IC3 Curriculum
This Inter-Cultural Communicative Competence (IC3) curriculum covers five levels of instruction in language, development studies, information technology (IT), and critical thought. From senior-year high school to fourth-year university studies, participants in this curriculum begin with shared IC3 questions concerning development in superpower and subaltern states, alike. They then focus on the study of language through integrated lessons on listening/speaking, writing, and reading skills. Students may use these texts to strengthen their English or Vietnamese language skills. In time, IC3 will expand to include other languages. Since students globally often begin the study of English as a Foreign Languages far earlier and more frequently than U.S. students engage the study of languages other than English, each chapter necessarily reflects different levels of language ability for participants of these respective countries.
As one advances through the curriculum, these development questions recur year-by-year but with greater complexity. Thus as students gain greater fluency in another's language, they return to familiar development concerns, but must post to their colleagues in another land a deeper articulation of their "Best Answer" to shared development challenges.
The ten chapters of each level of study address: Identity, Water and Food Security, Primary and Reproductive Health, Education, Poverty Reduction, Economic Renovation at Home, Regional and Global Trade, Development Partners, Art and Culture, and Globalization. Gender-related questions attach to these development concerns within each chapter and at each level.
The layout of each chapter follows a similar template. Students begin with an IC3 lesson, followed by the appropriate foreign language lesson plan. All students then engage IT and research skills. They jointly look into multilingual library databases. This step is an essential corrective to the typical assumption that the study of development can occur satisfactorily in a dominant language, namely English. IC3, however, posits that the knowledge base of students – whether living in a superpower or subaltern state context – needs another’s corrective. Neil Jamieson writes in Understanding Vietnam, "We must work toward enabling people who use different vocabularies and perceive reality through different models to 'give a credible account of themselves to one another.'" (1995:376)
Moreover, this attention to developing critical skills of online database and book inquiry use is a sensible IT pathway for sustaining and expanding one's community of learning. For example, students in Vietnam's Mekong Delta face the real obstacle of a tropical climate that wears down the durability of hardbound books. Students in more accommodating North American libraries, too, need to realize that some of the most current articles and resources on development are not sitting on easy-to-access library shelves. Rather, they come from diverse languages and lands, and are available through honed IT and database skills.
Furthermore, the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire posited there is no such thing as neutral education in language studies. This learning process teaches us either to affirm the norms of world powers (via a dominant language) or think critically about "just" development choices for all. Thus IC3 presents diverse languages, cultures, and problem-solving pathways as participants work together on shared development questions through virtual classrooms and online lessons. Each student must face the challenge of learning how others label and define problems, concepts, and words. In so doing, they gain a keener articulation of both challenges and pathways for development through their own language.
Furthermore, each chapter at Level I Level and Level II includes a section on TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Beginning with Level III, each chapter includes TOEFL and GRE (Graduate Record Examination) skill building. Although both tests are western "gateways" to higher education, and while Vietnamese students will find useful the English language drills for TOEFL, both North American and Vietnamese students may use productively the logic and critical analysis skill building for the GRE.
Perhaps most importantly, through an IC3 curriculum students may acquire step-by-step the power and vision to communicate inter-culturally. Herein they may sharpen their personal and collective understandings of development problems facing large and small states in today’s globalist milieu. They grapple with online assignments that elicit their working "Best Answer" to shared challenges. They mentor and listen to peer colleagues in a very different cultural, geographic, economic, and political context. They may well gain a sense that cooperation (not competition) can better serve the vision of a sustainable, peaceful, and just future. Returning to Jamieson's insights, "We must recontextualize our own thoughts and feelings and actions." (ibid.)
In so doing, young people of former and present "enemy states" may set a reconciling example for many people today. They may show us "Best Answers" that humanize and embolden our collective sense of "we." They may challenge us all to reconsider our divisive labels and judgments of "us" and "them."
