Teaching for Intercultural Competence in the Language Classroom:

A Handbook for Language Teachers

Tricia Fellinger

Home Country: United States Host Country: New Zealand

2014-2015

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Dear fellow World Language Teachers,

Perhaps no other teachers understand what it means to be a global citizen better than you do. Most of you have had significant travel experience and have lived in other countries for extended periods of time. These experiences have helped you to develop empathy and to gain a better understanding and appreciation of others’ perspectives. Furthermore, having an advanced level of language proficiency has allowed you to interact in meaningful ways with others, whether that be in your own communities or across borders. You have developed your own intercultural competence through the 1

years and therefore have the experience and skills necessary to help students in their development. The critical role that today’s language teachers play in their students’ future simply should not and cannot be undervalued. You possess a unique skill - the ability to teach students how to interact with people from other parts of the world. In recent years, American schools have been tasked with implementing practices and programs that help students develop their intercultural competence. In the future, our students will undoubtedly need to communicate and collaborate effectively with people from other cultures. This may require travel to other countries. However, it may require absolutely no travel at all, as global collaboration becomes increasingly easier through new technologies. Additionally, as the United States becomes more diverse, our students will need to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds within their own community. However, while educators may agree on what it means to be a global citizen, there seems to be a major piece of the puzzle missing in schools today: an emphasis on being able to communicate in more than one language. I believe it is important to point out that the Council of Chief State School Officers’ EdSteps Initiative & Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning have worked together to produce the book Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World, which serves as a practical tool for teachers and schools. With their proposed framework for teaching for global competence the authors of this book Veronica Boix Mansilla and Anthony Jackson clearly recognize the importance of students being proficient in a language other than English (39). While I highly recommend this book as a guide to schools and teachers in the implementation of approaches that will help their students prepare to be global citizens in general, I am

1 Many American schools use the term global competence, but to reflect the literature as well as the New Zealand framework of Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching (Newton et al.), which guided my work, the term intercultural competence will be used in this handbook instead.

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interested in looking at what language teachers can do to help their students advance their language proficiency and intercultural competence at the same time. My desire to help American language teachers fully understand the critical role they play in their students’ development as global citizens was my motivation behind the inquiry project that I completed while participating in the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching program in , New Zealand in 2014. With this project I set out to answer the question: How can language teachers help their students develop intercultural competence? At the heart of this inquiry project was the collaborative online classroom that I facilitated between a group of German students in New Zealand and a group of German students at my home school in Ohio. The handbook that follows was born out of my inquiry project. It is meant to support you, regardless of the target language or the country in which you teach, in your endeavors to help students develop their intercultural competence. The handbook provides concrete examples of learning activities, which I designed and implemented in an online classroom, along with my reflections on the student learning that I observed and connections that I have drawn to current research in teaching for intercultural competence. Finally, it incorporates the student voice and views of the language teachers I interviewed as a part of the inquiry project. For confidentiality reasons the New Zealand schools, students and teachers mentioned in the handbook will remain anonymous, or in some cases the names have been altered. I hope you will find this handbook useful. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me: fellinger2@yahoo.com.

Sincerely, Tricia Fellinger

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DEUTSCH OHNE GRENZEN (GERMAN WITHOUT BORDERS): STUDENT COLLABORATION PROJECT

COLLABORATION PROJECT DESCRIPTION The project “Deutsch ohne Grenzen” is an intercultural student collaboration project that took place within my Fulbright DAT inquiry project. With the student project I set out to explore what happens when two groups of learners living in two different countries are given the opportunity to interact with each other, using German as the language of communication. I wanted to find out what kind of affect this type of language experience has on learners’ communication skills, perspectives of the world, and attitudes towards learning about other cultures. Over an eleven-week period, I worked with a class of Year 10 German students at a co-educational secondary school in a suburb of , New Zealand. The class met three times a week. During the eleven weeks, these students along with the Intermediate-Mid German students (mostly tenth graders) from my home school

High School in Ohio met and collaborated with each other in an online classroom. The classroom, which was housed on the Taking It Global (TIG) website (www.tigweb.org), was accessible only to the two participating groups of students and their teachers. In order to determine any shift in students’ attitudes and to collect information on the perception of their learning as a result of the collaboration, I administered a written survey to eighteen of the New Zealand students twice - once shortly after the start of the project and once at the completion of the project. From these eighteen students, I also interviewed a small group of randomly selected students in a focus group to collect information about their views on language learning and their own competencies.

