Your Culture, My Classroom, Whose Pedagogy? Negotiating Effective Teaching and Learning in Brazil

Abstract

This article explores the cross-cultural teaching and learning environment of a graduate course in a master’s degree programin teaching English to speakers of other languages (MA-TESOL) offered by a U.S. university in Brazil. The authors analyze the experience of a U.S. professor teaching diverse adult students in Brazil to illustrate and further illuminate what is known about teacher immediacy, communication accommodation, and cross-cultural adjustment. They also raise ethical and pedagogical concerns related to international education endeavors. In this case study of teacher praxis, critical and feminist pedagogical theories are used in conjunction with intercultural communication theory in the development of a culturally flexible pedagogy appropriate to cross-cultural learning environments like this one. Although the context is Brazil and the professor and researcher are from the United States, the broad conceptual strokes of the analysis may be applicable to other intercultural teaching and learning contexts.