Levensverzekering en Lening Manou Schoenmakers Stéphanie Sels.
Enhancing Intercultural Communicative Competence through cross-cultural interactions in digital...
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Enhancing Intercultural Communicative Competence through cross-cultural interactions in digital environments
Kristi Jauregi, Marian Schoenmakers, Rick de Graaff & Silvia Canto
Utrecht University and partners
Structure
• Introduction to NIFLAR • Epistemic approaches to ICC• Teaching & research focus in NIFLAR• Experiences with videowebcommunication (Portuguese)• Experiences with virtual worlds (Spanish)• Preliminary results• Conclusions
NIFLAR• European project: Lifelong Learning• Time span: 1 January 2009 – 31 December 2010• Partners: Universities of
– Utrecht in the Netherlands– Granada and Valencia in Spain– Coimbra in Portugal – Palacky in Olomouc the Czech Republic,– Nevsky and Novosibirsk in Russia– Concepción in ChileTELL Consult (Netherlands)Secondary schools, in Spain and The NetherlandsCoordination: Utrecht University
• Target languages: Dutch, Portuguese, Russian & Spanish
Background to NIFLARLimitations in FLL & teaching contexts. Teaching:
• Teacher, book and grammar oriented• Scarce opportunities for FL learners to engage in meaningful
interaction with native peers • Intercultural awareness insufficiently addressed (Lace Report, 2007) • ICT underused (ICT-Impact Report, 2006) • Low motivation, low levels of achievement, possible drop outs
(Final Report High Level Group of Multilingualism, 2007)
To enrich and innovate academic programs of foreign languages and make them more rewarding and relevant
Promoting blended learning
Through the use of two virtual environments:– Video web communication (Adobe Connect) – 3D Virtual Worlds (Second Life / Open SIM)
To study the added value of implementing networked interactions
Two target groups: – FL learners at secondary and tertiary levels – Pre- (in) service teachers
Main objectives of NIFLAR:
NIFLAR
Second Life
Open Sim
Adobe connect
Second Life
•3D world• Link on the internet: download (free)•Requisites: Good computers & internet connection•+ 18• You are an avatar & can meet other avatars•Action: walk, sit down, dance, fly, take & give objects•Teleport to other places: Berlin, Paris, Barcelona•Communication via chat & voiced chat •Many different scenarios / contexts•Ideal environment for role plays & games
ICC Epistemology• European Framework of Reference• Kramsch (1993, 1998): language in culture• Byram (1997): 5 savoirs• Zarate et al. (2004): mediation, empathy • Müller-Jacquier (2003): linguistic study of ICC• Belz 2005: linguistic analysis of telecollaborative
encounters
•Crucial in foreign language learning processes (CEFR)•Chapter 5, the user / learner’s competences:
General competencesCommunicative competences
Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in the Common European Framework of Reference
EXISTENTIAL
EXISTENTIAL
COMPETENCE
COMPETENCE
SKILLS &
SKILLS &
KNOW-H
OW
KNOW-H
OW
DECLARATIVE DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGEKNOWLEDGE
GENERALGENERAL
COMPETENCESCOMPETENCES
ValuesValues
AttitudesAttitudes
Knowledege of the Knowledege of the worldworld
Intercultu
ral
Intercultu
ral skills
skills
Practical skills
Practical skills
(Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment …………..
Sociocultural kn.Sociocultural kn.InterculturalIntercultural awarenessawareness
ABILI
TY T
O LE
ARN
ABILI
TY T
O LE
ARN
BeliefsBeliefs Personality factorsPersonality factors
Cognitive stylesCognitive styles
PRAGMATIC
PRAGMATIC
COMPETENCES
COMPETENCES
SOCIOLIN
GUISTIC
SOCIOLIN
GUISTIC
COMPETENCES
COMPETENCES
LINGUISTIC LINGUISTIC COMPETENCESCOMPETENCES
COMMUNICATIVECOMMUNICATIVE
LANGUAGELANGUAGE
COMPETENCESCOMPETENCES
Interaction Interaction schemataschemata
Discourse Discourse competencecompetence
Functional Functional competencecompetence
Expressions of Expressions of folk wisdomfolk wisdom
Dialect and accent
Dialect and accentLexicalLexicalGrammaticalGrammatical
Register differences
Register differences
Politeness
Politeness
conventions
conventions
Linguistic Linguistic
markers of social
markers of social
relationsrelations
(Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment …………..
