The Role of English Language Teaching in Intercultural Education Michael Byram Universities of...

The Role of English Language Teaching in Intercultural Education

Michael ByramUniversities of Durham and Luxembourg

m.s.byram@dur.ac.uk

Purposes/Overview

• NOT techniques etc of language teaching• BUT educational purposes of language

teaching in European context• Explain a new model of intercultural and

democratic competence• Consider relevance for language teaching

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Axioms of language teaching

• FLT develops competence/skills AND education /understanding– i.e. ability to ‘speak about the world’ and ‘speak

about self’ in new ways

• FLT teaches how to ‘speak about the world and self’ in new ways by learning how others use other languages to ‘speak about the world’ and ‘self’ - in ‘foreign languages’

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Europe

• ‘foreign’ languages – looking outwards• European ‘foreign’ languages – some looking

outwards (e.g. Chinese) and some inwards (e.g. German)– ELT looks outwards and inwards

• European Union – 28 states – economic and political

• Council of Europe – 47 states – cultural and Human Rights

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Europeans• ‘old natives’ – people and languages/cultures

(languacultures)• ‘new natives’ – people and languages/cultures

(languacultures)

• And conflicts among natives– There is something rotten in the state of Denmark/Europe’

– Hamlet• What is to be done? – Intercultural not multicultural– White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008)

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A ‘framework’ for Intercultural and democratic competence

• Identify the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for the intercultural dialogue AND democratic processes

• Based on ‘Common European Framework of Reference for Languages’

• For schools – locations of economic AND moral/humanistic/democratic education

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The timetable of the project [thanks to Prof Martyn Barrett]

• The project is taking place in four phases, from 2014-17• Developing a conceptual model of the competences which citizens

require to participate effectively in democratic culture and intercultural dialogue (2014)

• Developing behavioural descriptors for each competence that is specified in the model – using the language of learning outcomes (2015)

• Scaling the descriptors – assigning the descriptors to different levels of proficiency (2016-17)

• Writing supporting documents - explaining how the competence model and the scaled descriptors can be used in curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment (2016-17)

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The conceptual model

• For the purposes of the framework, we have defined ‘competence’ as:

The ability to mobilise and deploy relevant values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding in order to respond appropriately and effectively to the demands, difficulties and opportunities that are presented by democratic and intercultural situations

• Not designed from scratch – instead, grounded in an analysis of existing conceptual schemes of democratic competence and intercultural competence

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• Core goal to construct a model for use in educational planning, THEREFORE all of the competences should be:– Teachable– Learnable– Assessable (through either self-assessment or

assessment by others)

• Applying these (and other) criteria led to the identification of 20 competences for inclusion in the model

• 20 competences → 4 categories: values, attitudes, skills, and knowledge and critical understanding

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Values

• Values are general beliefs that individuals hold about the desirable goals that should be striven for in life

• 3 sets of values necessary for democratic culture and intercultural dialogue: – Valuing other human beings, human dignity and human

rights – Valuing cultural difference, diversity and cultural

otherness– Valuing democracy, justice, fairness, equality and the rule

of law

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Attitudes

An attitude is the overall mental orientation which an individual adopts towards someone or something (e.g., a person, a group, an institution, an issue, an event, a symbol, etc.)

• Attitudes – 4 components: – belief or opinion about the object of the attitude– emotion or feeling towards the object– evaluation (either positive or negative) of the object– tendency to behave in a particular way towards that

object

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• 6 attitudes for democratic culture and intercultural dialogue: – Openness to cultural otherness and to other beliefs, world

views and practices– Respect for other people, beliefs, world views and

practices– Civic-mindedness – Responsibility – Self-efficacy– Tolerance for ambiguity

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Skills

• A skill is the capacity for carrying out complex, well-organised patterns of either thinking or behaviour in an adaptive manner in order to achieve a particular end or goal

• 8 sets of skills for democratic culture and intercultural dialogue: – Autonomous learning skills– Analytical and critical thinking skills– Skills of listening and observing– Empathy and decentring – Flexibility and adaptability – Linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills – Cooperation skills– Conflict-resolution skills

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Knowledge and critical understanding

• Knowledge is the body of information that is possessed by a person, while understanding is the comprehension and appreciation of meanings

• knowledge and critical understanding required for democratic culture and intercultural dialogue:– Knowledge and critical understanding of the self – Knowledge and critical understanding of language and

communication– Knowledge and critical understanding of the world (including

politics, law, human rights, culture, cultures, religions, history, media, economies, the environment and sustainability)

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Use for practice (like the CEFR)

• FOR EXAMPLE -- for historians or mathematicians

Clarify • aims – how my subject creates intercultural

can democratic competence• and objectives – how I can plan the learning

outcomes

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Language teachers

• Use existing models of intercultural competence

• Examples of teaching intercultural competence already exist

• AND new experiments show how language teaching can be combined with citizenship education ….

