Classroom enactment. This section examines the individual approaches taken by the participants to address internationalisation of the curriculum at the level of their

classroom activities. While participants seemed to share several themes at the level of interpreting internationalisation of the curriculum, their classroom enactment was slightly more diversified and closely associated with a given course, individual teaching styles and preferences. The themes generated for this analysis therefore run the risk of overlooking these subtle differences for the purposes of producing a more generalised understanding.

5.2.4.1 Addressing learning diversities. A typical Israeli college classroom would have a very diverse group of learners in terms of ethnicity, religion, age and academic background. When asked about how they introduce internationalisation of the curriculum at the level of the classroom, a need to address cultural and learning diversities was one of the key themes which emerged. As Joanna noted:

[A] curriculum that is appropriate for different peoples, different languages, ethnic groups, cultural groups, and students with different learning abilities and coming from different backgrounds…I think we're already teaching in that direction because we have students from Russia, Ethiopia, Latin America,

students with learning disabilities, students are first generation students in their families. We have a globalised population because of the variety of students who are coming to study here and the different levels students come here with, specifically with respect to English language. (My emphasis)

In practice, what this means for Joanna is that there’s no one single way to teach and that “if there are 15 people in the room, there are 15 different ways for them to learn”. Joanna claims that she doesn’t think the content is so important but rather the teaching tools which make it accessible to everyone and “finding what helps each person to learn”. Similarly, Hanna expresses her heightened awareness toward learning differences that affect her pedagogical approaches, with a focus on the different mother-tongues students have and how this may affect their capacity to grasp basic linguistic components in English:

For example, if you take a raw beginner’s course, if you take a native speaker of Russian, they don't have the verb ‘to be’. But if you take someone with a Latin language, they have it so they will pick up the concept of ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ much more quickly than a Hebrew or Russian speaker. If we have Arabic speakers it all depends on their background, it may be a third or fourth language for them. They come with their own native language limitations or capabilities so these things would have to be taken into account. (My emphasis)

Jonah further expands this view, when he focuses on the unique needs of the Bedouin

students. After having taught English courses which were developed specifically for them, he offers some of the classroom challenges he has been facing, as well as some critical insights:

So I took them on when in the Pavlovian sense they have already acquired some belief systems, and ways of approaching a text, which are not very conducive to what

they were doing. Like for instance, their dependence on Google Translate. Like their belief for instance, that everything had to be translated into Hebrew, not even Arabic.

Jonah is very critical towards the pedagogies formerly employed by others when teaching Bedouin students, stressing the lack of sensitivity towards some of their very basic learning needs and obvious learning differences, when compared to the Hebrew-speaking student population. His unique pedagogical approach was also successful in encouraging the Bedouin students to openly talk about their needs and suggest that some changes will be introduced not just at the classroom level, but also at the level of assessment:

I had a student just yesterday who asked me ‘could you make sure that in the exam there are more open questions rather than multiple choice, because the multiple-choice questions are making us fail’. It’s that trickiness inside multiple multiple-choice

questions where some of the answers are actually answering a different question than the one being posed. That’s difficult for them. The answer is right because its written in the text but it’s not answering what was asked in the question.

It was interesting that was important for Jonah to highlight to me that even though he made many teaching adaptations in this case, the learning outcomes of the students were not compromised. He notes the “beautiful presentations” his students delivered and took great pride in one particular student who got a perfect score: “One of them got 100, I could not NOT give a 100. She did it by herself. It was just perfect, you know”.

Jonah however, does not associate this kind of work with internationalisation of the curriculum. He understands internationalisation as a more superficial practice, which focuses mainly on administrative adjustments, and contemplates about its’ relevance to what he does in class:

So again, in terms of internationalisation and things like that. Going back to the topic now – it’s a different population so I don’t know if there’s a way to take it into account, into the internationalisation of the syllabus. Can you take into account if you’re teaching a different population? Can you do things differently?

This sense of uncertainty expressed by Jonah may point to a more general limitation which was imposed at the institutional level, interpreting internationalisation of the curriculum for the faculty mainly as English medium instruction and alignment with the ECTS (See section 3.7). Ironically, teachers who are actually thinking and doing far beyond this interpretative scope are uncertain whether it ‘qualifies’ as internationalisation. From a process perspective, it is important to communicate the richness and degrees of freedom encouraged by the concept of internationalisation of the curriculum and invite teachers’ rich teaching experiences to shape the discussions around it.

5.2.4.2 Addressing cultural diversities. Closely related to the theme of addressing learning diversities was teachers’ need to address cultural diversities in the classroom. These two themes were sometimes difficult to separate because in some cases, the learning diversity resulted directly from differences in cultural or ethnic backgrounds. In both cases, however, language classes were considered by the English teachers as a viable site where different kinds of diversities should be considered and where they have a central role to play. The following quote by Irene illustrate how different cultural backgrounds of individual students can become a topic of discussion and take up the space of a language lesson in addition to, or sometimes instead of, the planned curriculum:

[F]or example IQ, the IQ text – one Ethiopian student said how that test judged her as opposed to a Russian as opposed to someone from a different background, and I think that’s fascinating, and students are interested. We talked about names, we talked about cultures, and I think there’s a lot to learn and I think that they’re so different.

