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

e.ramirez@auckland.ac.nz

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)

Evidence from interviews

B

C

NS

C

B

B

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? e.ramirez@auckland.ac.nz