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HOW TO USE THE HANDBOOK This handbook is meant to serve as a practical tool for language teachers and can be used in two different ways. Teachers can use it as a step-by-step guide on setting up and facilitating an intercultural collaboration on the TIG website or a similar online classroom, or they may choose to implement the project activities in this handbook individually. It is important to note that the conditions under which the project was carried out may not reflect those of the average language teacher. Mandated curricula and assessments can restrict teachers’ flexibility. Realistically, a teacher may not be able to devote eleven weeks of instruction to such a project. If this is the case, hopefully the activities in the project can be seen as examples of language learning activities that move students towards intercultural competence. The details for the six different stages of the project Deutsch ohne Grenzen are organized in the following way. 1. DURATION: the number of instructional periods allotted for each stage. Each instructional period was sixty minutes. 2. iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE: In 2010 Eric Yates, Jonathon Newton, Sandra Shearn, and Werner Nowitzki from the University of published a report to the New Zealand Ministry of Education, in which they published their framework of Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching (iCLT). The fundamental characteristic of iCLT is that it “refocuses the goal of learning by shifting away from a narrower focus on linguistic or communicative competence, and towards a more holistic goal of intercultural competence” (Part 1). This framework is comprised of the following six principles. In each stage of the project I have indicated which principles of the framework have been applied. Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching and Learning (iCLT):

1. integrates language and culture from the beginning 2. engages learners in genuine social interaction 3. encourages and develops an exploratory and reflective approach to culture and

culture-in-language 4. fosters explicit comparisons and connections between languages and cultures 5. acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning

contexts

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6. emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than native-speaker competence. (Newton, Part 2)

3. MODES OF COMMUNICATION: the interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational modes of communication, which the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) uses as the organizing principle for describing language performance at the different stages of learning (page 7). Many state language associations and schools have recently revised their standards and curricula to reflect the the modes of communication. 4. LEARNING TARGETS: descriptions of what students will be able to do by the end of each stage. 5. ACTIVITIES: detailed explanation of the learning activities, which were completed by the New Zealand students during the project. The exercises and materials for each stage are included here as well. 6. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS: reflections on observations made during this stage. Feedback from the student surveys and focus group interviews as well as connections to existing research are meant to highlight the relationship between the activities and the concept of intercultural competence.

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PROJECT STAGES STAGE 1: DAS BIN ICH! (This is who I am!) DURATION: 7 instructional periods iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE:

● iCLT integrates language and culture from the beginning ● iCLT engages learners in genuine social interaction ● iCLT acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning

contexts ● iCLT emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than

native-speaker competence MODES OF COMMUNICATION

● interpretive ● presentational

LEARNING TARGETS: Students will be able to:

● explore their cultural identity ● introduce themselves with biographical information ● describe their interests, hobbies, likes and dislikes ● understand information in written and/or audio presentations

ACTIVITIES ACTIVITY #1: INTRODUCING ONESELF The students watched a YouTube video of a young German man introducing himself and identified specific information that he presents about himself. His introduction served as a model for the presentation which students produced in the activity that follows, but it can also be used as a listening practice. The video can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWe2Z54x4F8 (EOI Icod de los Vinos). (See student response sheet on page 11.) ACTIVITY #2: EXPLORING IDENTITY Students explored their identity as they contemplated basic personal information on familiar topics such as their hometown, likes and dislikes, school, etc. They were also challenged to think about deeper issues such as their heritage, family traditions and values, and what makes them unique. (See student response sheet on page 12.)

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ACTIVITY #3: PRESENTING ONESELF Both the New Zealand and Ohio students created presentations about themselves and uploaded them to their class folder on the Taking It Global (TIG) classroom. They were encouraged to use a presentation tool that best fit their learning style as well as their preferred communication skill (speaking or writing). The students were also encouraged to connect the information in their presentation to their culture when possible. For example, if students like to play rugby, they could comment that rugby is the most popular sport in New Zealand. In the TIG Classroom, teachers can create folders under the “Files” option where students upload their presentations.

screenshot of TIG website taken January 14, 2015. ACTIVITY #4: GAINING PERSPECTIVE Once the students had uploaded their presentations, they were given time to read and view them. They identified students with whom they wanted to communicate and began to consider clarification and follow-up questions which they would like to ask those students. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS Understanding one’s cultural identity is not an easy task for a fourteen year-old. Most American teenagers have never paused to reflect on what it means to be an American. Many American teenagers are proud of their European heritage but are not able to articulate which of their family’s values or traditions reflect their heritage. This was true for the New Zealand students as well and was evident as they prepared their introductions to the Ohio students. Interestingly, they struggled less with the German

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language and more with the content of the presentations. When I conducted the first focus group interview with six students, I asked them to tell me what they know about their own culture. They had a difficult time responding to these questions. Their responses revealed, however, that they do believe that New Zealanders who identify themselves as Māori have a strong sense of identity and respect for their heritage. This seemed to be the only culture within New Zealand that the students could define. In fact, when asked whether their own families practice any traditions that originated in another culture, one of the students in the focus group responded: “not really. Are any of us Māori?”. After making these observations, I modified the worksheet for Activity #2: Exploring Identity to include questions prompting deeper and more directed reflection about daily practices, including languages students speak, the food they eat, and the holidays they celebrate. Michael Byram points out that it is often through interaction with an interlocutor from another culture that we begin to understand our own culture. He explains that some characteristics of one’s own culture “are taken for granted and only raised to consciousness when there is a need for contrast with other groups” (36). While many students struggled in this early stage of the project, comparing and contrasting New Zealand culture with U.S. culture occurred very naturally for others. For example, some of the students began to consider that American students might not share the same sports interests or even have some of the same foods and began to understand that they would have to provide more explanation or pictures in their presentations. As one student prepared his presentation, he asked me whether people in Ohio eat “fish ‘n chips”. This may seem like a simple question, but it started a complex process of reflection for this student. Simply by asking the question, he demonstrated that he was beginning to question his assumptions about his culture and the rest of the world. When he heard that some Ohio restaurants may offer fish ‘n chips but that it is not at all as popular as in New Zealand, he and his friends were shocked. But then they began to ask themselves why and contemplate where fish ‘n chips originated. Thus began the process of comparing and contrasting cultures for these students.

