Monday greetings to you all ka.
Last week, I was on a zoom session as a keynote speaker at 'FRIENDS Thailand National Conference on Internationalization at Home' on the topic of 'Internationalization at Home: a New Normal in the Internationalization', hosted by Mahasarakham University. This is ีืunder a joint cooperative project of ERASMUS with several Thai universities along with those in some Asian countries.
The below is what I'd like to share ka:
1. In case some of you are interested to know what IaH means crafted by Beelen & Jones, 2015, it reads, 'The purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments'. In this meeting, I proposed an extended definition that could fit better in our context, which is 'Our purposeful intention to integrate international and intercultural dimensions into the formal, informal practices/actions with all students in any learning environments, physical and/or virtual across the worlds'.
2. Normally for me, a talk in English takes much longer to prepare. In addition, during this covid period, lots have happened with more to keep up ka. It's great in a way to be kind of forced to read and think a lot more, not only the most updated for the audience, but what could be integrated for further use in the Thai context and hopefully some others in the region.
3. When we emphasize more on Internationalization at Home (IaH), it could be worrying as we must make sure we understand 'internationalization-- IZN'. So I proposed time to ask 'why' again for both IZN and IaH. I also challenged the Thai and overseas participants not to think of 'new normal' but 'new abnormal' (got this term from Khun Tonson, Santitarn Sathirathai). I believe that we must not think of work step by step only anymore when we can make things even more unique to keep pace with the changes of the worlds (e.g. physical, virtual, metaverse.)
4. There were only two who asked questions. One from the Philippines who asked if we should engage support staff in the IaH process. The answer was a 'yes' and it seemed that in his situation, support staff didn't want to when they too could play a key role. Sessions to interact closely with them in some ways should be organized ka.
The second one was from a foreign student in a Thai university who asked if it was ok to ask for mental help. I was so glad she asked ka. In our private chat, she said she was relieved to hear from me that what she felt could happen to others. We need to include mental health support seriously in the universities, in our orientation and discussions with students and the whole university community ka.
5. I graded myself a 'B' because I could have prepared much better to think of 2 things ka: 1) some good stories to go with key topics to make the talk more interesting and powerful. 2) several other related issues as a back-up if there was more time given after the welcome session. I hope I can manage better next time ka.
Happy Monday na ka.
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