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With the end of the Cold War, the world is becoming a global village. Globalization accelerates the cultural exchange between countries and people. Nevertheless, how do people who are unable to go to other countries experience globalization? Under the context of inconvenient geographical locations and unequal distribution of urban and rural resources, how do the pupils of remote elementary schools in Taiwan observe the world, view others, and simultaneously understand themselves? These are the questions that will be answered in this paper. The researcher participated in the observation as a teacher at a rural and remote elementary school in Tainan. Using the ethnography method, this paper explored how international volunteers influence children in the remote village in their self-identification and imagination about the world.
After entering the field, the researcher found that due to a language barrier and cultural differences between international volunteers and children in the remote village, they had to largely rely on the teachers to bridge the gap in order to achieve an effective and interactive exchange. It enabled the researcher to notice the role of teachers and shifted the research focus from the children to the teachers, further exploring how the teachers at the rural and remote elementary school play the role of bridge builders. These teachers communicate with administrators, pupils, and international volunteers. In the face of different obstacles and different cultures, they played multiple roles such as interpreter, coordinator, and communicator. Hence, the researcher proposed the term “cultural catalyst” to illustrate how the teachers ignite the spark of cultural exchange between the pupils and the volunteers. Moreover, they gradually skipped their emphasis on the instrumental purpose of improving the pupils’ English language and rather understood the possibility of cultural exchange without the help of languages. They achieved the effect of mutual comprehension during informal interactions.
The international volunteer exchange program at the rural and remote elementary school brings pupils who have no economic capital for international cultural exchange overseas face to face with globalization. In the process of interaction with other people, the teachers and the students started to imagine the “world,” take a fresh look at “themselves,” and reflect on their self-identification.
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