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WORKSHEET FOR ACTIVITY #1: INTRODUCING ONESELF Below is the student response sheet, which corresponds to the YouTube video. Students identified the information that Nikolas gives about himself in his video.

Nikolas stellt sich vor Schau dir das Video an: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWe2Z54x4F8 Welche Informationen gibt Nikolas über sich? ____ seine Eltern ____ Fremdsprachen ____ seine Geschwister ____ sein Haus ____ seine Lieblingsmusik ____ seine Freizeit und Hobbies ____ sein Lieblingsessen ____ die Zukunft ____ sein Name ____ sein Wohnort ____ sein Alter ____ seine Haustiere ____ seine Schule Welche anderen Informationen kann man geben?

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WORKSHEET FOR ACTIVITY #2: EXPLORING IDENTITY The following student worksheet can be used to guide students through the exercise of exploring and understanding their identity. Teachers may want to encourage the students to take it home to ask their parents for help if they do not know how to answer some of the questions.

Wer bist du? Name: name Alter: age Wohnort: hometown Familie: family meine Lieblingsmusikgruppe: my favorite…. mein Lieblingsbuch: mein Lieblingsfilm: mein Lieblingsschulfach: meine Lieblingsmannschaft: mein Lieblingssport: Meine Familie kommt aus _________________. My family is originally from... Ich spreche ___________________ zu Hause mit meiner Familie. I speak ______ at home with my family. Ich spreche ___________________ mit meinen Freunden. I speak ___________ with my friends. Zu Hause essen wir ___________________________. We eat _________ at home. In der Schule esse ich _________________________. I eat __________ at school. Wir feiern diese Feiertage zu Hause: We celebrate these holidays at home.

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STAGE 2: CHATTEN WIR! (let’s chat!) DURATION: 4 instructional periods 2

iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE

● iCLT encourages and develops an exploratory and reflective approach to culture and culture-in-language

● iCLT engages learners in genuine social interaction ● iCLT fosters explicit comparisons and connections between languages and

cultures ● iCLT acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning

contexts ● iCLT emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than

native-speaker competence MODES OF COMMUNICATION:

● interpersonal LEARNING TARGETS: Students will be able to:

● ask for clarification ● request information ● use appropriate register in asking and answering questions ● comment on other students’ presentations ● respond to questions appropriately

ACTIVITY After students had read and viewed the presentations uploaded to the TIG Classroom, they had the opportunity to ask each other follow-up questions via private messaging in the TIG classroom. Students asked a variety of questions, ranging from simple clarification questions to follow-up questions. (See messaging examples on pages 14-15.)

2 This stage is ongoing, as students are able to use the messaging option in the TIG classroom at any time. I designated four instructional periods for students to compose and post their questions and answer the other students’ questions as a follow-up to the presentations, but they messaged each other as they wanted over the course of the project.

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Messaging Example from the TIG Classroom.

Hello ________, What are “Pineapple Lumps”? How old is your brother? Do you have pets? Hello ________, Pineapple Lumps are life. My brother is seventeen years old. I don’t have any pets.

Screenshot of TIG website taken January 15, 2015.

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Messaging example from the TIG Classroom.

Hello ________, I have a seventeen year-old sister. Do you get along with your brother? Do you have any pets? No, I don’t have any pets. I get along with my brother sometimes.

Screenshot of TIG website taken January 15. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS The moment at which students started receiving responses to their messages was a major turning point for many students in the New Zealand class. They began to work more independently and confidently, asking for less help. As the exercise turned into authentic communication with a real person, their focus shifted from the linguistic structures to the message. Meaningful interaction is essential in motivating students to use the language and in building their confidence. Two of the New Zealand students, who both participated in the focus group interviews, made a distinct impression during this stage. When I first met them it was clear that they had little confidence in their German skills. They were conscientious students and put a lot of time and work into their presentations, but they needed ongoing support and affirmation. However, as they started to receive messages from the Ohio students, they stopped asking for help. It appeared that they were using the language without worrying about making errors. They lost their inhibitions and started to have fun. There is certainly an element of the unknown when students engage in this type of communication, but this is characteristic of real-life communication. Anthony Liddicoat

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and Angela Scarino maintain that this is a necessary part of the language-learning experience in a classroom that promotes social interaction: “within a professional stance that understands language as a social practice, we need to ensure that students are provided with opportunities to go beyond what they already know and to learn to engage with unplanned and unpredictable aspects of language” (ch.2). While their interlocutors’ questions were simple, the students were not working with a defined list of vocabulary and grammar structures. Thus they were forced to take risks in expressing their ideas and to become comfortable with gaps in their interpretation of the messages.

