happened in the ol den days of Peace Corps--twe n ty-five years ago. As most of us know, the ~ a ce Corps was establi sh ed with astonishing r ap idity. Peace Corps re alized the imp ortance of g etting wa rm bod ies into the f ie ld as soon as pos s ible, for political and other re a sons. New Pea ce Corps staff members, many of them with no previous overseas exnerience, were sent to select ed countries, ~~ h ere t hey talked briefly with hos t co11ntr y g overnment
officialso They a sked t hes e offic i als whether they wanted Peace Corps Volunteers and if so, wh at kind of sk ills were nee ded. They then flew on to the next country . The re p ort that was sent b a c k to Wash ington said tha t sn ch a nd su ch a country wa s re ou estin r: , f or examp le, 7 nurse s , 5 engineers, three li brar ians , etc.
Earl y on Colorado State Un i versity had signe d a contra ct to tra in }JCV 's f or Y~est Pak ista n. Sinc e Peace Corps staff and offi c es
were still in t he process of bein g establ ished in-country, CSU al s o contracted to handle all the log istics for Pak I, t he first group of Volunteers to g o to Pakistan and one of the fir s t to g o overseas .
CSU had already carried out a number of contracts for AID in · ~ ki sta n,
and so we had a number of people who kne w t);le country well. Thus we cou ld plan the training program with some as s urance. Or so we thoughtJ
What we didn't know was that while we were, for example, train i ng 7 nurses for a hospital in Lyallpur, that hospital had no idea that they were about to receive s uch nurses. They didn't know that they were to prepare living ouarters for seven y oun g American women, and that the staff, d octors and nurses at the hospital s hould have be en pre nared for their coming . This was true of about 90% of the as s i~nments for Pak I. The information simply had not trickled down from the top when our CSU representative arrived and visited the sites for which we were already training Volunteers back in the states. Confusion
(2)
I'm aware that this is not an unusual story for inital Peace Corps assignments. So why am I telling you this? Because these e nrly unfortunate experiences had a deep and lastin g effect on the future
training of PCV 's, both for us and for many other institutions, I'm sure. To help strai ghten out the resulting mess, I was sent to Pakistan and stayed there for the remainder of Pak I' s tour of duty . Believe me, I s p ent almost two years planning t he (quote and unquote) "perfect"
training program that we were going to do as soon as I returned home. You may be sure that I had plenty of help from 28 Peace Corps Volunteers, plus, of course , Pakistani nationals, Peace Corps staff and others.
To say that we were flying by the seat of our pants in the first Peace Corps trainihg is obviously an understatement. I haven't the time bor is it relevant to g o into detail about the errors of omiss ion
and commission in those days. Suffice it to say that training was too academic, that we lacked information about job assignments, and that Volunteers were nocsuffici ently prepared,Cross-culturall y , to live and work in another c ulture.
Out of the first disasters in Pak istan came " Ope r at ion Peacepak", a painstakin g and thorough survey of jobs to which the next Vol~nteers
were supp osed to be assigned, and for wh ich they were being trained. PCV 's in Pakistan took time off from t h eir jobs, or used vac a tion time, to visit each in~tution that had re11uested Volunteers . During 3 to 5 day visits, PCV's lived on the job, studied available housling , work
space~ngq uipment
and talked with heads of institutions, supervisors and co-workers. They tried to judg e all factors bearing on the potential success of the assignment, and gave a rating on each proposed job . Assessments were sent to the training institutions, and trainees were matched, insofar as possible, with jobs . Also, the~ survey ors wrote detailed letters to the trainees. Training i~stit~~ns were then able to gear their training to the needs of the trainees and to the host country. Non-existent jobs couln be eliminaterl . Trainees came with some assurance of the need a nd how to handle those needs. Dr. Maurice Sill (:1-lo Sill to those of y ou who know him) was primarily responsible for ~ designing the survey. Everyone carried it out with greatenthusiasm, as y ou can ina g ine. It is my understanding, from talk ing to recent Volun.J.E:ers, that some similar forms of surveys are still being
.A,~~
us edA I hope this
~s
true, bec a use they proved of inestimable va lue to us in p lanning future training programs .(3)
Early on, in Peace Corps training, trainers and trailing institutions developed outstanding and efficient methods of languag e and technical training. Cross-cultural--or intercultural if you prefer that term-inology--training was a different matter. Training volunteers to cope in another culture is difficult indeed. ~tt of the training of hundreds
of Volunteers, the Center for Research and Education, of which I was Director before retirement, develop ed an experiental, role-Model oriented cross-cultural trainin g technique which we used with consid-erable success. This training ar>proach was developed by CRE staff members, including Al Wight , :r.1ike Tucker, John Ring and others. The method was described in a paper by Al Wight,"Experiental Cross-Cultural Training", as welll as in other publications . There are many similar techniques for cross-bultural training being used in both private and governmental training pro ~rams today, and modifications and
improvements are being made all the time. I would simply like to emphasize some of the key points needed for preparing PCV 's and others to live a nd work in another culture.
In the past , trainees being prepared to live and work in another culture all to ot_;ten were g iven some lan guage preparation briefed on the organization, on health needs, general information on the
history, p olitics and culture of the country and a few do' s and don't's. 'l'nis is almost pure information transmiss ion. We have as .;;umed that if we tell p eople what it will be like, then they can adjust. ~1 otin g
Wight in the paper previously mentioned, "Such an app roach i gnores the person supposertly being trained, however; his own cultural biases,
value~beliefs, attitudes, behavior, and expectations(wh ich he too
often assumes are lo ~ ical and universal), and the problems these mi ght create for him in another culture." Experience-ba.c:red, exneriental training should involve the trainee, even m akin~ him responsible for
his onn training and teaching him to learn how to learn, both d11rin g the trainin g program and on the job ·~ It includes problem- solvin g ,
critical incidents, problem definition and inductive thinking , to mention only a few aspects of the training model.
