Loreta Chodzkienė
Interweaving Critical Thinking Skills, Reflective Writing, and Intercultural Communicative Competence: Their Role in Intercultural Education
Interweaving Critical Thinking Skills, Reflective Writing, and Intercultural Communicative Competence: Their Role in Intercultural Education
Loreta Chodzkienė
Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University (Lithuania)
Abstract
In today’s increasingly globalised world, effective engagement across diverse cultures is of utmost importance. While institutions of higher education prioritize the development of students’ intercultural awareness, the role of critical thinking and reflective writing remain underexplored. This paper investigates the intertwinement of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), critical thinking skills, and reflection in intercultural education. Specifically, it examines how critical thinking contributes to students’ ability to interpret and evaluate observations in intercultural encounters, and to reflect on diverse perspectives.
The research question guiding this study is: How do critical thinking skills and reflective writing contribute to the development of students’ intercultural communicative competence? The study aims to elucidate the role of critical thinking skills and reflective writing in the course of “Intercultural Communication” through a project-based task designed for international students. Equipped with theoretical knowledge in the subject, introduced to the basics of critical thinking and reflective writing, the students embarked on a semester-length project to explore the socio-cultural aspects of the host country (in this case, Lithuania) and reflect on their experiences in diaries. To achieve the aim, there were pursued two objectives: firstly, to conduct a comprehensive literature review on critical thinking, reflective writing, and intercultural communicative competence to identify theoretical connections. Secondly, to analyze how critical thinking and reflective writing skills contribute to the development of students’ ICC. Drawing on the empirical evidence from 112 students (informants) representing 22 countries, the paper provides insights into the dynamics of students’ ICC development, identifies a range of key skills necessary to be developed in intercultural education, and offers considerations for future research and practice.
Keywords: critical thinking, reflective writing, development of intercultural communicative competence, international students, intercultural encounters.
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Biodata
Assoc. Prof. dr. Loreta Chodzkienė graduated from Vilnius University in English Philology, did her internship at the University of Kent (UK), obtained a CELTA diploma at SIH, defended her PhD “EU Pedagogue’s Intercultural Communicative Competence and Its Developmental Socio-educational Factors” (Social Sciences). In 2017, she won a grant for a teaching visit at Gunma University (Japan).
Currently, L. Chodzkienė has been running courses on Communication across Cultures, Design of Academic Texts and Research Methodology at the Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University. She also supervises students’ (Inter)cultural internships. L. Chodzkienė investigates the factors contributing to the development of a person’s Intercultural Communicative Competence, analyses International (Incoming) students’ perspectives on the Lithuanian socio-cultural realia and conducts training courses on Intercultural Issues. Since 2021 the researcher has been exploring the benefits of Virtual Exchange through telecollaboration projects which provide an opportunity for Vilnius University students to collaborate with students from the University of Latvia, Leon University (Spain), Los Lagos University (Chile) and Austral University (Chile). The L. Chodzkienė designed a study book on “What Should Every Student Know about Intercultural Communication?”, disseminated her research findings in more than 25 scientific publications, and made presentations at more than 30 international scientific conferences.