Developing Intercultural Competence in Practice

Michael Byram, Adam Nichols, David Stevens, Michael Byram, Adam Nichols, David Stevens

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781847699602
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Sociolingüística

It is now widely recognised that learning a language should not just involve linguistic competence but also intercultural competence. It is also clear that intercultural competence can be developed through related subjects such as geography, history, mother tongue teaching. This book takes this as a given and provides practical help for teachers who wish to help their learners acquire intercultural competence in the ordinary classroom. It contains descriptions of lessons and materials from a wide range of classrooms in several countries and for beginners to advanced learners.

Part 1

In the Classroom

Chapter 1

The International Partnership Project

CAROL MORGAN

This chapter describes a project in which children from two countries prepared materials to send to a partner class in another country. They were asked to focus on the topic of ‘law and order’ and what it means for them. The explanations and discussions during the preparation and on receipt of the package reveal a developing intercultural awareness and reflection on their own cultural world as well as learning about others.

Introduction

The ‘effectiveness’ of learning in a foreign language classroom is often seen in terms of the choice of materials which are ‘good’ with respect to their relevance, linguistic level, authenticity, interest and so on, and ‘good’ activities that promote interactivity, autonomy and challenge (Ur, 1996; Swarbrick, 1994). Even where learning is concerned with intercultural awareness, a materials/activities focus still appears to be dominant (Jones, 1995; Tomalin & Stempelski, 1993).

The project which is described in this chapter where students exchanged self-made materials takes a rather different perspective in focusing on the process and experience of decoding a culture. The two main aims of the project which we trialled were:

• to explore a particular cultural focus in depth, using both home and foreign cultures: in other words to provide an ethnographic experience;

• to mirror the interactive or dialogic experience of learning: in other words to learn with and from others.

The Context of the Project

Our project was trialled twice with two different student age-groups: in an Anglo-French partnership with 14-year-olds and in an Anglo-Austrian partnership with 17-year-olds.¹ The detailed description that follows is of the first Anglo-French trial but thoughts from the other projects have also been included where appropriate. The first trial had several factors in its favour:

• as a researcher (and teacher) I had funding to cover time and travel to set up the project and to interview students as well as to observe them;

• the teacher in England who participated had worked with me previously on a Master’s dissertation on cultural awareness teaching (see Braham, 1995); she and the students in her school were already trained and experienced in cultural awareness activities;

• we were able to locate an interested French partnership school relatively easily;

• a researcher in France worked with me during the project and afterwards as a ‘cultural friend’.

(A discussion of how these benefits might be replicated is included in the final section of this chapter.)

Two secondary schools participated in this first trial: one in England and one in France, with one set of students from each school. Both schools were situated in small provincial towns and drew on a largely white middle-class catchment area. Both schools at that time catered for the 11–15/16 age-group and the schools and classes were of mixed ability.

The two age groups chosen were similar: ‘Year 9’ (13–14 year olds) in England and ‘la troisième’ (14–15 year olds) in France. The class of ‘la troisième’ may have enjoyed a slightly superior status, since it is the top year of the ‘collège’ lower secondary system in France. In England, ‘Year 9’ is in the middle of the lower secondary band. The difference in status of the two groups may have had some effect on their attitudes to the project. For example, the French students sometimes appeared more competitive. One pupil enquired: ‘on enverra trois trucs … aux anglais, ou alors, on choisira l’meilleur?’ (shall we send three things to the English pupils or shall we choose the best one? – my translation).

The English students were following the National Curriculum guidelines for Key Stage 3 (ages 11–14) (DfEE, 1995) where teachers monitor linguistic ability according to prescribed levels. Culture awareness, though recommended as a desirable competence, is currently not assessed (see Morgan, 1995). The French students in following the collège teaching and learning guidelines were likewise encouraged to consider cultural aspects but without this being part of any formal assessment.

Each class was asked to prepare a package of materials to send to their partner classroom in the other country. These materials were to explain and illustrate a particular cultural topic (we chose ‘law and order’) in the students’ own country and were to be written in the students’ mother tongue. The same topic was chosen for both sets of students, and the packages were prepared at the same time. In addition ‘help-sheets’ were prepared in the mother tongue of the receiving classroom (i.e. in a foreign language for the sending classroom). These help-sheets highlighted and explained potential difficulties in the package materials, covering both language and culture problems. In this first trial, I produced these help-sheets myself, using the information I gained from interviewing the pupils about their materials. This activity would ideally be undertaken by the teacher in collaboration with the students.

The key features of the project which emerged were as follows:

• the students had to explore their own cultural context;

• they then had to present this cultural information in a format that would be accessible in the receiving classroom;

• each set of students both sent and received a package of materials focused on the same topic; these packages represented two different cultural approaches to the topic and were in different languages;

• students had much greater freedom than usual in a foreign language classroom because they were writing in their own language and choosing their own medium;

• the materials generated were truly authentic in that the communication was between students of roughly the same age, and the language and constructs being used were not ‘filtered’ through institutional media (the textbook or the teacher for example);

• the teacher acted as a facilitator in setting up the project, but did not decide on the content and format of the materials.

The choice of topic (law and order) linked into ideas explored in another project (see Duffy and Mayes, this volume) on how best to explore another culture. In this earlier project a list of twelve key areas was identified in sociology upper secondary syllabuses, including ‘deviance’ with the sub-areas of ‘social order/social control’ and ‘law-enforcement agencies’.

In England the whole Year 9 class participated (27 students). Students worked for a week on preparing materials (two double lessons and one single lesson, three hours in total), and then spent two lessons discussing the package from France a week later. In France I took six students out of three of their normal English lessons (50 minutes each) to help them prepare the materials. Just over two weeks later, the English package was discussed by the whole French class with their teacher and myself and then in separate lesson time (50 minutes) with myself and the six students who had prepared the French package.

In the preparatory sessions and follow-up lessons a variety of linked activities took place and these are described in the appropriate sections below.

Preparing the Materials

Although the materials preparation stage took roughly the same period of time in both classrooms, the situations differed. In the English classroom, this kind of cultural awareness activity was relatively familiar, although students were breaking with their normal National Curriculum timetable. The whole class taking part availed themselves of a wide range of resources. In France for the six students taken out of their class, the activity was unfamiliar and resources were not so easily available.

I was not with the English class during their preparation stage, although I interviewed several students a few days later about what they had done. In France I helped and taught the six students in preparing their package.

In France the preparation stage seemed to divide itself into three different steps: orientation; self-organisation into groups and exploration of ideas and media; and execution of the materials and help-sheets.The whole of the preparation stage was also characterised by a growing awareness and reflexivity.

Orientation

The main orientation activities with the French group took place in the first 50-minute session and here there were three main activities.

Firstly we did an orientation exercise that alerted students to the topic content. We used the five-word (‘cinq mots’) associative technique pioneered by Cain (1990). Students were asked to write down the first five words they thought of linked to the topic of ‘law and order’. The following key words were produced (individual lists are given in Appendix 1:1): police (5), justice(5 ), prison (4), discipline (2 ), legal(2) and single mentions of hierarchy, respect, courts of law, constitution, verdicts, trial, criminals, breaking and entering and chasing(after criminals).

Students were then given the opportunity to explore their own ideas or constructs and to ‘get in the mood’ for what they were going to do (what Cuff and Sharrock call ‘pre-begin...