For Irene, inviting students’ personal background and attributes as a topic worthy of

discussion in an academic environment not only enriches the scope of classroom discussion, but also gets students involved and engaged on a personal level. Similarly, Hannah shares the results of her experiences when facilitating a discussion around cultural diversity, using the personal perspectives of the students:

People express themselves and the others respect it. I've had classrooms where I had Haredi, observant , secular Jews, Arab students, Bedouins, Druze, young, old – like seven or eight different sectors in one group, and the result was a lot of FUN, a lot of SHARING, a lot of them saying to each other: ‘in our case../with us it works like this’ and the others smile or laugh or say ‘how nice’ or ‘how interesting’ or ‘why should you’ or ‘why shouldn't you’ and ‘what's wrong if…’ . A lot of open discussion while the tensions are left outside.

Hannah’s quote adds an important insight; tensions which would typically characterise dynamics in Israeli society at large can serve as a source for lively and eye-opening

discussions in the space of the classroom. Both Irene’s and Hannah’s quotes illustrate, on a small scale, the potential that internationalisation of the curriculum can have as an agent for change in a country with many social tensions. Internationalisation can prove highly effective because it provides a platform through which deeply ingrained sensitivities can be challenged and eventually softened (Marantz Gal, 2016).

Although this potential is readily recognised by the language teachers, they also share their frustration around its’ feasibility and are sometimes critical towards some of the

learning arrangements which might hinder a productive intercultural dialogue. As Debora notes:

I do have a few Bedouins in my Advanced B course this semester, who chose to study in the regular course, and as much as I try to include them and engage them I feel like

it's really hard for me, I don't know. Not a word is spoken from them unless I force it out of them, but I guess it's two-way street, they have to have some initiative too, and it goes back to the culture.

Debora feels unsure about how to address this at the level of the classroom, claiming that some of the students, Bedouins in particular, do not feel comfortable taking part in such activities. She also implies however, that this may have to do with the learning arrangements prescribed at the department or institutional level, claiming that “if the class was completely mixed then there would be more of that for sure, between everyone, and even putting partners together, it would be wonderful”. Irene is also critical towards the separate learning

arrangements for the Bedouin students and says:

But they’re not mixed. I mean there’s a Bedouin programme. I taught a Bedouin group this summer and I had at least one who said – I don’t want to be in the Bedouin group anymore, I want to go the regular group. I think he felt that it was a different … something, or maybe he didn’t want the influence of everyone speaking Arabic around him.

Irene adds an additional complication when considering learning and cultural diversities.

Since cultural background is a strong impact factor for language learning, it makes sense to separate learners by cultural groups in order to address their unique learning needs. At the same time however, this practice excludes them from participating in an intercultural exchange, which can serve to impede their sense of inclusion on campus and later on, as citizens who are required to operate in a complex social fabric. This points to a need to adopt a more comprehensive approach toward internationalisation of the curriculum – teachers’

motivation to invite intercultural diversity as a topical element of their curriculum, while leveraging the students’ personal engagement, may arrive at a dead end if not sufficiently supported at an institutional level.

5.2.4.3 The teacher’s responsibility to cultivate worldliness. The study participants expressed the belief that they have the responsibility to cultivate a sense of worldliness among their students if they are expected to function in a globalised, professional and academic environment. Worldliness is depicted as an eye-opening experience to the ‘world out there’ in terms of knowledge, current events and behavioral codes. English lessons are seen as an opportunity to engage in the ‘world out there’, in terms of both language and knowledge, and this engagement with worldliness is sometimes more important than the need to cover the planned classroom materials. As Irene puts it:

But I think worldliness is just a PLUS. And I think that would be my international take, as far as let’s not just stay in the text – I have the computer, I have the internet, let’s see what’s out there also. And I don’t mind taking time off of something else.

Hannah also stresses the fact that even though students are aware of what is out there, teachers have the responsibility to invite this knowledge into the classroom and facilitate engagement with it:

Knowledge – you have to know about, we cannot afford that our younger generation will be centered around their own area. They have to be aware that a world exists outside, and most of them do, the world is such that they do, even if they don't talk about it.

Josh and Debora add to this argument and refer not just to knowledge but to the behavioral modes of conduct students should be made aware of, emphasising the need to prepare them for successful intercultural exchanges through teaching topics such as cultural differences in manners and register. Finally, Irene shares the notion that the teacher experience is

inseparable from the student experience., implying that only a worldly teacher will ultimately be able to create worldly students.

To conclude, this theme demonstrates teachers’ perspectives about their responsibility and potential to shape and educate their students beyond their obvious language teaching obligations. The space of the language course is used by them in different ways to include extra-curricular areas of discussion in terms of both knowledge and behavior across cultures.

5.2.5 Formal curriculum enactment. This section presents the results of the