A German lesson on asking and answering questions, which takes place in a traditional classroom might look like this: students engage in an information gap activity with a speaking partner from the class. Most likely, students in a U.S. German class have known each other for a few years and already know the answers to the questions in the information gap activity. As a result, the communication can become artificial. Therefore, many teachers have their students assume a new personality in order to simulate a real-life situation. This is certainly one way to encourage students to use the language in class. However, occasionally, it is important to give students the opportunity to engage in real communication.

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As the New Zealand and Ohio students messaged each other, they applied the same types of linguistic structures that students would use in the traditional classroom context. Essentially, they practiced using the appropriate interrogatives and applying the correct word order in questions. They practiced their reading and writing skills as well. However, the language became real for them; they were using it for genuine social interaction. Additionally, the students became more motivated as they looked forward to logging into the TIG Classroom to check for messages. I believe this was the point at which students began to understand the purpose of the project. One of the advantages of the messaging feature in the TIG Classroom is that it enables students to initiate their learning, whether at school or at home. It does not have to be built into the project as an assignment. It is also a feature that can help the teacher keep the students engaged at all times.

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STAGE 3: UNSER ALLTAG (our everyday life) DURATION: 3 instructional periods iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE:

● iCLT integrates language and culture from the beginning ● iCLT encourages and develops an exploratory and reflective approach to culture

and culture-in-language ● iCLT fosters explicit comparisons and connections between languages and

cultures ● iCLT acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning

contexts ● iCLT emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than

native-speaker competence MODES OF COMMUNICATION:

● interpretive ● presentational

LEARNING TARGETS: Students will be able to:

● make predictions about another culture ● identify the values and practices of their own culture ● compare the values and practices of other cultures with those of their own

ACTIVITIES: ACTIVITY #1: PREDICTING Students received thirteen slips of paper which displayed the German words for everyday activities in which Germans participate (e.g. working, sleeping, watching TV, studying, doing household chores, etc.). The activities were taken from a Stern.de web-based article Unser Alltag in Zahlen: So verbringen wir unsere Zeit (Stern.de), which displays the number of people engaging in these thirteen activities, changing in real time. In small groups, the students placed the activities in order of what they thought the most to the fewest Germans were doing at that moment. This prediction required the students to apply their knowledge of German culture, such as typical meal times or the length of a school day in Germany. After the students ordered the activities, they were able to access the website and compare their predictions with the results as they appear on the website.

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ACTIVITY #2: GAINING PERSPECTIVE Next, the students took an online survey of their personal interests. The survey was designed using Google Forms specifically for both groups of students and was written in German. As soon as all students took the surveys, the class viewed the results from their class as well as from their partner class. (See the survey and survey results on pages 20-21.) ACTIVITY #3: COMPARING & CONTRASTING In the final activity of this stage, the students referred to the results of the New Zealand and Ohio surveys to compare and contrast the interests of the two groups. They used the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs to report in writing about the similarities and differences (e.g. Texten ist beliebter bei den amerikanischen Schülern / Texting is more popular with the American students).

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This is part of the Google Form survey that the Ohio students took. An identical survey was created for the students in New Zealand.

Screenshot of Google Form survey taken on January 15, 2015.

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After students completed the survey, the results for the class were immediately accessible. The results below represent the number and percentage of the students surveyed who engage in the listed activities. This served as the basis for comparing and contrasting the two youth cultures.

Screenshot of Google Form survey results taken on January 15, 2015.

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PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS As Liddicoat and Scarino point out, using technology in language instruction has many advantages for the learners: “the power of technology is to make other cultures present to learners in diverse, complex, and immediate ways, and to allow for and require intercultural engagement” (ch.1). Specifically, using a survey tool such as Google Forms can support language learners in many ways. Not only do the students have immediate access to the results, but the graphs from the results can make the content of the lesson more concrete. Being able to see their own class’ values in graph form can help students form a clearer understanding of themselves individually or as a community. Furthermore, this type of activity fosters comparing and contrasting of cultures. Finally, it is a relevant and personal way to engage all students in their learning. During this stage of the project, it became obvious that the students would benefit from a brief grammar review of comparative and superlative forms. However, communication about the information became the focus, instead of the grammar. The results of the survey provided the examples for the grammar explanation, so the grammar was automatically set in a meaningful context for the learners. The task became more meaningful for the students as well. On the other hand, a grammar exercise that requires students to compare and contrast a random list of objects may be seem pointless for students.

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STAGE 4: MIT BILDERN SPRECHEN (Speaking with pictures) DURATION: 7 instructional periods iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE

● iCLT integrates language and culture from the beginning ● iCLT engages learners in genuine social interaction ● iCLT encourages and develops an exploratory and reflective approach to culture

and culture-in-language ● iCLT fosters explicit comparisons and connections between languages and

cultures ● iCLT acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning

contexts ● iCLT emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than

native-speaker competence. MODES OF COMMUNICATION

● interpersonal ● interpretive ● presentational

LEARNING TARGETS Students will be able to:

● identify or create images that represent the youth culture of their community and/or country

● describe aspects of the youth culture of their community and/or country ● identify similarities and differences between the symbols of their own youth

culture and that of the other class ● ask for clarification ● answer questions

ACTIVITY Students photographed at least one object that they believe represents the youth culture of their school community, city, or country. They posted it along with a brief explanation or caption in German in the “Gallery” in the TIG classroom.