This type of trainin g puts the tr a in~ in an entirely dif f erent
role •••• in what may be a very difficult role for tra iners accu s tomed to inforfT!a ti on tra nsmission. l'1any, if not most, trainers need careful training and re-orientation. Such re-traning shou ld include host country nationals, including language instructors, area studies and
( 4)
technical trainers, for all as p ects of the training ~t ~inte grated
to make experiental training successful. It is not easy to ask s uch indivi duals to put aside traditional learning models and
tech-nioues. Perhaps the tra inin g of trainers is of e qu a l imp orta nce to that of training trainees, if expe rience-bas ed cross-cul~tur a l tra ining
i s to be successfu l.
Wha teve r the train i n ~ method used, the end r esul t mu s t be to
prepare the trainee to accept and live with v a lues , attitudes, be
-haviors, and a life style very different from tha t to whi ch he has been accustomed.If he is g oing to have a success ful and satisfying
exp-erience livin g and working in another culture , we mu st ~ ive him the
tools to cope, to learn, and to solve problems day in and day ou t for two years o We ha ve the k nowled ge to do it, if we build on the mi s takes ·
and successes of the past 25 years. And that "we" includes the Peace Corps of the future. Let's stop re-inventin g the wheel.
~~A-"--"7
And what happ ened to the ga l wh o went to Pakistan 25 y e a rs a g o to live with a trainin g insti t~rls ~ and Peace Cor ps 1 s e a rly mis takes?Well , she came home, somewhat brui s ed and battered, having g one thro ugh two years of experiental living, including problem-solving, role model analysis, co p ing, attit u dinal changes, definition of the problem, ~
defintion of the problem, appropriate behavioral responses, te s tin~,
feedback, evaluation •••••• and after being up to her ears in critical incidents 24 ho u rs a day! And believe it or not, it was p erhans the greatest learning experience of her life.
Insert A
And so I came to this seminar, confident that I would le a rn that Peace Corps and training institutions have profited by e a rly mistakes and that PCV's go to their assignments well-prepare d to
cope. But what did I lea rn at the development forum? Not so, Not so. The following are a few of the recommenda tions from that forum with regard to training:
Provide in-service training and continuing education throu ~hout
the as s ignment.
Training shou ld emphasize cross-cultural and lan~ua g e skills
over technical trainingo
Improve training of staffo
Provide enthusiastic trainers-- get rid of burned-ou t trainers . Develop "new" approaches to trai1£', e. g . role-model1ing o New ???
Make preassignment visits--new PCV's with old PCVs ( Soun rls lik e 25 years Train PCVs to incorporate a nd blend Western a nd tra ditional a g o)
s y stems in their respective fields.
Better screening of crp~ic a nts to avoid hards hips resulting from
mismatches of p eople an d as s i gnments.
'l'rain all volunteers, even technical, in p rinciples M.- a nd tech-ni ques of Commutech-nity Development
Us e more PCVs in training o
Training should cover host country p olitical, educ a tional and bureaucra tic s y stems.
:fULtA
'JE.
tH~Y
M
lr
N
THAINING AT THE B.t<X;INNING AND ITS C.:ONTRIBlJI'ION TO AMilliCAN EDUCATION
When the PC was established it was understood that inadequate preparation for overseas work could have tragic consequences. Yet , in
1961
few Americanshad
been trained for living abroad and certainly not on such a short notice toperform a variety of jobs in different and remote areas. The Experiment of Internati.Dnal Living and a few other organizations had done some training. The British who had
sent their people to all partos of the world in colonial times, didn't believe in tra.ininga their phi~sophy was sink or swim.
ihere was talk about training overseas, but there were no facilities overseas
25
years ago as in the U.S. ~'urther, it was thought too risky to send naiveand untrained ~oung American overseas. No doubt , to give the feel of the country
and to learn how peop e think is best done in the country. But for administrative
--and ___ pO li ti_cal reasons, overseas training was not JIXII permit ted.
It was also decided against its own academy - for reasons of lack of time and lack of resources.
So the PC turned to universities. J.hey had the willingriess to do the training -the resources, -the staff, -the space.
According to the A,erican Council of Education Survey in
196o
or eraly61,
of 468 colleges and universities , 62',;t were willing to accept R: contracts for training Volunteers and4).5%
had some international programs./irst training programs
61
surveyors and engineers 6or Tangantika at Texas Western College in El Paso (similarity of terrain) Teachers for Nigeria - HavardGhana Educ. project - Berkeley (David Apter) Philippines - teachers aids - Penn State
Columbia :i C .D. Rutgers
~mxx Pakistan - Colorado -'tate.
By
1965,
120 different institutions (about 100 univ. and collees) hadconducted at least one training program. A bout 20,000 FCVs had been trained in 4 years at 4.50 diverse training programs for
51
different countries. Small as well as largecolleees becai'D9 tra1ntng sites. 'j'he '.Uliv. had great concentrat1on of expertise and much credit to the early saccess of the PC 1s due to them.