PhonologicalPhonologicalSemanticSemantic
Analysis of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in language learning (1)
Byram’s 5 savoirs (1997: 50-4) :
1.Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own.
2.Knowledge of social groups and their products and practices in one’s own and one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction.
3.Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents from one’s own.
4.Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction.
5.Critical cultural awareness/ political education: an ability to evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries.
Byram’s 5 savoirs (1997: 50-4) :
1.Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own.
2.Knowledge of social groups and their products and practices in one’s own and one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction.
3.Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents from one’s own.
4.Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction.
5.Critical cultural awareness/ political education: an ability to evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries.
•Bernd Müller-Jacquier, 2003: Linguistic awareness of cultures proposes a framework of analysis for ICC:
• Social meaning• Speech acts• Organization of conversation• Choice & development of topics• Directness / indirectness• Register• Para-verbal factors• Non-verbal means of expression• Culture specific values / attitudes• Culture specific behavior
•Belz 2005: Attitudes > positive/negative appraisal
Analysis of ICC in language learning (2)
Research questions in NIFLAR
Within the general research focus: what is the added value of implementing these environments?
1. Can videowebcommunication and virtual worlds, as tools enabling synchronous cross-cultural interaction between FLLs & NSs, contribute to the development of their ICC?
2. Are there differences according to the environments being used?
3. Are virtual interactions through VWC and SL with NSs more conducive to ICC than traditional classroom settings?
Conditions: Task, Interaction, Environment, Setting
Partial questions
a) Do the interaction tasks meet the conditions necessary to enhance ICC?
b) How does ICC emerge during interaction between FLLs and NSs when they negotiate thematic cultural issues?
c) Do the virtual environments (as opposed to the classroom setting) contribute to the development of ICC? How?
RQ1a: Task elaboration criteria
1. Have IC language learning potential
•Expose the learners to intercultural relevant target language input (rich, authentic & multimodal; non premodified input; focus on social, cultural & interactional content)
•Elicit meaningful intercultural target language use:– involve some kind of “gap” (cultural, social interactional information, reasoning). –promote authentic interaction exchange–promote learning by doing by eliciting cognitive processes (input processing, pushed output and interaction, reflection on intercultural issues) –promote collaborative learning (two-way communication)
2. Fit the learner Meet learners’ needs, interests & idiosyncrasies
3. Have a positive impact.
Be motivating (Dörnyei, 2001), encourage a positive attitude and openness towards the TL and culture.
4. Meet the affordances of ICT tool
MultimodalityAccess to gestures (VWC)Dynamism, Action learning (SL)
Byram, 1997; Chapelle, 2003; Doughty & Long, 2003; Ellis, 2003; Jauregi & Bañados, 2008; Willis, 1996, Deutschmann et al 2009). Tasks should:
RQ 1b: How does ICC emerge during interaction between FLLs and NSs?
What interlocutors say (topics) & how they say it (skills):
How they negotiate, interpret, relate, discover, interact and evaluate in interaction (Byram, 1997):a) Attitudes
i. (positive/negative attitudinal, affective, judgmental, appreciative appraisals: Belz, 2005)
ii. Engagementiii. Mitigation and intensification related to speech acts (face-
threatening acts)b) Knowledgec) Critical awareness
Data
a) Recordings of interactions in VWC, (SL and traditional classroom setting)
b) Pre- & post- oral tests
c) Pre- mid-, post- questionnaires
d) Interviews
Experiences videowebcommunication
Portuguese - WVC Experiences
Target language: Portuguese
Participating: Univ. Utrecht, Valencia & Coimbra
Pilot: June-July 2009• 3 sessions from 45-60 minutes per task• 4 students UU - 4 students (pre-service teachers) UC• 1 task: Vamos conhecer Portugal (B1/B2)• 2 students UV - 2 students (pre-service teachers) UC• 1 task: Vamos a uma festa (A2)
Portuguese - WVC Experiences
Pilot evaluation:• students enjoyed the experience, but the same time
schedule per session for everybody is problematic;• tasks (2): only minor adaptations needed;• improvements necessary on session procedure,
including the uniform saving of session recordings by the students (for purposes of analyses and research);
Portuguese - WVC ExperiencesFollow-up - Utrecht-Coimbra - Feb-March 2010• 8 students UU (volunteers) - 8 pre-service teachers UC• 2 new tasks: - Trabalhar em Portugal (B1)
- Vamos às compras (B1)• VWC inserted as a part of Language Course 3 (B1)• Session scheduled by students (but in the same week)• Control group: standard Language Course 3
• Objective: global comparing of skills (mid- en final course tests) and attitudes & motivations (pre-, mid-, post-questionnaires)
Portuguese - WVC ExperiencesTasks: • 3 sessions per task, 45-60 minutes per session.• Made by supervised MA-students in Coimbra (in a language pedagogy
course).• Build around a theme (learning about Coimbra, work, health, shopping,
security, parties, etc in Portugal).• Authentic and functional appeal to different language skills, with growing
complexity.• Objectives of the task are explicitly mentioned at the beginning of the
written guidelines (for the learner).
