"Developing Intercultural

Communicative Competence
inside and outside the
classroom"
Robert ODowd
Universidad de Len

Your Thoughts:

How does culture

appear in your
foreign language
classes?
What do you
understand by the
terms intercultural
learning and
intercultural
communicative
competence?

How does Culture emerge

in the
FL Classroom?
Rules of interaction / issues of
politeness and directness

Declarative and
Procedural knowledge
about the
target culture

Culture

Connotations of words/
Expressions / proverbs

How Values
and beliefs
influence
interpretatio
ns
of behaviour

What does Culture Studies

usually involve in Language
Teaching?

information about political structures,

regional or economic policy or the
history of changing national boundaries
might be useful background knowledge,
but it is essentially book-based
information, usually presented as facts in
an unproblematic way and abstracted
from the everydayness of peoples
ordinary lives (Roberts et al. 2001:42).

FL Textbooks on the other

extreme?

The content of EFL textbooks

assumes a materialistic set of values in
which international travel, not being
bored, positively being entertained,
having leisure, and above all spending
money casually in the pursuit of these
ends, are the norm (Brown, 1990:13)

Look at the examples

Are your textbooks similar?

Moving from facts to

attitudes?

Students need much more than positive

attitudes towards the foreign culture
because...
Attitudes which are the pre-condition
for successful intercultural interaction
need to be not simply positive, since
even positive prejudice can hinder
mutual understanding (Byram,
1997:34).

Key Aspects of
Intercultural Learning
(1)
Critical Cultural Understanding:

All behaviour is grounded in a

particular cultural context
Therefore, students need to
understand how the products
and practices of the target
culture are viewed through
that cultures own perspective
(Empathy)
Knowledge of C2 behaviour
does not lead to imitation but
rather comparison with C1
and reflection

Are we deep down all the

same?

There is much apparent uniformity in

human social life. But these similarities mask
an underlying diversity; in a given situation
one cannot assume that the behaviour of two
individuals physical acts with the same
form have the same meaning for the two
individuals (Fischer, 1997:126).
Sonya from England:
In the shops I saw a lot of teapots and boxes of tea.
Tea is like a national institution over here. If we have
a problem, the first thing we usually do is have a cup
of tea. We believe that tea can solve all our problems
and that afterwards we will feel much better.

Essen, Germany North

Carolina, 2001

How do you react when you read this e-mail?

What questions could you ask this girl to better
understand her cultural background?
I guess I'll just tell you about myself. I've grown up in
Simpsonville, SC. It's a small town, but it's fairly close
to a lot of big cities. I love it. It was a lot of fun growing
up. I ran track and cross country through my middle
and high school years and year at Bowling Green State
University before transfering to Clemson. I work for an
East Coast Hockey League team called the Greenville
Grrrowl. I work in media relation and public relations. I
love it. I'm in my third season working for the team and
I hope to get hired on full time after I graduate. I have
a boyfriend that I've been dating for a year and 6
months. We met at church. We hope to get married
next December.

How a student learned from

this...

Somebody else in class wondered how she

could have met her boyfriend in church,
something that here in Germany probably
would not happen any more, and I got to know
that church in America is obviously something
different than here (and that she therefore
must not be a shy, tradional American girl).
The point is that she simply has a culturally
different background to me, and this cultural
background of hers might throw a different
light on the other things she said.

Key Aspects of
Intercultural Learning
(2)

Cultural self-awareness: Students become aware

of how their own culture influences the way they
see things
A move away from one nation = one culture.
Emphasis on variety within cultures
Skills of discovery knowing how to discover
cultural information
Skills of interpreting documents: What meaning
does a film/a piece of behaviour/a tradition have
for members of the target culture?
Understanding of the link between language and
culture.

