Teaching Intracultural and Intercultural Communication

Abstract

Within an increasingly global marketplace, discussions of intercultural communication are important in business and technical communication classrooms. Although many business and technical communication textbooks integrate discussions of intercultural communication, they do not go far enough in engaging the complicated nature of this issue. This article summarizes recent literature about the importance of paying attention to intercultural communication and analyzes the productive approaches in popular business and technical communication textbooks. It presents five challenges for business and technical communication teachers to consider and includes teaching modules that address these challenges. Although the article focuses on classroom practice, such intercultural explorations are also of value to authors of business and technical communication textbooks, who might consider integrating modules such as these into their textbooks.