Portuguese - WVC Experiences
EVALUATION• The Portuguese cluster (teachers) had no previous
experience with VWC in a learning environment, so they also had to learn a lot.
• Time and energy was focused on preparation and organization of the VWC-sessions, and on the questionnaires.
• Thorough analysis on the pre-, mid- and post-questionnaires still has to be done.
Portuguese - WVC Experiences
EVALUATION• The quality of the recordings is relatively good.• The questionnaires are more difficult to analyse statistically, as
the students did not always respond, even after three or more reminders. Possible reasons:• tecnical problems: the link did not work always right away;• no familiarity with Survey Monkey;• students have no (direct) benefit from the questionnaires;• the questionnaires came after the VWC-sessions, at home.
Portuguese - WVC ExperiencesEVALUATION• However, some comments in the questionnaires do suggest
that VWC-tasks with native speakers are seen by them as a good strategy in language learning (innovative, efficient, authentic, pragmatic, ludic, meaningful, useful).
• Seeing a faces and gestures is also highly valued.• 2 students of the Control group would like very much to take
part in such a project! (Maybe from hearing colleagues talking about their VWC-sessions?)
Experiences with virtual worlds in NIFLAR• Pilot 1: June-July 2009 (4 participants; 4 tasks)
– Objective: explore the possibilities of the existing world
• Pilot 2: November-december 2009- Scenarios for interaction task driven
- Participants:
-4 student teachers (Valencia, Granada)
- 8 FLL of Spanish (Utrecht)
- Integration in language course (B2)
- Scenarios for 5 tasks developed
- Sessions recorded and evaluated > follow-up
Follow-up• February – April 2010• Part of a bigger research study (2 experimental & 1 control groups,
at random)• TL: Spanish, B1• Tasks integrated in academic curricula (obligatory for FLls)
• Participants: 14 FLls (UU) & 7 pre-service teachers (UV)• Interaction formats: triads• Tutorials + 5 interaction sessions (1-2 hours)• Data: recordings, pre-mid- and post-questionnaires,
interviews, pre- & post-tests
Tasks in Second Life
Task 1
Brilliant people!
-pre-task & task-NS & FLL
Brilliant people!
-pre-task & task-NS & FLL
Scenarios:-Participants go to an apartment:
look around, exchange info, watch pictures, eat and drink-Decide where to go: cinema,
Valencia, museum-Describe a brilliant person
Scenarios:-Participants go to an apartment:
look around, exchange info, watch pictures, eat and drink-Decide where to go: cinema,
Valencia, museum-Describe a brilliant person
Example interaction fragment: task 1
Tasks in Second Life
Task 2 People and adventures:
-pre-task & task-NS & FLL
People and adventures:
-pre-task & task-NS & FLL
Scenarios:-Participants meet at a restaurant and have
to decide where to go to on holidays: winter/summer holidays.
-Go to a hotel (reception/room) -- Depending on their choice go to the
summer or winter slurl
Scenarios:-Participants meet at a restaurant and have
to decide where to go to on holidays: winter/summer holidays.