In PC, the Division of Training, later called Div. of University Relations and Training was responsible for the training. We set standards for the content of the the various training
programs,n8~iii«c~R~rfi&I~e~~I~ies,
coordinated the program, found the necessary staff and resources, and evaluated theprogram as well as sat on the selection boards. Selection was part of each training program.
When we statred there was neither a syllabus or a curriculum, just a lot of ideas and a few fundamental principlea. Training programs were pieced and scraped together for those early contingents.
Then a training pxw~ manual was developed and for many ~ears the components of most training programs included&
1. Technical studies - the knvwledge and skills required to perform the assigned job overseas.
2. Area studies - the hisotircal,. political, economic and cultural aspects of the host country.
). Language - knowledge of the sturcture of the indigenous language, basi vocabulariy , conversational practice and the technical terms appropriate for the assignment.
4. American Studies - US history, current social and economic scene
5·
World Affairs - contemporary international problems, communist strategies and tactics, and American's role in the world&E scene.6)
Health and Medical Training - first aid, persoaal hygene, preventative measures required in the assigned areas7)
Pgysical training and recreation - personal conditioning as well as practice of American and host country games.8)
PC Orientation - aims of the organization, the Volunteer's role in it, logistics, rules eec.These 8 components were taught first in 8 or 10 weeks then ususally in a 12 week program - 10 hrs. a day,
6
days, a week. Later, World Affairs, Communism and American Studies became one component. Eventually there was an integration into4
components. 1) Technical study2)
Cross-cultural studies - including the study of values, attitudes and customs in comparison with theUS
J) Language
4)
PC Servia - included health studies and PC proceduresIn the PC law , only Communism was mentioned, no other compoaent was mentioned and therefore the PC or the t~ining institution could alter the components.
Congress included communism because it was afraid that yoWlg and possible politically_ immature persons would go abroad in a quasi offical capacity and would
be exploited and fall fox political propaganda. Trainees didn't like this section
on communism found it a waste of time. Gradually it received less and less hours. The University 12 week program was supplemented with wither ~
training in the camps in Puerto Rico, later also the Virgin Island, for Nepal Outward Bound in Colorado and/or in-country training. In country training was considered a f)uffer period in the country. The Pakistan PCV s went to the
Academy for Village Development in Comilla for
J
weeks of orientation. In Ceylon a prograa of field trips and language study as well as meeting with government officials wasarranged with the assistance of the governemtn of Ceylon. In India, the Ludhiana Agricultural College cooperated in in-country training program. In Tanzania the surveyours and engineers did supervised field work and leanred languages.
By 62 certain field experience was part and parcel of the training. Volunteers training at Columbia U for urban Colobiam used the slums fif harlem as - at
UCLA teachers Kit had community experience and lived with families in Watts (but later tha 62).
How universities wreE chosen
PC tried to choose universities that had strong area programs with faculty and foreign students for language in6ormants or those that had
AID
contracts ln particular countries and therefore people with experience in thecountn. For example, Thai educa tionprogram was at India.nal ~ because
Xk
it had anAID
teacher training and public adm. porject with lots of Thai exchange students and instructors who had been in Thailand. The Peru program at Cornell was very good, because all instructors had live d in Peru.Since some/univ. ~ with strong area
fograms
a
were not able to provide the technical training requir~ for a particular project,this was often not possible. One had to go to those univ. that had the technical skills. Eg. Oregon Staee for India hoggery and poultry and we brought 1n the language and area people.
An early Pakistan program included training in nursin~ library science,
teaching, engineering surveying, medical technology , community develo ment and agriculture. A univ. (Minnesota) that had most of these skills had to be chosen and ~a.rr:i area peop~e were brought to the institution.
~xtk&t Sometimes universities were chosen
because of similirities of the environment to that of the future host country. The Univ. of Mexico, for example, was good for CD for Spanish speaking
countries, The rural and spanish speaking area of New Mexico had urban redevelopment and social welfare programs • There were also some
political problems. Univ. of Texas lost to Oklahoma because of segregation policies.
at
Advantages and disadvantages of training Kt PC/universities 1. Had resources, staff space,
2. Immediate partnership. Univ. moved quickly when the na;tional interest seemed to warrant national mobil1zat1onl
J.
Had an important domestic impact. thousand of students at univ. were made aware of PC presence.4. ~ PC experiment was shared by a board spectrum of Americans. faculty, townspeople, students (PC trainees taught in local schools)etc. in many parts of the US. Brought many recruits to PC
5·
Benefit to faculty. To think about old programs in new way •x Faculties came together across disciplines6.
Language learning in a new way. Linguistic dept. rather than Spanish or French7.
From PC contracts, universities sometimes establ~ed area studies programs.Thus PC ~lped with institution building.
8.
High motiviation of trainlas • Faculty had more understanding of trainees and got to know them better than regular college students.Disadvantages
1. Campus is not typical. American Univ. campus is embodiment of science and sophistidation and middle class value, which bear little relationship on most overseas envtTonment.
2. Too academic. Supplied traditional academic product, because didn't know
(at beginning) what }C was trying to oo. Exceptions, some creative distinctive programs
J.
Univ. not geared for hands-on-work in the field4. Often one segment of training staff would proceed with little attention to other segments of program - lack of integration
5.
Technical training often lacked realistic relationship to host country conditions and limitations. Ex1 Nursing training sometimes no idea of social and cultural problems in hospitals overseas - not known.6.
When there was not enough lead time, the best staff was not always available.7.