Attitudes of curiosity and

openness

Knowledge of products
and practices

Intercultural Communicative Competence

Byram (1997)

Skills of interpreting and

relating documents

Skills of discovery and

interaction
Critical Cultural
Awareness

Criticisms and Issues in

ICC

The dangers of equating the concepts of culture

and nation (Ignoring issues of nation-internal
diversity)

How relevant are the conventions of British

politeness or American informality to the Japanese
and Turks, say, when doing business in English?
How relevant are such culturally-laden discourse
samples as British railway timetables or American
newspaper adverts to industrial engineers from
Romania and Egypt conducting technical research
in English? (Alptekin, 2002: 61)

Criticisms and Issues in

ICC

What should be the outcomes of students

intercultural exchanges?

Using diplomacy for the purpose of maintaining a

dialogue of cultures in the spirit of peace and
mutual understanding; redirecting a discussion to a
more neutral topic; dissimulation of personal views
to avoid potential conflict (Savignon and Sysoyev,
2002: 513)

Byram e.g. of men kissing each other on the

cheeks The ability of a successful
intercultural speaker is to find a modus
viviendi satisfactory to themselves and their
interlocutors (1997: 94)

Back to the classroom

What consequences will the

move from traditional culture
studies (i.e. culture learning
which involves facts, figures and
fiestas) to intercultural
language learning have for the
language classroom?

Consequences (1)

Move from Teacher to Student centred

activities. Necessary to focus on
learners own culture, their interests,
motivation and cultural perspectives.
Culture learning no longer simply an
intellectual activity (learning by
heart). Necessary to introduce
activities / project work which enables
learners to develop skills of discovery
and interpretation etc.

Consequences (2)

From the culture to cultures: No

longer appropriate to talk about
British culture, American culture.
Students need to be aware of different
sub-cultures, regional cultures etc.
which reside within one nation.
From knowledge about target culture
to cultural comparison and reflection
on students own culture.

Materials and Activities for

Developing ICC

Coursebooks frequently focus on the teenage

experience of relationships and familiy lifeSuch
material tends to assume and emphasise the
universality of such experiences in Western
societyWe chose instead to aspects of everyday
life which might highlight its significance to young
people in France
Audio and video recordings, interviews and
discussion with native speakers, articles and
authentic documents, statistical information and
short literary extracts(Duffy and Mayes, 2000:
99)

Some Examples of
Materials and Activities

Film from the target culture

Cultural rich points / culture clash

Identifying both perspectives

Role playing the different perspectives

Statistical information
Face-to-face Tandem

Cultural Translations
Creative writing
Language and dialect

Comparative use of language

Ethnographic interviewing

Spradley on Ethnography
(1979:6)

we do not eliminate an interest in

behavior, customs, objects, or emotions.
We have merely shifted the emphasis from
these phenomena to their meaning. The
ethnographer observes behavior, but goes
beyond it to inquire about the meaning of
that behavior. The ethnographer sees
artifacts and natural objects but goes
beyond them to discover what meanings
people assign to these objects.

The English are cold

and unfriendly

An English student explains:

Comparing the English and the Spanish, the Spanish are not afraid
to express their feelings, unlike the English are. And that could seem
like arrogance to many foreigners. But, this is only because it is part
of their culture to protect their privacy in a way which may seem
quite closed to others. The majority of the English own the house in
which they live. There is a very strong sense of privacy, and owning
ones house means more intimacy and privacy. I relate this to the
climate which doesnt allow people to stay out on the street or in
other public places for a long time. For this reason people in the
street never talk to each other because if they are there, it is
because they are doing something in particular. They are not going
for a walk in order to pass the time and see if they meet someone
they know in order to have a chat.

Ethnographic Interviewing
in FL Education

Tool for the development of intercultural

communicative competence (Byram, 1997)

Skill of discovery symbolic meaning of cultural

behaviour
Awareness that ones own cultural
interpretations are not the norm

Ethnography has been used

Students investigating the target culture on year

abroad (Byram 1999; Roberts et. al. 2001)
Students investigating members of the target
culture living in the students home culture
(Batemann 2002, Robinson and Nocon 1996)

Lack of access to members

of the target culture?

