Intercultural communicative language teaching: influence of teachers’
proficiency on their practices
Elba Ramirez Doctoral Student
ALAA / ALANZ / ALTAANZ 2015 Conference University of South Australia, Australia
01/12/2015
Content
1. New Zealand Aotearoa
2. iCLT Principles
3. Study
4. Preliminary findings
5. Implications
6. Questions
New Zealand Aotearoa
• Super-diversity
http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1320707319/699/5926699.jpg
• Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching (iCLT) (Newton, Yates, Shearn & Nowitzki, 2010)
“New Zealand has more ethnicities than the world has countries”
(Statistics New Zealand, 2013)
• Curriculum for languages
New Zealand Aotearoa
• Super-diversity
http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1320707319/699/5926699.jpg
• Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching (iCLT) (Newton, Yates, Shearn & Nowitzki, 2010)
“New Zealand has more ethnicities than the world has countries”
(Statistics New Zealand, 2013)
• Curriculum for languages
Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching (iCLT)
• A commissioned-report by NZ Ministry of Education in 2010
• An evidence-based framework of six principles for effective teaching
• “The person who learns a language without learning a culture risks becoming a fluent fool” (J. Bennett, M. Bennett, & Allen, 2003, p. 237)
Theories underpinning
• Communicative Language Teaching
• Model of intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997)
• Dynamic view of culture (Liddicoat, 2001)
Culture as practice: exploring self, exploring culture and comparing cultures
• A pathway for developing intercultural competence (Liddicoat, 2003)
iCLT Principles 1. integration of language and culture
2. genuine social interaction
3. exploratory and reflective approach to culture and culture-in-language
4. explicit comparisons and connections
5. diverse learners and learning contexts
6. intercultural communicative competence (Newton, Yates, Shearn, & Nowitzki, 2010)
Challenges
• Lack of preparation (Peiser & Jones, 2013)
• Absence of a commonly understood intercultural teaching methodology (Conway,
Richards, Harvey & Roskvist, 2010)
• Lack of understanding and own development of interculturality (Deardorff, 2009a)
• No language policy
• No minimum level of proficiency (East, 2008)
My study • Research Question:
Do teachers with different levels of proficiency have different practices of intercultural communicative language teaching?
• Participants:
• Methodology and analysis:
Classroom observations, reflections and interviews Data was analysed using the iCLT framework (Newton et al., 2010)
Proficiency
• Selection of participants
– National advisers
– Proficiency test
Beginner Elementary
A1-A2
A
Intermediate Upper Intermediate
B1-B2
B
Advanced C1
C
Proficient C2/+
NS
Chinese French Japanese Spanish
A B C B
B C NS NS
• Classification
iCLT Principles 1. integration of language and culture
2. genuine social interaction
3. exploratory and reflective approach to culture and culture-in-language
4. explicit comparisons and connections
5. diverse learners and learning contexts
6. intercultural communicative competence (Newton, Yates, Shearn, & Nowitzki, 2010)
Results from observations and reflections
Chinese French Japanese Spanish
A B B C C NS B NS
Principle 1: Integrate language and culture
from the beginning
Principle 2: Engage learners in genuine social
interaction
Principle 3: Encourage and develop exploratory and reflective approach to
culture and culture-in-language
Principle 4: Foster explicit comparisons and
connections between languages and cultures
Principle 5: Acknowledge and respond to diverse learners and learning contexts
Principle 6: Emphasise intercultural
communicative competence rather than
native-speaker competence
Preliminary findings • Implicit knowledge about the importance of culture
in learning languages
• A difference between:
- Asian and European languages
- Proficiency levels
Chinese French Japanese Spanish
A B B C NS C B NS
A more intercultural approach
to teaching languages
Language and culture as two
different components
Implications and next steps
• Language proficiency and understanding of the relation between language and culture
• Proficiency and interculturality
• Understanding of interculturality
• Ideas and tools to implement an intercultural approach in their classrooms
• Larger study: 16 participants
References 1. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters.
2. East, M., Chung, H., & Arkinstall, C. (2012). A fair go for all: A contribution to the call for a national languages policy in Aotearoa New Zealand. In New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 18(2), pp. 5-20.
3. Ellis, R. (2005). Instructed second language acquisition: A literature review. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education.
4. Kramsch, C. (2009). Third culture and language education. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), Contemporary applied linguistics. Language teaching and learning (Vol. 1, pp. 233-254). London, England: Continuum.
5. Liddicoat, A. J. (2002). Static and dynamic views of culture and intercultural language acquisition. Babel, 36(3), 4-11.
6. Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/.
7. Newton, J., Yates, E., Shearn, S., & Nowitzki, W. (2010). Intercultural communicative language teaching: Implications for effective teaching and learning - a literature review and an evidence-based framework for effective teaching. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education.
8. Newton, J. (2014). Teaching and learning interculturally: principles to practice and back again. Keynote address at the NZALT (New Zealand Association of Language Teachers) 40th Anniversary Conference. Palmerston North, New Zealand, 6 - 9 July 2014.
9. Peiser, G., & Jones, M. (2014). The influence of teachers’ interests, personalities and life experiences in intercultural languages teaching. Teachers and Teaching, 20(4), 375-390. doi: 10.1080/13540602.2013.848525
10. Richards, H., Conway, C., Roskvist, A., & Harvey, S. (2011). A Framework for Analysing Observation Data: Language Teacher Provision of Opportunities for Learners to Develop Intercultural Competence. In A. Witte & T. Harden (Eds.), Intercultural Studies and Foreign Language Learning (pp. 239-252). Oxford, England: Peter Lang.
11. Statistics New Zealand (2013). Census 2013. Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census.aspx
12. Statistics New Zealand (2013). Census 2013: Ethnic group profiles. Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013- census/profile-and-summary-reports
13. Stern, H. H. (1992). Issues and options in language teaching. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
14. Waite, J. (1992). Aoteareo: Speaking for ourselves: A discussion on the development of a New Zealand languages policy [Report]. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media, Ministry of Education.
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Questions? Comments? [email protected]
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