Since PC was charting new terrotories, some early programs suffered from vague country info. and imprecise job description, ambigtity reg. the structure in which PC would operate.8. No stability in training. contracts shifted. Know how was often lost when' PC contracted a new university.
Yet univ. were accouhrable and training was evaluated« Training measured by performance overseas.
graduallly there were some year round contracts like with Uoiv. of New Mexico, U of Hawai, Wisconsin, U of Washingtond. This produced more effective ieedback and better training.
Other programs of PC partnership with the Univ. resulted in integration with undergraduate pre- and post service program. Some univ. gave univ.
credit for ?PC experience. Then came the
5
year B.A. (study 2 years, PC 2 years, retturn to univ last year) Western Michigan Univ.Camps
afta
transition training - in house trainingBefroe or after univ training, trainees went for
J
weeks or so tothe camps in Puerto Rico - irmf•x Camp Crozier and Radley in deese forests
near Arecibo where climate was similar to that of many Latin AMerican countries. Hiking, swimming - down-ppoofing- rock climbing but also participated
in PR community development and worked in local communities and had
opportunity to spend a few nights with local families.
Sloan Coffin" We will use physical training as a vehicle to measure man's stamina, courage and resourcefulness. " Trainees learned to looks at themselves how to react under strain and pressure. wxnxf~lllix Strengthen
trainees emotions resources t~physical stress. However, this development
of self confidence didn't result in humility which was sometimes more important in many countries. Also leanred what food could be obtained from the woomds.
...
~:b:mx:IIX•t•u Nepal 1 and 2 went to Colorado 0 tward Bound.
Dip in icy mountain streams, hiking, climbing, camping, building bridges,' rope course.
\!).
It was controversial. Bu
64
the PC camps in PR were transformed into alab~~
training school. - PC in-house training. Puerto Rico as a lab for Latin Americanprograms was the emphasis, with language, c.d. etc. First program was a Dominican Republic Rural communisty »wx•iafm..X action program. Staff was made up
primarily of returnd PCVs supplemented by PC staff from ahhington, academicians. etc.
Another in-house training program was a site in st. Croix in the Virgin ~Islands
ti a fiea± extent
also staffed pr max y-oy re~urned PCVs. Primarily for English speaking
West Africa. Philosophy for the teachers was that teaching
antj)
communication take place within a certain cultural ambiance.~ and teachers were trained there and interaction had benefits for both groups
Un. of HawisL> had a contract for what can be described as "transition trainig" iJOCih for PCVs going to Asian countries. One site was in the Waipio Valley about
50
miles from Hilo. Lea.nned to grow rice • eat food similar to that inAsia - transitional diet. Also killed pigs like in the Philippines. onstruction of Nipa (pal thatch huts).
Language training
Foundation so one can laarn language successfully abroad. Learning a language expresses respect for foreign work assocate and broadesn one's own experience.
At the beginning the PCVs didn't have enough language and often were unable to communicate or to perform their job. Lang. traiingi increased constantly. Betw. 61 and
65, 57
languages • ~ were taught, about half had never been taught before in US. More tha~ half of the time was devated to intensive,..! ' '---
~'\A~ t- ~lang. by 1965. /\We also learned that
7
was the ideal number for lang. classes.Immersion environment was ~reated in many univ. and the audio lingual method was used. Lang. informants were used, who also helped in area studies. Not alaays entirely beneficial as they came from high social and intellectual level, not entirely relevant to training.
Example of fmersion technique was Nepalithouse. A s·imulated Nepali house with all the trimmings. Nepali food, utensils, furnit~ custons and
traditions, native instnnctors • Live, talk, think language. Cow dnng. 12 Nepali PCVs scored FSI -4 at end of tour.
Language materials were developed. Examples a Nepali, Afgahistan Farsi, Chinyanga (Malawi) Tune sian Arabic, Somali. Also texts and tapes in Malay, Fhilippine lang .i Gujerati and Indonesian. The entrie country benefited from these
materials.
At U of Iowa, Indonesian athlets had to leann Indoeesian sports and special xx&ld: vocabulary.
Specialists who wor.ked for PC have added immeasurebly to th•u nation"s for lang. resources. Also contrikbution to the whole fiedd of TEFL.
Cross-cultural training
Area studies programs gave way to more emphasis on the problems of ~ living
and working overseas to coperwith problems of culture shock, mental fatique and
discouragement. ~n
We learned that emphasis must be placed in training to put the American in slow motion. We had to de-activate the action orientated American. Training
had amphasized constant activity and job satisfaction, while in the field boredom and frustration were common ••
Also it was necessary to incorporate bureaucratic,axa interpersonal and political pressure in order t~ make the training effective. Traditional area studies was not adquate.
Special program. 46 ~ol. secretaries to 15 countries. Function in PC offices but also as Volunteers, Volunteer commitment. Agez
19-68.
~ly1
had collegedegree, other high school grad. or from secret. schools. practical experience. Trained
, ,. -~.( .... 1 r...-J:... "·
in Washington .D.C. Catholic U. JH coDdinator , Ed Stewart. We developed a cross-cultural program which would make the trsinees ax&XIX more aware of
themselves and their own society. A framework of
co,para~ye
assumptions and values was designed to serve as the basis for these studies. Am. studies, area studies, world affairs were all pandled in ihis comparative framework. Role·,
..
playing provided cultural perspective. Supplemented by le~~ group;discusssions, seminars, films, slide~i interviews with Washington staff and of course lang. learning.
Also we developed case studies based on experience of Volunteers in the field. Included a selected number of critical incidents.
