Intercultural Communication In The Classroom: A Study Of A Foreign Teacher's Rhetorical Practices That Accomplish Learning

Abstract

This study is framed within the Rhetorical Tradition of Communication Theory which theorises communication as the practical art of discourse and problems of communication as social exigencies requiring collective deliberation and judgment (Craig, 1999). The rhetorical nature of classroom teaching as an intercultural communication phenomenon can create a social exigency in communication when the culture of students clashes with the culture of teachers when it comes to teaching. To resolve this social exigency, teachers perform rhetorical practices in classroom teaching that accomplish learning. This dissertation attempted to answer two research questions: (1) What are the rhetorical practices of a foreign teacher? and (2) How do these rhetorical practices accomplish learning? Guided by grounded theory as a methodological tradition with the help of Burke's (1945) dramatistic pentad as an analytical tool, I observed a foreign teacher's multicultural classroom teaching to pin down her rhetorical practices and to analyse how these rhetorical practices accomplish learning. I found that teaching consists of three rhetorical practices, namely: imperatives (I), explanation (E) and appeals (A). In accomplishing learning, imperatives enable students to learn the basic concepts in class; explanation allows them to understand the dimensions or aspects of these concepts; while appeals make them aware, reflective, critical and wiling to apply their own learning in real-life situations.