• EXAMPLE (S) ….

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Green Kidz project

Green Kidz: Young learners engage in intercultural environmental citizenship in English language classroom in Argentina

and Denmark. Melina Porto, Petra Daryai-Hansen, María

Emilia Arcuri and Kira Schifler

In: Byram, Golubeva, Han and Wagner (eds) Education for Intercultural Citizenship – Principles in Practice.

Multilingual Matters (forthcoming)

Participants and aimsLearners in Argentina and in Denmark - learning English (ages

10-12) – connected by internet Aims: THINKING• encouraging children to explore and reflect on

environmental issues - globally and locally• understand environmental issues and how to recognize

them in their own surroundings, • challenge taken-for-granted representations of the

environment, ACTING• engage in trash sorting and recycling practices, • contribute to improving the environment in their local

communities = ACTION IN THE COMMUNITY20

ActivitiesSTAGE 1 – DISCOVER ABOUT ‘US’ AND PREPARE FOR ’THEM’ • Pupils identified green crimes in their schools and in their

communities and drew or video-taped these crimes. • trash analysis listing, classifying and sorting trash in waste bins in

schools

STAGE 2 – PRESENT ‘US’ TO ‘THEM’ AND COMPARE• compared and discussed results using a wiki. • survey among family members, friends, etc. about their

environmental habits - compared on wiki• analyzed critically (audio) visual media images and texts, produced

in Argentina and in Denmark,

STAGE 3 – WORK TOGETHER – IN ‘US AND THEM’ GROUP• collaboratively online using skype and wiki (ie Argentinean and

Danish pupils in mixed groups) designed advertisements to raise awareness of environmental issues

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Using the internet to share understanding

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uysvpqx2vN0•

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-the-Planet-Argentina/603179783054514

• • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uysvpqx2vN0• • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zTlOCskmo8• • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjgTR6QeetQ• • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGE9oq3hTdo•

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Action in the community

STAGE 4 – FOCUS AGAIN ON ‘US’ AND ACTING …Argentine pupils:• created videos and songs and shared in facebook

page• were interviewed by a local journalist and got the

collaborative posters published in local newspaper,

• designed a “pasacalles” (banner) and hung in the school street.

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Falklands / Malvinas Project

Citizenship education for a culture of peace: The case of the Malvinas/Falklands

project in language teaching in Higher Education

Melina Porto & Leticia Yulita

In: Byram, Golubeva, Han and Wagner (eds) Education for Intercultural Citizenship – Principles in Practice.

Multilingual Matters (forthcoming)

The Malvinas/Falklands War (1982): An opportunity for citizenship education in the foreign language classroom in

Argentina and the UK

50 Argentinean university students of English (CEFR C1) AND 50 UK students of Spanish (Honours)

AIMS – THINKING• encouraging STUDENTS to explore and reflect on historical issues –

nationally and internationally • understand historical issues and how to analyse them in national

and international context, • challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about history

AIMS – ACTING• Research (historical documents – newspapers, interviews …)• Communicate with people about historical issues – from

international perspective

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ActivitiesSTAGE 1 – DISCOVER ABOUT ‘US’ AND PREPARE FOR

’THEM’ • researched newspapers, talked with parents, created

PPTs about the war

STAGE 2 – PRESENT ‘US’ TO ‘THEM’ AND COMPARE• communicated synchronically and diachronically (wiki

and Elluminate)• interviewed Argentine and English war veteran

- created blogs/facebook pages and noting reactions

STAGE 3 – WORK TOGETHER – IN ‘US AND THEM’ GROUP• collaboratively created leaflets etc to show both national

perspectives and reconciliation

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‘Action in the Community’

STAGE 4 • Distributed leaflets • taught special class in English language school• taught class with NGO in poor neighbourhood

[youtube] • ETC • Melina Porto (2014): Intercultural citizenship education in an EFL online

project in Argentina, Language and Intercultural Communication, DOI:10.1080/14708477.2014.890625

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Language Teaching• Therefore, we have ideas in language teaching

to combine languages and citizenship / action in improving the community

• BUT there is a need to examine how languages look outwards AND inwards into our own societies (in Europe)

• Understanding others in and beyond our societies – understand is NOT accept/condone– ‘jaw jaw, not war, war.’ (Churchill) [talk not fight]

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Relevance for/comparison with China?

• Europe and China have languages within frontiers

• ‘intercultural dialogue’ is both outward looking and within frontiers

• Teaching intercultural competence - transferable to dialogue with all groups inside and outside frontiers (using any language)

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Conclusion

QUESTION: How to implement new model in all subjects?

LANGUAGE TEACHERS Teaching ICC = education for intercultural and

democratic competence /citizenship

Language teachers as pioneers (also working with other teachers) ….

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A third axiom

• foreign language education is a social phenomenon which has societal improvement as one of its goals.

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