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In the TIG Classroom Gallery, teachers can create folders in which to house the photographs from students. These are a few of the pictures from the New Zealand students.

Screenshot of TIG website taken on January 11, 2015. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS One of the strengths of this activity is that it can be used easily with a diverse group of learners. Students at a novice or beginning intermediate proficiency level can pose simple questions about the photographs and still engage in a meaningful conversation. In the example on the next page, one New Zealand student posted a picture of the school’s house banners and an Ohio student asked: “which house are you in? what do the names of the houses mean?”. Students who are at a higher proficiency level and ready for more complex topics can engage in conversations about bigger global issues and themes. For example, one student chose to photograph a row of alcohol bottles and expressed concern about the number of students who drink alcohol on the weekends in his community. This prompted a conversation about the issue of underage drinking.

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Students can post comments or questions to each other under their photographs. Below is an example of one of the photo contributions and the questions that follow.

Caption: We have four different “houses” in our school. Comment 1: Where do the names come from? Comment 2: Which house are you in?

Screenshot taken of TIG website on January 11, 2015.

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While this activity prompted meaningful dialogue between students, it did present some challenges. For example, some of the New Zealand students had difficulty imagining what they could photograph. It was clear from their reaction that students who have had little experience assigning meaning to objects would benefit from more support and examples. In future projects of this nature, for instance, I would spend more time working with examples during the brainstorming phase for the activity. Additionally, technology limitations presented challenges for the students. The students did not have privileges to upload photos on the school computers, so they had no way of completing the activity unless they did it outside of school. One solution was for students to send me their pictures so that I could upload them. Since many students either did not have internet access at home or forgot to send the photographs, I posted some of my own personal photographs of their community to the gallery. The students then wrote captions for the photographs. However, the fundamental problem with this solution is that by submitting my photographs I was imposing my perception of New Zealand youth culture on the students.

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STAGE 5: DIE KULTUR(EN) MEINER SCHULE (my school culture(s)) DURATION: 5 instructional periods iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE

● iCLT integrates language and culture from the beginning ● iCLT encourages and develops an exploratory and reflective approach to culture

and culture-in-language ● iCLT acknowledges and responds appropriately to diverse learners and learning

contexts ● iCLT emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than

native-speaker competence. MODES OF COMMUNICATION

● interpretive ● presentational

LEARNING TARGETS: Students will be able to:

● identify important characteristics of their school ● describe their favorite places and/or activities in school ● present their ideas and opinions about their school ● understand the information presented by other students

ACTIVITIES ACTIVITY #1: BRAINSTORMING Students brainstormed for places and activities they could film for videos about their school. This activity also provided students with the linguistic tools they needed for the speaking parts in their videos. This is the brainstorming prompt as it appeared on the classroom whiteboard.

Was gibt es in der Schule? What all is there in school? Es gibt (in der Schule).... In school there is…. In der Schule gibt es eine Bibliothek, wo man lernen oder lesen kann. In school there is a library, where you can study or read.

First, the class worked together to list all the buildings and outdoor spaces on their campus. In constructing this list together, the students were able to see the article patterns following the idiom “es gibt…” (there is/are). This allowed me to review the

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accusative case with the students within a meaningful context. After the list was complete, students signed up for the buildings and outdoor spaces that they wanted to use as scenes for their videos. Next, students practiced using subordinate clauses to describe what kinds of activities they do in the different buildings and outdoor spaces. ACTIVITY #2: MAKING A VIDEO The students worked in groups of three or four to prepare and film their videos. While they were given few content requirements, they were encouraged to describe the space, explain what students do there, and express their opinions about the space and activities. Afterwards, students posted links to their videos on the TIG Classroom and watched the videos from the other class as well as those of their own classmates. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS The focus in both of these activities was placed on building on students’ previous knowledge and thus building their confidence in expressing themselves in German. The intention in giving students the opportunity to brainstorm together was to move them towards being able to speak more freely, without depending on a script. The second part of the brainstorming activity was meant to give the students support in expanding their ideas using a somewhat more sophisticated style of speaking. The students’ engagement and end products went above and beyond my expectations. It was evident that the students had fun being creative in this activity; the videos were engaging and entertaining. Each student played a speaking role (in German) in their group’s video, even students who were reluctant to speak in class. Furthermore, the task gave the students the freedom and room to incorporate humor, and their personalities truly surfaced in the videos. Table 1 on the next page illustrates the New Zealand students’ reactions to the project activities. In a post-project survey, eighteen students were asked to identify their favorite activities from the project. The results reveal that students enjoyed watching the videos more than any of the other seven activities. Sixteen students indicated that they enjoyed watching the videos, while twelve indicated that they enjoyed making their video.

