The Intercultural Dimension in

How interculturally competent are you?

Dr. Alison Gourvès-Hayward: Ecole Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne, France Dr. Fionnuala Kennedy: Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland.Ms. Aleksandra Sudhershan: Dublin City University, Ireland

SIETAR Conference April 2007

Outline of Presentation ELP and eELP (LOLIPOP)

The intercultural dimension

Pilot: Feedback on intercultural dimension of LOLIPOP

Creating a virtual intercultural space

How intercultural are you?

EU-Funded Lingua 2 Project (2004-2007) On-line, interactive version of the ELP with an

enhanced intercultural dimension Uses Moodle as VLE

Project development LOLIPOP learning platform

8 countries (Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Spain)

12 partners 7 target languages

ELP - Three Components

Passport Biography

Dossier

Paper versus ePortfolios (Barrett, 2005)

Collecting Selecting

Reflecting

Projecting

Celebrating

Archiving

Linking / thinking

Storytelling

Collaborating

Publishing

e-features of Lolipop Online (via VLE Moodle) Interactive Multimedia Allows customisation “Share” function Online teacher’s manual

Issues with existing ELPs Focus on linguistic competence

Intercultural = cultural

Write reflectively (no guidance on this) Describe experience of another culture Describe cultural attitudes and behaviour

No self-assessment grids for intercultural

Testing = testing of cultural knowledge

Conceptual model: Byram’s Savoirs?

Savoirs - Knowledge Savoir être - Attitudes Savoir comprendre - Skills of

interpreting and relating Savoir apprendre/faire - Skills of

discovery and interaction Savoir s’engager - Skills of cultural

critical awareness

Conceptual model: Bennett’s Scale

Ethnocentric Ethnorelative

(Bennett 1993)

Denial Defence Minimisation Acceptance Adaptation Integration

Focus of assessment

Assessment of learning - summative

Assessment for learning - formative

Issues which arose during the development of the IC dimension opaque nature of ICC difficulty of designing a progressive scale from A1 to C2 Possible ethical implications of statements lack of familiarity with IC terminology (learners and

teachers) Possibility of being A1 on one dimension and C2 on

another Possibility of having a high level of linguistic competence

and poor intercultural skills, or vice versa ICC not necessarily related to one language where to include ICC in ELP?

DCU Pilot Feb-April 06 Multicultural group (ESOL) LOLIPOP in lab every 2nd week Feedback:

Class discussions Wikis Questionnaire Oral exam Focus groups

Intercultural self-assessment

Prevoius experience with intercultural self-assessment

0

5

10

15

20

1

No

of

resp

on

ses

Questionnaire: Positive results of intercultural dimension

Students’ comments: When I read those, they made me reflect about my

intercultural skills and the examples were good. Well organized It's also important to improve my intercultural skills. It was interesting to assess the intercultural skills. I could

realize some intercultural aspect that had changed since I came here.

I had never evaluated my intercultural skills before so it was really useful. It is easy to evaluate your oral and written skills. However I think [the intercultural] is more difficult to answer.

I felt it was a bit easier to assess my intercultural skills than language skills.

Issues raisedThe students said: It was hard because this kind of skills

really depends on the situation, whom you talk with, or when.

It was difficult for me to understand a little bit.

It is hard to assess/reflect on your skills every week. Maybe you won't see any improvement etc. in this short term.

How can the ‘share’ function enhance the IC dimension? Moodle community online

Chat Forums Blogs (in Moodle?) Wikis

Digital storytelling

Conclusion We will…

Generate bank of student accounts of critical incidents as resources

Populate the resources section with linguistic and intercultural www links

And we will… Seek accreditation for LOLIPOP from the CoE Offer LOLIPOP as freeware to the HE sector

across Europe and beyond

How intercultural are YOU? Opportunity to try out LOLIPOP IC can-do

statements

We would welcome your feedback

Thank-you

Bibliography Bennett, M.J. (1993) ‘Towards ethnorelativism: a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity.’ in

R.M. Paige (ed)., Education for the Intercultural Experience. Pp. 21-71. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural. Bruen, J., Crosbie, V., Péchenart, J. (forthcoming) ‘Have Portfolio: will travel’ RIA conference

proceedings. Dublin City University November 2003 Byram, M., (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon:

Multilingual Matters. Byram, M., Gribkova, B. and Starkey, H. (2002) Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language

Teaching – A Practical Introduction for Teachers. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Council of Europe (2001) The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Cambridge University Press (available online through CoE site) Hinkel, E., (ed.), (1999) Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Kinginger, Celeste, Alison Gourves-Hayward, and Vanessa Simpson. 1999. A Tele-Collaborative

Course on French-American Intercultural Communication. The French Review, 72: 853-66. Little, D., Barbara Simpson, European Language Portfolio, The intercultural component and Learning

how to learn [Online]. Available from: http://www.tcd.ie/slscs/clcs/research/projects/elp/assets/pdf/Intercultural_LHTLTemplates.pdf (accessed 22 April 2007)

Morrow, K. (ed) (2004) Insights from the Common European Framework. Oxford University Press Rantz, F., Horan, P., (2005) Exploring Intercultural Awareness in the Primary Modern Language

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[Accessed 3 July 2006].

WebsitesBarrett, H. Website:

http://www.electronicportfolios.com/portfolios.html#pubsCouncil of Europe ELP site: • http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/portfolio/Default.asp?L=E&M=/mai

n_pages/welcome.htmlCulture Active• www.cultureactive.comINCA: www.incaproject.org The International Profiler

http://www.worldwork.biz/legacy/www/docs2/tip.phtmlIntercultural Development Inventory

http://www.intercultural.org/idi/idi.htmlECML• http://www.ecml.at/mtp2/LEA/presentation/pluriculturalism

.ppsDigital Storytelling association• http://www.dsaweb.org/index.html