What are the key elements of international-mindedness mean?

International-mindedness comes from within and how we look at things with a positive and open mind.  

Not everyone is alike, yet  our thoughts vary in perception due to cultural influen-ce, attitude, knowledge, interpersonal intelligence, experience in life, intellectual humility  and language.

国际情怀的关键要素是什么？

国际情怀需要我们发自内心地以积极、开放的心态看待事物。

在我们生活中，受文化、态度、知识、人际智慧、生活经历、智识谦卑和语言等因素的影响，每个人都是独一无二的，因此我们的思想在认知上会有所不同。

What did you think about the key elements of international-mindedness?

As a person, I know who I am.  Experiences in  life  I  saw  since  at  a  young  age  has  shaped  my attitude towards  life,  culture,  values,  practices,  belief,  perseverance,  with the knowledge through interpersonal experiences and empathy.

您如何看待国际情怀的关键要素？

作为一个独立的个体，我知道我是谁。从小到大的生活经历塑造了我对生活、文化、价值观、实践、信念、毅力的态度，以及通过人际交往经验和同理心获得的知识。

How do you experience  those elements of  international-mindedness  inside   and  out-side the classroom?

Fixed mindset versus growth mindset.  It all has got to do with the individual attitude towards embracing knowledge.

What do I mean by that?  I have been in the education industry since 1985. The teaching methods and approaches were teacher-centred.  I needed a change and  bravely  ventured from my comfort zone and became an overseas teacher.  

I quickly  learnt  my  students were  multi-nationals and Chinese students with non-  Chinese passports.  The first thing I did was to read up on the dos and don’t about the culture, in addition to  greetings and farewells. I soon developed their trust. 

I had parents  curious about  their  child’s  ability to understand English. I broke the  barrier  and  invited  them to  sit  in  while I  taught the whole class.  

I  made  an  open-door  policy for  all  my parents. My former students were initially  nervous,  as time  went by,  they l oved it.   That happened inside the classroom.  

Outside the classroom I had interested  parents volunteer joined in their child’s  research field trip to a  Chinese museum  about the first traditional or ancient  Chinese calculator.

您觉得国际情怀的要素如何在课堂内外体现？

国际情怀在课堂内外的体现需要固定思维与成长型思维相结合。而这都与个人的学习态度有关。

1985年，即在我初入教育行业时，当时的教育方法是以教师为中心。我需要一个改变，所以我勇敢地踏出了舒适区，成为了一名国际老师。

很快，我了解到大部分学生是国际学生和持有海外护照的中国学生。面对这样的学生群体，为了避免不必要的误会，我除了学习简单的问候和告别，还迅速查阅了关于文化差异的书籍和文章等。没过多久，我们就建立了信任。

我的家长群体对孩子们的英语能力尤为关注。因此，我打破了障碍，并邀请了他们到校体验课程。

我对所有的家长都实行“开门政策”，愿意随时听取他们的建议。一开始，学生们都十分地紧张，但随着时间地推移，他们慢慢地融入了课堂的氛围，并开始喜欢这种课程状态——这都是在课堂内发生的。

在课堂外，我邀请了一些感兴趣的家长自愿加入学生队伍中，让他们一起去中国博物馆实地考察，一起了解中国古代的第一台计算器。

Please share with us your experience - What were the challenges and successes of implementing international-minded-ness?

The challenges I experienced were many which I’ll share the two most prominent groups: Adults and children.

Adults are less adventurous and dislike change from the norm. The adult may question endlessly until either party is exhausted with ideas to challenge the new norm. Why? They feel threatened, a norm is less stressful because they know from experience or experiences. 

Children however are more receiving in knowledge and have an open mind. They look at the good side in everything with the new information, knowledge, experiences to explore, discover and learn. I mean like festivities or practices other than their own. What more in education approach or methods like IB for instance.

请与我们分享您的经验——实施国际情怀的挑战和成功之处分别是什么？

我所经历的挑战非常多，在此我将分享两个最突出的群体：成年人和儿童。

成年人不太喜欢冒险，不喜欢改变常态。他们可能会没完没了地提出质疑，直到任何一方厌倦了挑战新常规。这是为什么呢？因为成年人感到新事物带来的威胁，固定的常态由于经验的累积让成年人感到更舒适也更少压力。

然而，儿童接受知识的能力更强，思想更开放。他们用新的信息、知识、经验去探索、发现和学习事物的好的一面，比如除了他们文化以外的节日庆典或习惯作法。实际上，实施国际情怀更重要的是教育方法，比如IB课程体系。

In what ways will BKIK will support multilingualism, intercultural understand-ing and global engagement, and what is your role?

Multilingualism and intercultural   

Let's expose our learners to songs from around the globe that represent the foreign teachers in BKIK, played during arrival.

Encourage parents to volunteer at school for a story or reading time with stories and games from around the globe such as during the transdisciplinary unit Where We Are In Place and Time.  Baking experience with foreign parents during the festive week. Parents volunteers to bake international cakes or food, play games and dress up in traditional costumes during International Day week. 

BKIK will then hold a week of inquiry and learning engagement on the country each class represents. A whole lot of knowledge we can learn from our students from their curiosity of the representing country. A week to teach a new language and learn to have simple interactions.

Our learner could explore with a mock passport, travelling from one country to the next just by walking, about the culture, attire, language, games and food.

Global Engagement 

As a global engagement, BKIK could engage with overseas IB kindergarten for Show and Tell.  By exposing our learners to other nationalities with their culture, traditions and language, we generate interest or perhaps enthusiasm in our learners to discover and learn more about the language.