-Go to a hotel (reception/room) -- Depending on their choice go to the
summer or winter slurl
Meaningful fragments: task 2
Task 3
Scenarios:Participants choose 2 out of these possible
scenes:-Birthday party / guests for dinner
- At the bar / on the bus
Scenarios:Participants choose 2 out of these possible
scenes:-Birthday party / guests for dinner
- At the bar / on the bus
People and films:Preparing, filming and evaluating scenes
Task 3
RequestsRequests
GreetingsGreetings
Results post-questionnaires SL:The environmentN=14
X: 3,64; N:14)
Results post-questionnaires: speech partner
Results post-questionnaires: learning
Results post-questionnaires: learning
To ta
lk m
ore
fluen
tly
Results post-questionnaires: learning
Negative aspects• Problemas técnicos (13):
• Mitigated (5): “algunos”problemas, “a veces”• Upscaled (3): “muy negativo”, “muchos problemas”, “muy mal”
• Perdimos mucho tiempo (2)• Por eso hemos hecho muchas veces algo otra vez y eso era
muy irritante. • Second Life y Camtasia (la grabación) no funcionaba bien todo
el tiempo• No poder grabar las sesiones desde casa• Si, al inicio fue difícil usar SL. • No todo las tareas eran muy claro. • No me gusta nada SL. • No tengo aspectos negativos.
Positive aspects of the project• Hablar con nativos (4). • Hablar con una chica española, sobre temas interesantes. • He mejorado mucho mi español oral y también he aprendido muchos
aspectos culturales y nuevas palabras. También mi interlocutora española me ha corregido mucho y he aprendido mucho de esto.
• He ganado más confianza en mi misma hablando la lengua meta (2)• Ha sido una experienca más real que durante las normales clases del curso
(3). • La oportunidad para practicar todo que ha aprendido en clase con una
persona de Espana. • Lo positivo del proyecto era conocer las diferencias culturales entre
Holanda y Espana y naturalmente hablar en espanol. • El aspecto positivo del proyecto es que he aprendido mucho del proyecto
(2). Por ejemplo tener más confianza cuando hablo en espanol. • Que no puedes ver tus compañeras.
Preliminary project results
Research questions
Within the general research focus: what is the added value of implementing these environments? Work in progress
1. Can videowebcommunication and virtual worlds, as tools enabling synchronous cross-cultural interaction between FLLs & NSs, contribute to the development of their ICC? YES
2. Are there differences according to the environments being used? YES
3. Are virtual interactions through VWC and SL with NSs more conducive to ICC than traditional classroom settings? YES
Conditions: Task, Interaction, Environment, Setting
Showing interest in knowing others’ cultures & introducing one’s own through discourse
Creating a supportive
environment
When facing differences
Aspects influencing ICC
Means
•Being engaged: Offering informationNegotiating meaningSharing experiences & knowledgeExpressing astonishmentListeningShowing understanding
•Taking initiative:Asking questionsRequesting information, clarification, specification
•Jokes•Laughing•Visual cues
•Sharing experiences
Building bridges
•Contrasting differences•Trying to understand•Mitigating (a lo mejor, puede ser, creo que, es un poco mal visto, todav’ia no es normal…)•From generalisations to concretisations•Showing ability to change perspectives“Yo creo que llegará un momento en el que en España pase lo mismo” N3•Criticizing own customs (example)
Building bridges
•Personality factors•IC language proficiency level•Willingness to communicate
Participants negotiate intercultural communication by:
Is there a development?
Comparing session 1 & 5:– More engagement– More willingness to communicate– More open– FLLs capable of emulating interaction styles
(intensification, repetition) of NSs in latest interactions (but not perceptible in written post tests of pragmatic perception)
Conclusions: enhancing ICC foreign language education through VWC & SL (1)
1. Challenging, motivating and innovative learning environments.
2. Offer opportunities for real-life communication with native speakers of the target language.
3. ICC seems to be enhanced as rich linguistic and intercultural learning sequences emerge.
4. Participants favour experiences of enjoyment and success. 5. Support authenticity of learning by favouring motivation. 6. Significant impact of SL & VWC interactions on willingness to
communicate.
Would you like to know more about NIFLAR?
Join us in niflar.ning.comwww.niflar.eu
Thank you for your attention!!