Week 3

Task 3

Write in your blog your personal reflection about the development of ICC in foreign language education.

Do you think ICC is an essential component of learning an L2?

Do you think it is possible to assess students' intercultural competence objectively?

What have you learnt from observing some case studies?

Is there any specific online intercultural exchanges or activities you would like to implement in your teaching practice?

Looking at cultural theory from Byram, Kramsch, Kim, Malinowski to name but a few,

the phenomena of intercultural sensitivity and intercultural competence have become hot topics in language learning over the past years. Hammer, Bennett and Wiseman all claim that the effectiveness in a non-native culture is dependent upon one's interest in it, ability to notice nuances and willingness to adapt to new behavioural patterns thereby displaying respect to the host-culture.

L2 learners are difficult to motivate when they have no interest in the new culture. Some exchange students are fascinated by the host culture, like me when I was on Erasmus in Berlin, I kept a distance from other Irish people and fully immersed myself in the local culture. The students that are interested in the target culture, usually acquire the necessary language at a fast pace, as they see language and culture as connected and interchangeable.

Regarding SLA, could intercultural sensitivity actually overtake learning ability? Bennett's developmental model of intercultural sensitivity charts the structural changes in cultural sensitivity and not changes in attitudes and behaviour.

Having studied other languages, I believe that ICC has a huge impact on L2 learning. Looking at Schumann and his acculturation model, the reason that his case study Alberto's English did not improve, was due to the fact that he did not integrate into the English speaking society. His lack of acculturation to the target language group is why his English did not improve. He was not motivated to immerse himself in the new language or culture.

Could teaching ICC help to motivate students? I think so. Students could find some cultural aspects interesting and this could give them the push to improve their language skills and visit the country that the language is spoken in.

The European Centre for modern languages suggest that self-evaluation reports and journals be incorporated into language classrooms in order to assess ICC. But how?

It is very difficult to assess culture as it is unique to everyone. It is subjective.

http://archive.ecml.at/mtp2/publications/B1_ICCin TE_E_internet.pdf

Chappelle asks how we should incorporate ICC into the classroom and I wonder the very same thing. Firstly the task assigned needs to be fit for purpose and yield the desired outcome. Will it be private or collaborative?

As Fantini once said, the success of a project is based on the motivation, self-esteem, clear sense of the self and open-mindedness. In the case studies we looked at, the American and Italian universities project did not success due to limited forum participation, but the Soliya project, worked better and some of the participants stayed in touch afterwards.

But what really defines a culture is the hidden aspects that we only become aware of when we spend a longer period of time in the country, taking into account, interactions, customs and other sociolinguistic factors. Personally I can identify with Kramsch's third place phenomenon but I find it hard to relate to Bennett's model of intercultural sensitivity.

Do we really need to understand the culture to say that we are proficient in the language? It certainly doesn't hurt. The below explanation resonates with me and made me question the way I teach and can implement ICC into my classes.

“ When teaching intercultural communicative competence, teacher need to teach both the local and international cultures. Teachers and native speakers of English need to be aware of and respect nonnative speakers' different ways of communicating. Nowadays language teachers focus less on mimicking the culture and communication protocols of native speakers of English, unless the goals of interaction require it. The goal of ELT is not to produce language learners who can use English as a lingua franca in a way that reflects their local language and culture.”

http://blog.tesol.org/what-is-intercultural-communicative-competence/

References

Bennett, M.J (1993) 'Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity' in Paige, M.R., ed. Education for the intercultural experience, Yarmouth: Intercultural Press, 21-71.

Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Chapelle, C. (2001) Computer applications in second language acquisition: Foundations for teaching, testing and research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapelle, C. (2003) English language learning and technology: Lectures on teaching and research in the age of information and communication, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.

Fantini, A.E. (2009) ' Assessing intercultural competence' in Deardorff, D. K., ed. The SAGE handbook of intercultural competence, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 456-476

Kramsch, C. (1995) ' The cultural component of language teaching', Language, Culture and Curriculum, 8(2), 83-92.