My role in all these is definitely as a teacher-researcher, where my strength is because of interest.  I discovered this while I wrote my dissertation during my undergraduate days.

BKIK将以何种方式支持多种语言、跨文化理解和全球参与，您的角色是什么？

多语言和跨文化

在幼儿返校时，我们会播放由BKIK的外籍教师推荐的来自世界各地的歌曲，让幼儿通过不同语言的音乐，接触多语言的校园氛围。

同时，我们也鼓励家长在“我们身处什么时空”的超学科单元中，作为志愿者入园给孩子们读故事及玩游戏。如：在国际日期间，家长们自愿制作具有异国风格的点心或食物，穿上中国的传统服装，并参与到幼儿的游戏当中。

与此同时，BKIK将对每个班所代表的国家进行为期一周的探究和学习活动。学生可以在这一周里了解到不同国家的语言及文化。

我们的学习者可以通过玩模拟护照游戏进行探究，只需步行即可从一个国家旅行到另一个国家，从而了解文化、服装、语言、游戏和食物。

全球参与

作为一项全球参与的内容，BKIK可以与海外IB幼儿园交流，进行展示和讲述。通过让我们的学习者接触其他国家的文化、传统和语言，我们可以激发学习者对发现和学习更多语言的兴趣或热情。

我在这一切中的角色肯定是作为一名教师兼研究人员，我的优势在于兴趣，这是我在大学期间写论文时发现的。

One of the main tensions in the cultivation of IM is the threat of losing cultural diversity and national identity (Poonoosamy, 2016, 2018). What is your perspective on having “local features” and international-mindedness co-exist?

Never feel ashamed wearing one traditional costume, for it is an identity.  Not old fashion but renew a new generation of well-learnt citizens who are proud of their roots, culture, values, morals, language and history.  All these are knowledge. Only the ignorants are set to lose out.

在国际情怀的培育过程中，主要的张力是文化多样性和民族独特性的差异难以共存。您对“地方特色”和国际情怀共存的看法是什么呢？

我的看法是永远不要为穿着一件传统服饰而感到羞愧，因为这是一种身份认同。这并不过时，且能让新一代学识渊博的公民焕然一新，这些公民为自己的根源、文化、价值观、道德、语言和历史感到自豪。所有的这一切都是知识，只有无知者才会认为这是一种失败的元素。

What methods teachers have used/will use to develop the understanding of this concept in the classroom at BKIK?

Stories, field trips, pictures, books, video clips, realia, costumes for roleplay or festivals are a great way to get learners curious with loads of questions.  Explore from the learner's curiosity and the adults will be wowed with their ideas and suggestions.

在BKIK的课堂上，教师已经/将使用什么方法来加深学生对这一概念的理解？

讲述故事、实地考察、展示图片、阅读书籍、观看视频、分析现状、角色扮演或穿着节日服装都是能让学习者对大量问题感到好奇的好方法。从学习者的好奇心中探索，成年人将被他们的想法和建议所震撼。

What is your suggestion to our parents to help our students' development of international-mindedness outside the classroom?

If it is not for the pandemic, I strongly sugg-est an overseas study tour for a month where their child attends the host country kindergarten.  However, parents can do a simple act by exposing their children to more educational programmes such as CBeebies, to  English movies, watching a play at theatres or the library,  listening to English radio stations,  playdates with English speaking  class-mates or schoolmates, the list is end-  less.  

One area I  believe strongly, one parent one language.  I witnessed the leapt of improvements with learners whose parents took the advice and persistently refrained from their native language with the child.  Within three months, the child was interacting between  five to nine words in a sentence in English.

My former  five-year-old  German student  with a Chinese mother could only converse his mother tongue but not a single English  nor German to his father.  His father took   my advice and interacted with his son daily through video chat in English. I partnered his son with a con-fident bilingual learner in Chinese and English.  

Within ten weeks, his son spoke between five to six English words in a sentence.  I still remember his father's expression, ‘We can now have a civilized English conversation’.  

In another experience, a three-year-old Portuguese boy had zero English.  Parents took my advice.  Within three months, he showed his ability and translated my English con-versation with his parents into Portuguese.

您对家长们有什么建议，来帮助我们的学生在课堂外培养国际情怀？

如果不是受疫情影响，我强烈建议家长们让孩子进行为期一个月的海外学习体验，让他们感受不同的文化学习氛围。

但是，家长也可以做一件简单的事情，让孩子接触更多的教育活动，比如观看CBeebies和英语电影，在剧院或图书馆看戏、听英语广播电台、与讲英语的同学玩耍及互动等。

有一点我坚信，家长坚持说英语对孩子的英语学习发展有积极影响。如果家长会说英语，可以坚持和孩子说英语，我见证了一个家庭使用此方法，在三个月内，这个家庭的孩子可以用五到九个单词拼成句子开展互动。

我以前的一个五岁的德国学生，他的母亲是中国人，而他只会和父亲说中文，不能用简单的英文和德语和父亲交流。但是他的父亲接受了我的建议，每天通过视频聊天用英语与儿子互动。我和这名学生搭档，引导他成为一名自信的中英文双语学习者。

在十周内，这名学生能使用五到六个英语单词拼成句子开展互动。我还记得他父亲的话，“我们现在可以进行英语对话了”。

在另一次经历中，一个三岁的葡萄牙男孩不会英语，他的父母接受了我的建议。三个月内，他展示了自己的能力，把我和他父母的英语对话翻译成了葡萄牙语。