Bridging the Cultural Gap: Pedagogical Strategies and Challenges in Integrating Torajan Local Culture into Cross-Cultural Understanding Instruction
Abstract
Cross-Cultural Understanding (CCU) courses play a crucial role in developing students' intercultural communicative competence. However, CCU instruction in many Indonesian higher education contexts remains predominantly oriented toward Western cultures, with limited integration of local cultural knowledge as a meaningful pedagogical resource. This study explores the pedagogical strategies employed in integrating Torajan local culture into CCU instruction and examines the challenges encountered during its implementation. Employing a qualitative case study design, the research involved one CCU lecturer and undergraduate students enrolled in an English Education program at a private university in Indonesia. Data were collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and document analysis, and were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal five major pedagogical strategies: contextual storytelling, comparative cultural discussions, project-based cultural exploration, reflective learning, and collaborative intercultural dialogue. These strategies enabled students to critically connect their local cultural identity with global cultural perspectives, fostering intercultural awareness, cultural confidence, and active classroom engagement. Nevertheless, the implementation faced several challenges, including students' limited English proficiency in expressing culturally specific concepts, the scarcity of culture-based instructional materials, time constraints, and the complexity of translating indigenous cultural values into intercultural learning contexts. The study argues that integrating Torajan local culture transforms CCU learning from knowledge transmission into a culturally responsive and dialogic learning process that strengthens students' intercultural communicative competence while preserving local cultural identity. The findings provide practical insights for English language educators and curriculum developers seeking to contextualize intercultural education through indigenous cultural resources in multilingual and multicultural settings.
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