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Table 1 I believe the results of this survey reflect an important stage in the students’ development as intercultural communicators. After having had the opportunity to get to know their interlocutors and see pictures of the other culture, their interest in the other culture increased. In this stage, they gained a concrete and authentic glimpse into the lives of the students with whom they had been collaborating. The Ohio students, for example, could see from the videos that it was summer in New Zealand, while they were experiencing a snow storm in Ohio. Or they were able to see what a Marae looked like and hear the students explain the purpose of the Marae. The New Zealand students, on the other hand, had the opportunity to take a virtual tour of an American school building.

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STAGE 6: SKYPE SESSION DURATION: 1 instructional period iCLT PRINCIPLES PUT INTO PRACTICE

● iCLT engages learners in genuine social interaction ● iCLT emphasises intercultural communicative competence rather than

native-speaker competence MODES OF COMMUNICATION

● interpersonal ● interpretive

LEARNING TARGETS: Students will be able to:

● greet each other in German ● introduce themselves in German ● ask and respond to questions ● understand the information shared by the other participants

ACTIVITY Students participated in a Skype session in which they communicated with each other face to face for the first time. Because of the eighteen-hour time difference not all students were able to participate in the video conference. Approximately fifteen of the New Zealand students were excused from their first period class in order to attend the session, while approximately fifteen of the Ohio students from the participating class and the school’s German Club members met voluntarily after their school day. The discussion was conducted as an open forum in which students could initiate questions. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS & CONNECTIONS The students loved meeting each other in the Skype session. For some, it was the activity that they identified as their favorite over the course of the eleven weeks. During the second focus group interview, I asked five students to reflect on the entire collaboration project. In the interview, four of the five students stated that the Skype session was their favorite activity during the project. 3

3 Because not all of the students were able to participate in the Skype session, it was not included as one of the choices on the post-project survey (see Table 1).

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Below is an excerpt from the focus group interview.

INTERVIEWER: Gabi, what was your favorite part of the project? GABI: I liked the Skype session because it was nice to see who we were actually talking to and to talk to them actually....And because of the way that you interpret how they are, it’s a lot harder to interpret what they mean when you’re just messaging them. So it’s kind of nice to see them when you’re talking to them. TEACHER: Does seeing someone’s face help you to interpret that? GABI: Yes, because if you’re messaging someone, you could say something jokey or sarcastic. And they may not understand that, because it’s hard to get the context and stuff from just messaging them. So, I think it was a lot better to see someone face to face. TEACHER: Pete, what would you say was your favorite part of the project? PETE: skyping, probably. Yeah, it was pretty fun to see how they reacted to what we said. They were making jokes.

The students’ comments also point to the importance of face to face communication in a project that aims to help students develop intercultural competence. The students were able to see their interlocutors’ non-verbal cues - whether that be a smile, laugh, or even a look of confusion. These types of cues can enhance the communication or clarify the message being conveyed. Teaching students how to interact in a culturally responsive way with people from other cultures is challenging outside of a context, but in a video conference students can see for themselves what kinds of behaviors are socially acceptable in the other culture. For example, because the Skype session took place after school for the Ohio students, their teacher allowed them to eat a snack during the session. Eating while talking to a group of people for the first time was something that the New Zealand students, who aren’t used to such casual behavior in school, found strange and shocking. Also, the Ohio students jumped right into the conversation, while the New Zealand students needed more time to warm up. These may seem like small details, but they can give students insight into the acceptable behavior and values of a culture. With a teacher facilitating a

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reflection on the video-conference afterwards, students should be able to draw meaningful inferences about the similarities and differences between the cultures. Although the session seemed to have had such a positive impact on students, they were in fact reluctant to speak in German. At first, they were hesitant to say anything and asked if they could speak in English. In real-time communication students may have less time to formulate their questions and ideas as in the previous activities, so I allowed them to use English. After about ten minutes, some of the students started to use German more freely, but most of the conversation was conducted in English. If I were to facilitate this type of video-conference in the future, I would work with the students beforehand to prepare for it. For example, compiling a list of questions and useful phrases with the students could support the less confident students and provide more of a framework for the discussion. Organizing a skype session may be unrealistic for partner schools for which there is such a large time difference. An unreliable internet connection can be an obstacle to live intercultural conversations as well. However, students who are enrolled in a TIG Classroom have another option for one-on-one live communication using the “video chat” feature. This feature allows two or more students to chat face to face and in a safe environment as the conversation takes place within the password protected classroom.

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PROJECT RESULTS Intercultural competence obviously needs time to grow, and it is difficult to measure the development in understanding other cultures and oneself in relation to the rest of the world. It would be premature and false for me to claim that students’ intercultural competence grew as a result of their opportunities to interact with young people from another country over such a short period of time. However, I do believe the students’ perceptions of their own learning can provide significant insight into the impact that this kind of interaction can have. At the conclusion of the project, eighteen students completed a survey, which prompted them to reflect on the project as well as their own learning. Their responses overwhelmingly illustrate that students related their learning to culture, as opposed to the German language. In the second survey students were asked to explain what they learned from the project. Sixteen students answered this question. Eleven of their responses refer to cultural similarities and differences specifically, without being prompted to do so. Three of the comments relate to specific aspects of American culture, and two of the comments refer to communication. However, none of the responses make any reference to German grammar or vocabulary.