CONCUIJSION
At the beginning trai ing programs were not able to adequately prepare the PCVS. v However, the shortcomings of training was often due to lack of information
/[\ 4\r,/ ) . . ..- :·l i • .
from the host country and lack of experience.
I
There llere often not enough experts available for -the many countries who had relevant expereience.Ex& PCVS going to !anzania had only British expatriates as models , yet it had just become independent. Experts on Somalia were only familiar tith Italian
Somaliland while PCVS were going to schools in former British Somaliland.
----( Few Americans understood the complex cultures of developing countrie ~ -- -··- ..
----Nevertheless , generally speaking, training was quite successful and this was due to the qaality and motivation of the people -trainees, univ. staff, trainers, and commitment of PC staff. Although obviously many improvements have bean ade in trainig, if the early training programs had not been so successful, the PC would have had more failures.
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Contribution of PC to education was tits concept of training for overseas personnel. It was educ. of Americans for a new shfl~e of service. PC training
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was a pacesetter in education an the field of cross-cultureal training.
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DRAFTExplicit and Implicit Outcomes from Cross-Cultural Orientation and Training: Skills and Independence
by
James A. McCaffery. Ph.D Training Resources Group
Alexandria. VA
A paper presented at the Seminar on Cross-Cultural Orientation. sponsored by the Council on International Educational Exchange and the Society f0r Education. Cultural and Scientific Interchanges. in cooperation with the National Association f0r Foreign Student Affairs. Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 1. 1984. Not to be quoted or reproduced without express permis-sion of the author.
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IntroductionDespite the good intentions, high energy and unquestionable commitment of most people in the field, cross-cultural orientation and training programs are generally ineffective. Unintended outcomes render them, at best, harmless and, at worst, negative. Because some outcomes are unintended, they are often not evaluated and go unnoticed by the people who administer and deliver programs. This, in turn, . means that what is truly problematic in the cross-cultural training area is not getting sufficient attention. Instead, program evaluation and subsequent redesign efforts tend to focus on the obvious and trivial at the expense of what is often more significant but less easy to unearth.
This paper begins by examining the results of unintended outcomes in cross-cultural training and orientation programs. A model is than proposed that is intended to help make cross-cultural training more effective and to reduce unwanted, unintended outcomes. The aim of the proposed model is to move people towards independence by focusing on skill building rather than only on information transmission. Finally, some potential problems 'with this approach are discussed.
Unintended Outcomes -- Some Examples
Until recently, most U.S. corporations ignored the cultural dimension when sending people overseas to work. Although many still do ignore it, some companies have begun to put together pre-departure orientations for person-nel going overseas for a significant period of time (one or two years or more). These orientations may last a couple of hours, a half day or even one day. They frequently involve reading some general literature about the country, viewing slides or ·pictures taken by people who have visited the country, carrying out discussions with someone who had held the position previously, and sharing a list of "do's and don'ts". They are explicitly organized to help the departing person get oriented to a new culture, to learn something about that culture, avoid obvious mistakes soon after ar-riving, and so on.
However, there are also some unintended outcomes communicated by the pro-gram. There is a message that the orientation is really not very impor-tant. If it were, it would be allocated more time, and be accorded a more important role in predeparture ~ctivities. Somewhat related to this, such
an orientation can unintentionally say that learning ''enough'' about another culture is easy, can be done in a short period of time, and that picking up some "do's and don'ts" is all one has to worry about.
When an orientation is as short as this, and when it consists of previous sojourners doing a lot of "telling", it inevitably produces numerous un-helpful stereotypes. I recently heard the following from a person who delivers orientations for a company that does much work in the Middle East:
"You know, they just don't have a sense of humor."
"You have to watch out when you drive, because they don't care about getting their cars dented a lot there."
"People are aloof, and it is hard to make friends there". There were a number of other such statements which this person said were very important points included in the discussion part of the company's orientation. The point is not whether these statements are right or wrong, but that they are stereotypes. On an implicit level, they encourage the listener, the participant in the program, to see stereotypes as legitimate, and perhaps even to join in generating stereotypes. Moreover, such stereo-typing predisposes sojourners not to see people in the host culture as in-dividuals, to say nothing about the specific biases that are communicated. There is no activity specifically included _ in the orientation which in-volved expectations, and this means that expectations are generated, con-firmed, or disconfirmed unreflectively and implicitly. Stereotypes create expectations, as do exhortations like "You will love it there" or cautions like "Make sure you never ask a French person for directions because you Will never get them". Whether positive or negative, unchecked or
unexam-ined expectations can be very dama~ Lng. After all, if I have been told
that I will "love it there" and I go abroad only to find I d6n't like it, I will not only feel sad or frustrated by that, I may also feel that people lied to me during the orientation or tried to oversell to get me to go in the first place.
There are, then, a number of unintended outcomes to short predeparture orientations like this - unmanaged expectations, unexamined stereotypes, a message that the orientation itself is not all that important, and that learning about another culture is simple and does not take all that much time. There are probably other unintended outcomes as well, some of which may even be positive (albeit random).
One should not draw from this the conclusion that the problem with such an orientation is that it is conducted badly. Indeed, the designers can (and do) get better materials, more articulate "returnees", a lengthier list of "do's and don'ts", and more pollshed presentations. However, as long as the goals, the structure and the methodology are not drastically changed, unintended outcomes will continue to result. And, since they are unintend-ed, they are often unseen by the people responsible for the orientation.
Instead, an evaluation may show that presentation A, for example, was un-clear, and efforts ~ill be made to improve it. A little bit of new wine
will be added to the old wineskin.