Where fieldwork opportunities and the

possibility of participant observation are
not availableone option is ethnographic
interviewingThis could be carried out
at a distance through telematic channels
such as videoconferencingThe affective
engagement with others in such
intercultural experience will doubtless be
different from that in the field but may
also be valuable and valid (Roberts,
Byram, Barro, Jordan and Street 2001).

Characteristics of
Ethnographic Interviewing

Ethnographic interviewing is a research tool

which also has as its aim the understanding of
the meaning of actions and events to the people
we seek to understand (Spradley 1979: 5)
Periods of extended contact with informants
Creative listening following up on informants
answers
Expressing interest in what informant says
Types of questions:
Descriptive questions
Structural questions
Contrast questions

Stages of Ethnographic
Research
Participant Observation
Making field notes
Reflection and writing up field notes
Interviewing
Interpretation of interviews
Writing up the ethnography
(Ethnography? (What) Does it have to do with
Language Education? Nikolina Tsvetkova
and Violeta Karastateva)
http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/elt/forum/ethno.htm

Evaluating ICC

An interview with Michael Byram:

Although I have written about assessment for
the reasons that we all know, i.e. that what isnt
tested isnt taught, nonetheless there are
problematic aspects of assessment and we cant
be sure what the answers are. Particularly
about attitude. Assessing skills is OK, assessing
knowledge is OK, assessing the ability to
evaluate is OK, but not assessing values or
attitudes. Thats where there are problems of a
moral nature, as well as a technical nature.
http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/elt/forum/byrint.htm

Options

European Language Portfolio

Intercultural self-assessment

Autobiography of Intercultural
Encounters

A self-assessment of my Intercultural Experience

A. Interest in other people's way of life
I am interested in other people's experience of daily life, particularly those things not
usually presented to outsiders through the media.
Example:
I am also interested in the daily experience of a variety of social groups within a
society and not only the dominant culture.
Example:
B. Ability to change perspective
I have realised that I can understand other cultures by seeing things from a different
point of view and by looking at my culture from their perspective.
Example:
C. Ability to cope with living in a different culture
I am able to cope with a range of reactions I have to living in a different culture
(euphoria, homesickness, physical and mental discomfort etc)
Example:
D. Knowledge about another country and culture
I know some important facts about living in the other culture and about the country,
state and people.
Example:
I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a
conversation
Example:
E. Knowledge about intercultural communication
I know how to resolve misunderstandings which arise from people's lack of awareness
of the view point of another culture
Example:
I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for
myself
Example:

Council of Europes Autobiography of Intercultural

Encounters

The Autobiography is a document for learners and should

be their property to use as they wish. It guides learners to
think critically about an intercultural experience, i.e. an
encounter with people from another social group. The
group can be of any kind: people from another country,
from another ethnic group, from another religion, from
another region of the same country, from another level or
class or stratum of the same society. The Autobiography is
to be completed in connection with one specific encounter.
(Each encounter needs a new copy of the Autobiography).
The Autobiography consists of a series of questions which
learners answer about the specific encounter, but they only
answer the questions they choose to answer.

Autobiography of
Intercultural Encounters

What happened when you met this person/these people.

Where did it happen? What were you doing there?
Describe how you felt at the time by completing these
sentences?
My feelings or emotions at the time were ..
My thoughts at the time were ..
Imagine yourself in their position. How do you think the
other people felt in the situation at the time? This can be
difficult but try and imagine what they felt at the time.
Happy or upset/stressed, or what? How did you know?
Looking back, if I now compare my ways of seeing it with
other peoples, I can see the following differences .
There may have been things in the experience which
puzzled you and you tried to find out more at the time. If
you did so, how did you do it?
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic%5CAutobiogrWeb_EN.asp

Your turn

In groups, develop or describe an

activity for developing the skills and
attitudes of intercultural
competence for your particular
context.