‘Blocks’ and threads’: Chinese students’ constructions of ‘culture’ in their reflections on ‘critical incidents’ experienced during a short-term study abroad programme in the UK

This article thematically analyses 65 written reflections on ‘British’ culture by Chinese science and engineering students on a short course on intercultural communication at a UK university. Teaching centred on a ‘critical incidents’ approach (Brislin, 1986), Gibbs’s 1998 (2013) ‘cycle of reflection’ and Holliday’s (2016) non-essentialist concept of cultural ‘blocks’ and ‘threads’. Student reflections evidence ‘block’ thinking, arguably inherent in ‘critical incidents’, yet some present promising ‘threads’. The study contributes to an understanding of student outcomes of short-term study abroad and advances non-essentialist pedagogies in intercultural competence.

本文主題分析了中國理工科學生在英國大學跨文化交際短期課程中對‘英國’文化的 65 篇書面反思。教學以‘關鍵事件’方法（布里斯林，1986 年）、吉布斯 1998 年（2013 年）的‘反思週期’和霍利迪（2016 年）的文化‘障礙’ 和‘線程’ 的非本質主義概念為中心 。學生的反思證據‘阻礙’了思考，可以說是‘關鍵事件’中固有的，但有些人提出了有希望的‘線索’。該研究有助於了解短期出國留學的學生成果，並推進跨文化能力的非本質主義教學法。