Let us move to another example. Over Lts 22 year history, the U.S. Peace Corps has had extensive cross-cultural training programs <..nd approaches. To its credit, it has realized the importance of the cr<Jss-cultural dimen-sion, and it has invested in training, experimented, innovated, d0cumented, changed and tried again. It has put more into the area than any other agency, company, or university. Some 0f it has been highly successful, especially when compared to other organizations. However, some years back, the Peace Corps was also plagued by an unintended 0utcome 0f major impor-tance.
It was the goal of Peace Corps cross-cultural training to prepare
volun-teers to become independently effective within the host culture. In order to do this, much of the training was carried on in the country to which the
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volunteers were to be assigned. Cross-cultural training included a variety of activities - anecdotal discussions with ex-volunteers from that
count-ry, presentations from knowledgeable resource people from the national university, trips to important places in the country, participation in lo-cal events and holidays, sometimes "live-in's" with host culture families,
a~d an abundance of reading materials were made available. When it was all added up, the program may have taken five to ten days in a program that lasted eight to ten weeks. Also, there was a heavy emphasis placed on l3nguage, which tended to reinforce the importance of the cultural dimension.
Certainly the message communicated with this kind of approach was that cross-cultural training was important. However, the program also had one unintended outcome: It helped produce dependent volunteers rather than independent, culturally effective volunteers. There were at least two reasons for this outcome. First, even though the trainees were living in-country, they were still mostly being trained to study the culture, to observe it, to listen to others who knew about it or who had lived in it. Implicitly, they were being taught to rely on expert knowledge about the country, and they were becoming used to Peace Corps providing "answers" to cross-cultural issues. In subtle ways, they were becoming intellectually dependent on the Peace Corps training structure.
When this factor was combined with a training environment factor, the push towards dependence as opposed to independence became very powerful. For a variety of convincing operational reasons, trainees were housed at Peace Corps training centers ·where training administrators were responsible for food, shelter, and some kinds of transportation. thus, if the food · were bad, the sheets dirty,, a window broken, or if dispute occurred, the trainers or training administrators would move in and attempt to solve the problem. This, of course, created an environment where trainees .became dependent on Peace Corps for food and shelter, two rather powerful needs, especially when one first arrives in a different country.
It is somewhat ironic that this situation became a "no-win" game for the training staff. If they were efficient and ran a .. tight ship .. , responded quickly and appropriately to on-going needs and crises, the degree of dependence ·they created also increased. Trainees would even be tempted to make simplistic comparisons to how well training was administered as opposed to how things "normally are done here··. On the other hand, if the training center was not well run, it created frustration, complaints and bitterness in the temporary training community. This static often became so loud that the training tune, if you will, became completely lost, and an unhealthy dependency-counterdependency situation appeared.
Admittedly, the trainee living situ.ation was not the fault of the cross-cultural training program. However, the environment in which training takes place cannot be separated in fact from the training program and the desired outcomes. By the end of training, a real sense of depen-dence had been created, both physical and intellectual, and this was easily transferred to the Peace Corps office in-country once training was over. This led to many Peace Corps Dlc-ectors complaining that volunteers .. aren't like they used to be--they complain all the time, don't get out into the countryside, they hang out with each other too much, and they
spend too much of the time in the office".
For a long time, the Peace CA>rps staff in-country blamed the recruitment process ("they are getting the wrong applicants") or they simply attributed it to a new generation that did not have the same values as the original volunteers. However, some Directors began to look more closely at the situation, and, with much consternation, realized that it was their own training programs that were inadvertently helping to produce the very dependent behaviors that they were bemoaning.
Recently, I was struck by the similarity between this Peace Corps training situation and an approach to foreign student orientation taken by a major university in Texas. I was not involved in the orientation directly, but I arrived just as it was ending, and I was able to do some informal participant-observation research. The students, all from Indonesia, were brought from their country to the campus early for the orientation program. They were housed together in the same dormitory, ate together and took their classes together. The orientation activities were very much like the ones described above in the Peace Corps cross-cultural training program. The administrator of the overall Indonesian program also made a decision to keep the group together in the same dormitory throughout the school year. When I returned six months later, the Indonesian students complained (very politely) that they weren't getting to know Americans, people were un-friendly, their English was not improving, the dorm was not good, and the program administrator was not sympathetic. The program administrator, on the other hand, saw the Indonesian students as clannish, unadventuresome, ethnocentric people who were not able to adjust very well and who depended on him far too much. The parallel with the Peace CoFps cross-cultural training example was · remarkable: The combination of orientation structure and environmental conditions had again helped to produce an unintended outcome in terms of dependent (and unhappy) foreign students. Of course, there were other factors which contribute to this conditi.on, but 1t is clear that the orientation started the process.
In addition to the specific examples spelled out above, there is one more basic area which needs examination. It is possible that some of our most popular (and fundamental) concepts and descriptions are causing unintended outcomes. Consider the following: Culture shock, survival techniques, coping skills. The language used, however accurate and descriptive, certainly con_1ures up a hostile and alien envir.mment. What does that communicate to people going abroad or coming to this country for the first time? What does it say about the kind of training or orientation they are about to undertake?
These concepts, because they are so powerful and so linguistically "catchy", may in fact overpower words like joy, fun, curiosity, partici-pation, learning, growth, anticipartici-pation, ~xperimentation and effectiveness.