On the second survey students were asked the question: “What did you learn from the collaboration project with the German class in Ohio over the last three months?”. Below are the responses that most represent all sixteen. -About USA culture and food; about my own school; learnt about cultural differences. -I learnt about how different the USA is compared to New Zealand. -I had a lot of fun doing this collaboration. I learned a lot about American culture, and things like their food and schooling lifestyles (even small things like Chipotle) which really interested me. -The differences and similarities of the two different cultures. -There are a lot of similarities between our culture here in New Zealand and their culture in the USA. -Children from America are a lot like us. -I learnt about some of the differences between our cultures, e.g. music, food, slang. -That we could communicate with people from another country doing the same thing. -A lot about German and American culture. I learnt how to construct a basic conversation in German.

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The second open-ended question prompted students to explain why they enjoyed the activities of the project (see Table 1). Seventeen students provided explanations. In general, their comments related to three common themes: it was fun, it allowed them to be creative, and they were able to interact with people from another culture. Again, none of the comments related to German grammar and vocabulary.

On the second survey students were asked to select the activities that they enjoyed the most and then were asked to respond to this prompt: “Explain why you enjoyed this activity/these activities.”. Below are the responses that most represent all seventeen responses. -It was fun to show other people our school and compare our school to theirs and see the differences. -They [the activities] were fun and we got to meet new people. -It was fun/funny working with my classmates in New Zealand [I feel we bonded] and I found writing to UA [Ohio] interesting and cool, as I like talking to people from different countries and looking at different cultures/ways of life. -It was simple and easy to do. -Cause [Because] it was interesting to interact with them [the Ohio students]. -Because it was fun communicating with students from another country. -I liked talking to people from other cultures. -I enjoyed these activities because we got to be creative while learning about cultures in America.

In evaluating the students’ responses, it is important to explore why they did not mention German grammar and vocabulary in any of the responses to the open questions. Perhaps it is helpful to return to a discussion of the concept of New Zealand’s iCLT model. As stated earlier, it shifts the focus of learning from linguistic and communicative competence towards intercultural competence (Part 1). In the case of the student project, the focus of the learning was on communication and relating to young people in another culture. The linguistic competence of the students was not neglected, but in order to move them towards intercultural competence, the linguistic competence could not be dealt with separately. Although the students’ linguistic competence may have improved as a result of their interactions with the Ohio students, their perception of their learning was mainly culture-related. In taking a closer look at the responses to the first open-ended question, it is clear that students were struck by the similarities and differences they observed between the two cultures. This reaction is clearly an example of the fourth iCLT principle: “iCLT fosters explicit comparisons and connections between languages and culture” (Part 2).

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According to Liddicoat and Scarino, one’s own culture and identity play an important role in intercultural language learning. Under a model of intercultural language teaching, learners become decentered from their assumptions about the world and about their own identity (ch.2). Simply teaching the New Zealand students about U.S. culture might result in an increased understanding of the practices of American teenagers. However, the intercultural learning that occurred challenged students to look at themselves and their own culture from a different perspective as they interacted with the Ohio students. The first and second surveys asked students to evaluate their German communication skills at the beginning and end points of the project respectively (see Tables 2 and 3 on pages 36-37). While half of the students surveyed remained undecided about their ability to communicate in spoken German, there was an increase in the number of students who agreed and strongly agreed with the statement that they can communicate with people other than their teacher and classmates in German. The fact that fifty percent of the students remained undecided about their speaking skills is not surprising, as the majority of the communication in the TIG classroom was written. However, the increase in the number of students agreeing and strongly agreeing that they can communicate in spoken German is not consistent with the students’ lack of confidence in the second focus group interview. When asked how confident they were in their German writing and speaking skills, the students replied that they still were not feeling confident, but they all agreed that they felt more confident in written communication. One student remarked that she feels more comfortable with written communication because she can edit her work. Another student commented that writing is a lot easier than speaking. The interview comments about the students’ perception of their written communication conflict with the results of the survey question related to to the students’ assessment of their written communication. The survey asked students to agree or disagree with the statement: “I can communicate in written German with people other than my classmates and my German teacher.” While Table 3 illustrates a decrease in the number of students disagreeing with the statement, there is also a decrease in the number of students who agree with the statement and a significant increase in the number of students who are undecided. In looking at the individual student responses (not shown here), however, twelve of the eighteen students who responded moved from a lower number on the Likert scale to a higher number. Assuming that “undecided” can be seen as a more positive response than “disagree” or “strongly disagree”, one could argue that the majority of the students experienced a positive shift in their attitude about their

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written communication. Nonetheless, there is no conclusive evidence to support a claim that the students feel confident in general when writing in German now as a result of the project.

Levels of agreement among Year 10 German students with the statement: I can communicate in spoken German with people other than my classmates and German teacher. Survey 1 Survey 2

Table 2

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Levels of agreement among Year 10 German students with the statement: I can communicate in written German with people other than my classmates and German teacher. Survey 1 Survey 2

Table 3 While data collected from the surveys and interviews can certainly provide insight into the students’ perception of their learning and their competencies, one cannot underestimate the insight that observations of student behavior and attitudes can provide. In general, students demonstrated increased engagement and interest over the eleven weeks of the project. Most of them appeared to be more confident in their use of the language as they began to work more independently and worry less about making errors. Two of the students even decided to modify their academic schedule for the next school year to include the next level of German. These observations could be used to support the claim that many of the students became more motivated as a result of using language in a meaningful way.

