Teaching and Learning Across Cultures, A Guide to Theory and Practice

Throughout the centuries, teaching has been widely understood as a one-way street. Either you are on the teaching side or on the learning one. But, what if the teaching is actually a two way street? What if teaching across cultures has become learning, too? Can a teacher be truly personally enriched through his teaching experience? If he has the right attitude, certainly he can. This perspective especially becomes real when teaching cross-culturally. Therefore, the ideal attitude of a cross-cultural teacher, according to Craig Ott, should be marked by his ability and willingness to be a learner too, as he works towards establishing a healthy, open, and relaxed relationship with his students (p. 1).

Ott writes his book as a manual for theory and practice, not from just an academic point of view, but also as a person with decades of experience in the cross cultural ministry. The book he produced is highly theoretical, but extensively practical, too. His work is divided into thirteen separate sections which begins with a well-developed introduction to the challenges of cross-cultural teaching, culture, and learning ministry, they are separately presented in the book so that the reader can reflect on his own personal experiences as a learner and teacher in light of his own culture and culture of others (p. 24).

The introductory part lays a solid foundation into the research by dealing with the topics of universal or genetic characteristics of all people, cultural or learned characteristics of a group, and individual or learned characteristics of a person. While carefully introducing the challenge for the cross-cultural teacher and dangers of stereotyping and ethnocentrism, Ott concludes that no teacher is culturally neutral. Even while teaching a culturally neutral subject such as mathematics, he still brings himself into the classroom (p. 32). Having said that, he establishes that education is the most powerful agent of cultural change, and explains that cultural hybridization has therefore become a more accepted theory then, for example, essentialization and homogenization, since it argues that globalization brings cultural change by fusing the local with the global (p. 33).

Therefore, developing intercultural competency means being acculturated in variety of areas, such as knowledge i.e. cultural and self-awareness, attitude which leads to more flexibility, patience and acceptance and finally skills which include both language and communication skills, as well as observational and analytical ability of a cross-cultural teacher (p. 43). The explanation of the theoretical framework ends up with discussion about learning and teaching styles and the way they intertwine with the culture itself. In doing so, the writer often comes back to a crucial question of the extent to which teaching should or should not be adapted to the preferences or style of the learners. Summarizing the topic, he states that Jesus's teaching style included both familiar and unfamiliar methods, being even willing to shock in order to make a point, still admitting that Jesus lived and taught in ways that served his objective, not to only impart knowledge, but to transform the lives of his listeners too (p. 64).

Now, at this point, it is impossible to present a remainder of the book in short few paragraphs and still do it justice, yet I will briefly describe each of the dimensions presented, trying to outline its main idea or purpose. Thus, the cognitive dimension of teaching deals with the way learners process the information presented. It examines the theories of cognitive style relating to concrete versus abstract styles, and styles relating to reasoning processes. The writer continues with the practical implications of this for cross-cultural teaching and concludes with a discussion of a cognitive style theory's implications for theoretical education (p. 65). In this regard, Ott concludes, theological education needs to recover the unity between reason and spirituality, between knowing and fearing God, differentiating a gift of God and a human effort and accepting the mystery as a form of doxology (p. 135).

The worldview dimension poses questions related to the nature of learning, causality, epistemology, tradition and worldview change. Worldviews, in general, are what a certain group of people or a community take as a given reality and thus they serve as a guide by which they live and form values. Therefore, in a cross-cultural setting, a teacher is highly likely to face the audience with a styles. This is followed by a discussion about cross-cultural ministry, presented as five different dimensions of cross-cultural teaching/learning. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, I will review this book by observing its introductory part as a whole and then briefly go through each of the five dimensions of culture's influence on teaching and learning; cognitive, worldview, social, media, and environmental dimension. While these dimensions actually overlap in practical completely different worldview than his own, whether it is consciously explicit or unconsciously implicit (p. 139). The worldview must be taken into consideration both in learning and teaching, as both sides are equally influenced and shaped by one's own worldview. If understood correctly, this dimension could lead a teacher to the point where he starts teaching for a worldview change, relying on God's supernatural grace to shape the hearts and minds of people through prayer and devotion (p. 176).

The social dimension lays out the conversation between roles and relationships within a teaching context, as it takes into account the social status, authority, collectivism and individualism, shame and guilt and other aspects of social relations. With this in mind, this dimension deals with the ways social relations and expectations shape the teaching/learning experience and how a culture influences teaching and learning. The best way to determine the aspects of this dimension is to do initial observation and discussion with the local people in order to avoid creating a relational learning environment that might be disadvantageous to effective teaching and learning experience (p. 178). Even though navigating the social relationships, norms and expectations might pose a challenge for a cross-cultural teacher, positive relationships remain of a foundational value for the effectiveness of teaching and learning in any given context (p. 227).

This brings us to the media dimension, where Ott examines how various instructional modes and media are received and understood in different cultures, as well as how the online education, which is by far most affordable, might be received in diverse contexts. The writer once again calls us into observatory mode and encourages us to find teachers within a given culture that are described by its adherents as effective and then adjust our teaching tools accordingly, in order to give them the best use (p. 256). The special attention is dedicated to the wide use of online learning during the Covid 19 pandemic and the fact that both teachers and learners have become increasingly comfortable in using creative methods of remote learning. Still, even though this mode of education is fairly universal in nature, there is a need for a greater awareness of the cultural challenges as we strive to maximize its potential, having in mind its accessibility, affordability and the final outcome (p. 277).

The final chapter of the book faces the most obvious aspect of how a culture might influence teaching and learning, the environmental dimension. This dimension, its physical, institutional and societal aspects, is something over which a teacher has very little control. One is immediately exposed to the environment of the location, even before he starts teaching in it; classroom, resources, living conditions and climate (p. 280). Even the ideas, being good or bad, may go unnoticed and ignored depending on culture, all accompanied by polite nods of agreement. No shortcuts in this, Ott concludes, building a team, appreciating the positive, giving and earning respect, being patient, demonstrating a commitment to the process and institution; it all takes time and it is evidenced in sincere love for the people of God (p. 297).

One side note can be made here as we conclude; the way the book is structured is a bit of a drawback to a reader and I would personally appreciate a clearer, outlined approach to it. Still, the content of it is a magnificent work and it is a clear call to better contextualization, but not as a way of compromising the truth, as some might assume, but rather as an invite to a greater biblical faithfulness. Fairly, even the writer himself warns the readers not to approach this book as a set of formulas and checklists for teaching learners in a specific context, but to seek to draw a set of tools from it, that can be later adapted to a variety of cultures and contexts (p. 25).

In this regard, the book Teaching and Learning Across Cultures, A Guide to Theory and Practice should be regarded as a textbook for any study of cross-cultural Christianity and surely as a reference point, given the extensive bibliography behind it, to any academic researcher who wishes to approach this complex subject with scrutiny, as one strives to understand how God of all nations works his way individually in each one of us.