Are we somehow unintentionally communicating to sojourners that the best they can hope for is to survive, to cope and to avoid being shocked? Are there ways to describe the same phenomena without the linguistic harshness? Should the concept of survival be eliminated from our lexicon and be replaced by, say, "being effective abroad"? This is not meant tv imply that we should dispense intellectual rose-colored glasses; rather, it seems
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that there must be ways to describe certain concepts without predisposing people to expect aliens upon arrival in another country.
Although there are many other examples of unintended outcomes which could be discussed, these should be sufficient to point out the existence and power of inadvertent results. In fact, with each of the examples discussed above, I would assert that the people involved would have been better off with no cross-cultural orientation or training program rather than the one they received. The power of the unintended outcomes far outweighed the positive value of any explicit message that may have been communicated. Participants and the sponsoring organizations probably would have been better off in the long run had the trainees just been introduced into the cross-cultural situations and "set free", as it were.
It is important to stress here that ineffective cross-cultural orientation and training does not result because administrators are ineffective or trainers are lazy or resource people are not knowledgeable or because people in the field do not care or are not committed. Indeed, having been in and around the field for fifteen years, I find quite the opposite to be true, especially in terms of the deep caring and commitment I have often observed in people who work in the cross-cultural area. Unfortunately, good intentions are not enough.
The Problem
The problem is that cross-cultural training and orientation is not seen as a discipline and, as a result, it is rarely approached wholistically or systematically. Most of us got into the field because we traveled or like other cultures or felt we were badly prepared when we first went overseas and . we can now do it better. Others enter it academically by studying anthropology or sociology, or because we wish to broaden our horizons here in the U.S. by hosting a foreign student. Nobody, however, sets out at the end of secondary school to become a cross-cultural trainer or educator. Even if one did, it would remain a mystery as to what university and work path one would take to get there.
Thus, almost all of us come in through the "side door", and most of us are only temporarily in the field, or end up continuing to work in it occasion-ally in addition to our "real" work. We do not approach it as a disci-pline, and we tend to equate effective cross-cultural work with sound in-formation dissemination, lively anecdotes and short visitations. In effect, we start in the field as cultural "experts" which causes us to view training as transferring to others a certain body of knowledge or facts rather than the processes through which this knowledge was derived. (Of course, our field is not unique; the teaching of history or science has been plagued with the same problem, the reduction of the discipline to "facts" or the "scientific method"). We rarely get to a point where we consider adult education principles, training techniques, educator/trainer style, the relationship between method, content and environment, and the overall aim of cross-cultural training and orientation.
There is an additional important factor which exacerbates this situation: Cross-cultural work looks deceptively simple but is in reality exceedingly complex. My colleagues and I have a great deal of experience in the
education and training field. We do organization development, management development, we help engineers write training manuals, we teach human resource development courses, we consult with teams that are having serious problems working together, and we do a range of cross-cultural work. When we reflect on it all, we have come to realize that the cross-cultural wqrk is the most difficult and complex work we do.
·What we are faced with as a field, then, is undertaking a very difficult activity, the design and delivery of cross-cultural orientation and training, without the benefit of the kinds of systematic models that exist in and give guidance to other disciplines.
A New Model
There is a need for a new model in the cross-cultural training field, one which approaches the work wholistically and systematically and which,
~cause it does so, will help increase our ability to identify and achieve
important explicit outcomes and reduce the number of unwanted inadvertent ones. The aodel has to integrate the following: A basic and clear cross-cultural training aim needs to be identified, an educational method-ology needs to be described which is consistent with that aim, and educa-tors and trainers need to design and deliver their programs in a style that is congruent with and reinforces the methodology and educational aim.
Cross-cultural Orientation and Training Aim: Skills and Independence
There are several aims that cross-cultural orientation and training might ·have. Perhaps the most co111111on aim, whether stated or unstated, is to provide sojourners with specific information or knowledge about a country before their departure~ This aim is especially prevalent for short
orien-tation programs. Another possible aim, more anthropological in nature, is to study the culture(s) of · another country. This aim can generally be found only in longer cross-cultural training programs, as with the Peace Corps or parts of the State Department in the U.S.
Another aim is to help people assimilate into a different culture. Whether appropriate or not, this is the aim of some of the cross-cultural work being done with Asian refugees who have arrived in the U.S. over the last several years. To help people learn to participate in another culture without necessarily assimilating is another cross-cultural training aim. This one might be particularly relevant to foreign student exchange programs or, again, to the Peace Corps. All of these aims, and others like them, are legitimate; however, they are limiting in nature. They do not provide a vision of the real power and enablement that could result from cross-cultural training and orientation.
The aim proposed here for this new model is:
To move people towards developing/enhancing the skills they need to become independently effective cross-cultural sojourners.
This is an ambitious aim, and it subsumes (or could subsume) the other aims mentioned above. The proposed aim is . enabling and intends to move people
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towards cross-cultural self-reliance. It is emancipatory in nature (if one has the skills necessary to be independently effective in another culture, then one can make one's own choice about degree of assimilation and other important value issues).
In order to achieve this aim, training and orientation programs must be skill-based. They must focus on "learning how to learn" rather than learning a particular fact · or set of information. The latter produces dependency on the trainer for inf~rmation, for right answers -- what
happens when the trainer is not there, or a new situation crops up that has not been "covered", or a different culture is encountered? Skill training, on the other hand, allows a sojourner t~ develop the means to deal with new
situations after the program has ended. Let us explore in more depth the meaning of cross-cultural skill training.
