Knowing Me - Knowing You": Fostering Intercultural Competence of Prospective Teachers of English

Good Afternoon !

What does this mean….?

Language learning does not mean linguistic competence(Chomsky) or communicative competence (Hymes) only, it embraces Intercultural Competence too(Byram)

“Knowing Me - Knowing You”: Fostering Intercultural Competence of

Prospective Teachers of English

Shashini R. TennekoonPasdunrata National College of

EducationSri Lanka

What is intercultural competence

Why it is important to my working context

What I found about IC What I wanted to find out through my study

What I did How I did it What did I find The implications of what I found and

My conclusions

I would deal with

“the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately across cultural boundaries”

Darla Deardroff ( 2004)

What is intercultural competence?

Sri Lanka is a pluralist society trying to recover from damages done during ethnic clashes in the pastSegregated school system but Salient opportunity for English teachersTeacher-student understanding for optimal learning-Requires intercultural sensitivity “the ability to successfully teach students who come from different cultures other than your own” (Diller & Moule, 2005, p. 2)

Why IC is important to my working context?

It involves knowledge, skills, and attitudes based on five dimensions (Byram,2003)

Skills (savoir comprendre) Interpret and compare

Knowledge (savoirs) Knowledge about ‘other’ and ‘own

Education (savoir s’engager ) Critically evaluate

Attitudes (savoir être) Openness and curiosity

Skills (savoir apprendre/faire) Acquire new knowledge (and apply in real time)

What I found about IC

Five Factor Model

Cultural sensitivity is a developmental process which moves the individual from (Bennet,2004) ethnocentrism to ethnorelativism

Denial Defense Minimization ➝ ➝ ➝ETHNOCENTRISM

Acceptance Adaptation ➝ ➝Integration ETHNORELATIVISM

DMIS Process Model

Intercultural competence develop by degree, and having components at the lower levels of competency enhances the upper levels. (Deardorff ,2006)

D:\pyramid.docx

Pyramid Model

Process Model

To evaluate the prospective teachers' current perceptions on cultural diversity and determine whether they are more inclined towards ethnocentrism or ethnorelativism

 To broaden the knowledge on how the specially designed curriculum on teaching English Language skills based on intercultural material help to develop intercultural competence of prospective teachers of English.

What I wanted to find out through my study

To identify the effectiveness of the activities used in the curriculum in developing intercultural competence of the student teachers

 To propose an alternative course of action for the teacher educators to follow based on my experience when teaching English language skills which would be more beneficial to students teachers produced by National Colleges of Education in their future role

Mixed method approachAction researchPre test-intervention-post test model

Intervention based on specially designed intercultural syllabus

What I did

QuestionnaireICC questionnaire - revised.docx

ObservationObservation check list + Field notes (Non participant observer)revised Check list.docx

Reflective journal (researcher)Student diaries (participants)

How I did it

students' cultural perceptions have more inclination towards ethnocentrism

They have a strong attachment to their culture

They seem to be having a sturdy influence from their religion rather than language

What did I find

3% 26%

23%

35%

6%3% 3%

Mean Score of the Sample

0-10 .11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 over 60

Mean Score Based on Ethnicity

Tamil - 34

Muslim - 39

Sinhala Buddhist - 29.1

Sinhala Roman catholic - 19

Tami

Muslim

Sinhala Buddhist

Sinhala Roman Catholic

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Mean Score of Each Ethnic Group

Mean Score of Each Ethnic Group

students possess limited knowledge of other ethnic and religious cultures despite their existence together in the island for hundreds of years

This was especially evident in the Sinhala group they also being the group with the poorest knowledge of language of the other two groups

The reason could be that they do not need second language of the country for their survival

the respondents have scored high marks in the questions related to adaptation stage of the intercultural competence continuum showing their willingness to adapt to other cultures may be because Sri Lankan culture is based on the concept of peaceful living that hates violenceThe scores reveal that almost all the participants fall into the minimization stage of the IC development process which supports the principle 'live and let live'

Students responded positively to the activities in the intercultural syllabus

Mean

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Activity 1Activity 2Activity 3Activity 4Activity 5Activity 6Activity 7Activity 8

Some of these activities dealt with enhancing knowledge of other cultures

the assumption was that greater intercultural knowledge may instill greater intercultural competence

the observations confirmed that they generate superficial descriptions that fostered negative stereotyping in the research participants

Intercultural competence very important for teachers handling CALD students

Help developing intercultural citizenship necessary in a pluralist society

Extensive intercultural interaction promote social harmony

Conclusions

Bennett, M. J. (2004). . Toward multiculturalism: A reader in multicultural education In Wurzel, J. (Ed.). (2nd ed., pp. 62-77). Newton, MA: Intercultural Resource Corporation

Byram, M. (2003) Teaching languages for democratic citizenship in Europe and beyond. In Brown, K. and Brown, M. 2003. (eds.) Reflections on citizenship in a multilingual world. London: CILT: 15-24

Deardorff, D.K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education,10, 241-266

Krajewski,S. (2011). Developing intercultural competence in multilingual and multicultural student groups. Journal of Research in International Education Sabine (10)137-153

Premier,J.A. (2010) Preparing Pre-service Teachers for Multicultural Classroom. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 35( 2),35-48

Sara Rubenfeld, S.,Richard, C., Vinograd,J., Lussier,D., Amireault,V. (2007). Becoming a cultural intermediary: a further social corollary of second-language learning. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (26): 182

Spooner-Lane, R., Tangen, D., Louise, K.M. Hepple, E.,Carrington, S.(2013) Building Intercultural Competence One “Patch” at a Time. Education Research International, (10),1-9 

Susan G. Sample(2013) Developing Intercultural Learners Through the International Curriculum. Journal of Studies in International Education, retrieved February2013 from http:/jsi.sage.pub

References

Thank you!!