Paper short abstract:

This study focused on how teachers should interpret and evaluate cultural conflicts and wavering attitudes in students' reports. The two authors mutually analyzed each other's class presentation based on multilateral descriptions of the conflicts that arise among students from diverse backgrounds.

Paper long abstract:

This study focused on how teachers should interpret and evaluate cultural conflicts and wavering attitudes in learners' reports. As two author-presenters, we reciprocally analyzed our mutual practices through multilateral descriptions of the conflicts, clash of opinions, and uncertainties that arise among classroom participants from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The objective of this study was to discuss plurilingual and pluricultural competences and indicate a direction for the practices to which educators should aspire. The significance of this study is that it reveals diverse evaluation perspectives in the classroom without converging them unilaterally, enabling discussion of practices from multiple perspectives.

The analytical foci of this study were lessons given by the presenters in classrooms. One lesson was for international faculty students and the other was for international exchange students. Lessons consisted of conversations about culture and intercultural communication. Learners summarized their ideas in reports. In relation to our mutual practice, we the presenters verbalized the unique contexts, backgrounds, and educational philosophies of our practice and also shared our lesson designs, lesson processes, and results. Subsequently, we cooperatively evaluated and analyzed our practices. The specific data included audio data from the lessons, the products of students' work, and self-reflection records written by the teachers.

Through collaborative evaluation, it became apparent that the process of transforming learners' cultural perspectives contains stages of wavering and uncertainty. We learned that this indicates a disparity between learners and teachers; in other words, a difference in values and a disparity between their evaluations of the lessons in question. In this study, we assert that reflecting on the significance of this disparity will promote learning among students and teachers alike. In turn, we hope that it leads to a discussion of the nature of plurilingual and pluricultural competences and practices related to their cultivation and development.

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