There are certain cross-cultural skills and principles that can be identi-fied and learned. Once learned, these skills and principles can be applied to the process of entering and becoming "fluent" in another culture. ("Fluency" is used here conceptually the same way it is used linguistically to describe one who is very adept at speaking another language, except in this case, it means one who is very capable moving skillfully and effec-tively in another culture, one who knows the both the grammar and spirit of that culture). The cross-cultural skills can be refined so one becomes more highly skilled and effective at "crossing" cultures.
( It is very much the same principle (albeit a bit more complex) as learning to drive a car. Once one has learned the skills and principles necessary to drive a particular kind of car, one can apply those to other models and become more effective in shorter time periods when changing from model to model. Another analogy might be made to language learning. Once an individual has learned a second language, it is easier to learn a third, even unrelated language. This is so (besides allowing f~r the occasional
gifted pecson of course) because people develop some implicit language learning skills which help them as they move from language to language. They "learn how to learn" languages.
To return to the cross-cultural skills, it is important to stress that there is nothing magic about them; rather, people already have these skills and principles in some form. We have all grown up in a ''culture", and developed ways of being relatively effective and happy within that culture. We have a valuable reservoir of skills, habits, traditions and knowledge which can be utilized crossing cultures. Effective cross-cultural train ing identifies prior experiences and skills, builds on them, helps adapt them, and introduces new skill areas t0 lndlvlduals who may avt have access tv some of the skills.
The following are some sample crvss-cultural skill areas which I develvped with Dan Edwards for use by the Peace C~rps:
Transitions
o This area deals with those skllls and techniques that can be used to help assess and manage expectations, tv reflect oa the culture which one is leaving, to deaL with any unf lnlshed business
eludes emotional as well as financial) and to develop a practical, concrete strategy for entering another culture (ie, the first day or week or several weeks in-country). An especially difficult part of this skill area is reflecting on one's own culture; most people do not have a solid, explicit sense of the meaning and practicalities of their own culture. There is much that ls taken for granted, and many faulty assumptions are made. These can have a profound affect on one's ability to enter a different culture. Overall, this skill area ls aimed at creating an effective leave taking as well as a skillful entry.
Gaining fluency
o This skill area can be sub-divided ln two somewhat distinct clusten. The first might be labeled · "everyday life skills", and the second communication skills. Some examples from the everyday life skills section are as follows:
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Observation - looking critically and carefully at what is happening in cross-cultural interaction situations.*
Self-reflection - reflecting on how one's own presence in a situation may be altering it; examining how one's own cultural values and filters might be affecting interactions or interpretations.*
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Transactions - Refining and adapting appropriate behavior . around dally transactions (getting taxi's, changing money,
buying vegetables, bargaining, learning time systems around appointments); learning skills to discover how transactions work.
Saying no -- Assessing consequences of saying no in different situations and refining and adapting skills and tactics ln doing so. (We found this area to be particularly important since, if people do not feel they can say no, they often begin trying to avoid entirely those situations in which they might wish to say no. This results in increasingly less contact with the host culture.)
Responding to ambiguity -- Realizing when one is in an ambiguous situation and choosing personally appropriate
responses that are within culturally acceptable parameters. Examples of useful communications skills include ·the following:
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Initiating conversations -- Finding topics of mutual interest and of appropriate linguistic complexity in cross-cultural
interactions.
Active listening - This includes paraphrasing, summarizing, restating, reflecting feelings and testing for understanding. Non-verbal Learning tu read facial expressiun, hand
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gestures, body language, and the use of pro"ximky. Developing Knowledge about the Cultureo Overall, the aim of this skill area is to. enable people to develop the knowledge they need about a culture when they need it and as substantively as they need it. It is entirely different than the approach used in many cross-cultural programs wherein participants are given too much information about a subject, often at the wrong time. The skill area has two sub-areas:
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Gathering information -- Refining and adapting skills in areas of observation, question asking, simple researching and developing data from reflecting on actual experience.
Filtering/validating information Identifying and using alternative sources of information, checking and measuring the perspective of information sources, dealing with con-flicting data, recognizing when two or more "truths" may exist simultaneously, and making reasonably valid judgments based on imperfect and/or incomplete data.
These cross-cultural skill areas exemplify the kinds of skills that can be taught or trained in order to reach the aim that is proposed in this paper. Because the aim contains the language "move people towards", it recognizes that an orientation or training program might not be able to reach the objective completely. Indeed, in a short orientation, the movement might
be rather small, but it will be there (if the other elements in the model
are consistent with the · aim).
Above all, the proposed aim provides clear direction for cross-cultural train-ers, teachers and designers: Anything that moves people towards independence is consistent with the aim, and any activity which does not should be avoided. More spec~fic program goals, content, method, training
or teaching style and educational environment all can be assessed to determine congruency with the overall goal. If this is done rigorously, unwanted unintended outcomes should be significantly diminished, if not altogether eliminated. Of course, there may be times when one chooses to do something which is inconsistent with the aim, but if this model is used, that choice will be conscious, and any negative impact will be known beforehand and accepted.
The aim, then, provides a framework for training chulce and f0r action. It is intended to be useful for a half day orientation program as well as an in-depth two or four week cross-cultural training program. The skills learned will be transferable from one context to another, and the ultimate outcome for participants will be greater independence. The next part of the paper will examine the methodology which is congruent with the aim and the emphasis on skill-building.
Methodology
The methodology generally used ln most cross-cultural orientation and training programs, at least as it is presently practiced, is inconsistent with -the proposed aim. There tends to be an over-reliance on lectures,