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CONCLUSIONS: RESPONDING TO THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING LANGUAGE IN NEW ZEALAND AND THE UNITED STATES

There is no doubt that U.S. and New Zealand language teachers share similar frustrations and challenges. One major frustration for teachers of both countries comes from problems associated with travel opportunities for their students. Travel from New Zealand is challenging because of the distance to most destinations where a language other than English is spoken. The U.S., on the other hand, is relatively close to Central and South America and French speaking Canada, but international travel is still not a priority for many Americans. Despite feeling isolated from the rest of the world, teachers are committed to the goal of preparing their students to communicate in the target language. While carrying out my project I had the opportunity to interview four language teachers in three different New Zealand secondary schools - one Te Reo Māori teacher, one Japanese teacher, and two German teachers. I asked the teachers to describe their goals for their students. The one common goal across all four responses was that students be able to communicate in the target language. One of the teachers even described her goal as a dream for her students: “One of my dreams for my students is that they can actually go to [the target culture] and experience it and really take part in the life there.” I would venture to say most New Zealand and U.S. language teachers share this same dream. But instead of being able to travel to the target culture with all of our students, teaching students to communicate in the target language within the confines of the four classroom walls is the reality with which we are faced. The New Zealand iCLT model is certainly one approach to meeting the challenge of learning language in a classroom context. By applying the principles of iCLT, teachers can provide students with the learning opportunities that prepare them to interact with people from other countries in the future. I would propose that connecting two groups of learners through technology such as the TIG Classroom or even by just applying individual features of the TIG Classroom is another piece of the solution to the challenges that New Zealand and US language teachers face. While it definitely does not replace living and learning in the context of another culture, it provides students with a genuine reason to interact with members of

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another culture - not to practice the language but to learn about other perspectives on a given topic. Additionally, it personalizes the experience for the students, making learning more meaningful and relevant to their lives. However, as Liddicoat and Scarino point out, technology alone is not the answer. Teachers need to take their students through the exercise of processing and analyzing what they have experienced in their online interactions in order for their students to grow interculturally (ch. 7). Providing students with opportunities to meet and develop meaningful connections with other speakers of the target language is a key responsibility of language teachers today. As was evidenced during my project, the interlocutors do not necessarily have to be native speakers. In fact, some students may feel less anxious about collaborating and communicating with fellow learners of the target language. Collaboration between one native-speaker group and one non native-speaker group can often make for an unbalanced and awkward experience for both groups of students. Furthermore, I would suggest implementing an online collaboration at an early stage of the students’ language experience, even at the novice level of learning, and continuing it with the same partners. As students grow to know each other, they will most likely become more comfortable in communicating with each other. Additionally, I could imagine that long-term collaboration with the same partners could evolve into a project aimed at students communicating more about deeper global issues, such as environmental protection, human trafficking, or health care, and finding solutions to these issues. When asked to describe his goals for his students, one of the New Zealand language teachers whom I interviewed replied:

“if I think about what I want my students to achieve, it’s to be able to converse in a foreign language and to be able to meet people and to make meaningful connections with people overseas. And to inspire them to travel and to work overseas and to gain a more worldly understanding and appreciation of the world and the people in it.”

I find this quote inspirational and a reminder of the critical role that teachers play in their students’ lives as they make their way through their language learning journey. Teaching a language is not about the summative assessment of the students’ skills. Nor is it about the grade that we assign to students. What this teacher so eloquently described is about preparing students to be interculturally competent - to be able to communicate and interact across cultures, to be culturally aware and have a broader

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perspective of the world, to have empathy for other people. I believe the language classroom is the most ideal educational context in which this can happen and language teachers are the ones who can help make this possible.

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WORKS CITED ACTFL Performance Descriptors for Language Learners. American Council on the

Teaching of Foreign Languages. Fairfax: ACTFL, Inc., 2012. PDF File. Boix Mansilla, Veronica and Anthony Jackson. Educating for Global Competence:

Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World. New York: Asia Society, 2011. PDF File.

Byram, Michael. Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence.

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd, 1997. EOI Icod de los Vinos. “Nikolas - Sich vorstellen.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube,

18 March 2013. Web. Accessed 15 September 2014. Liddicoat, Anthony and Angela Scarino. Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning.

West Sussex: Wiley, 2013. Kindle File. Newton, Jonathon, Eric Yates, Sandra Shearn, and Werner Nowitzki. Intercultural

Communicative Language Teaching (iCLT): Implications for Effective Teaching and Learning. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington, 2010. Web.

Taking It Global. <http://www.tigweb.org>. n.p. Accessed 15 September 2014.

“Unser Alltag in Zahlen: so verbringen wir unsere Zeit”. stern.de. Stern. Web.

9 September 2014. Accessed 15 September 2014.

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