Fourth International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence
CERCLL – The University of Arizona
Tucson – January 2014
Hélène Zumbihl
PEARL
CRAPEL - ATILF/CNRS
Université de Lorraine (France) UMR 7118
Overview
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Context of teaching
Preparing for study abroad
Organization of the curriculum
Evaluation
Learners’ autonomization process
Teachers’ and students’ representations about their roles
A new role for teachers in ICC learning
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New skills for teachers
New relationships with students
New way of considering evaluation
Language teachers as facilitators
Integration of this new role in the curriculum
Evolutions in the curriculum
Conclusion
Hélène Zumbihl
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Context of teaching
 Specific group of students, a limited number of students,
specific type of motivation for language and ICC (intercultural
communicative competence) learning
 University learning context in France with a cognitive learning
style (Utley, 2004)
 Theoretical influence in research [University of Lorraine in
Nancy, the cradle of theoretical research on learners’
autonomy in language learning (Holec, 1981)]
 This curriculum is recent: a necessity to combine research
about autonomy and the acquisition of ICC (Jimenez Raya &
Sercu, 2007)
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Preparing for studies abroad
"FL learners need to acquire both linguistic and cultural
competence and FL teachers need to help them reach these
aims" (Elsen & St. John, 2007: p. 27)
Objective: a combination of the linguistic and the
intercultural with a specific organization and form of
evaluation including an autonomization process for
students
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Organisation of the curriculum
A twenty-hour
course during
the semester
with a class
divided into two
groups
• Communicative
competence with a
native English-speaking
teacher
• Acquisition of
intercultural competence
• Writing a logbook
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Evaluation
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Learners’ autonomization process
• Autonomy: "the abilty to take charge of one’s own
learning" (Holec, 1981)
• Aim of the curriculum: to give the keys for analyzing
the year of study abroad
• Autonomy: a key element for acquiring ICC as a factor
of personal development (Kenny, 1993) in the lifelong learning process
• Our objective as teachers concerned with ICC: to
enhance learners’ autonomy (LA)
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Teachers’ and students’
representations about their roles
 Teachers’ attitudes and values are crucial in shaping the process of
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teaching and learning
LA in institutional settings inevitably requires both teachers and learners
to modify their representations of these respective roles (Riley, 1989)
New terms: "Helper ", "Knower ", "Facilitator" and "Counsellor"
(Riley,1986; Little,2003)
It implies a necessary evolution in the pedagogical relationship between
teachers and learners (Rogers, 1969)
Advisers are not ‘surrogate teachers’ (Mozzon-Mc Pherson, 2007: p.75),
on the contrary, they have a “significant highly skilled role as mediators”
Developing LA does not imply "teacherless learning" , but rather different
teacher roles (Sercu, 2007)
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A new role for teachers in ICC learning
• New skills for teachers
• New relationships with students
• Language teachers as facilitators
• New way of considering evaluation
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New skills for teachers
• The objective: to enhance learners’ awareness of their
personal development through critical thinking, collaborative
learning, self-initiated knowledge acquisition (Jimenez Raya &
Sercu, 2007)
• To accompany students in their experiential learning: dialogue
with teachers about their emotions (Rogers, 1969)
• To guide learners through the use of logbooks to enhance
reflexivity
• Language teachers: concerned with more than the knowledge
and skills to learn the language, they often want to transmit
the values and norms they believe in (Jimenez Raya & Sercu,
2007) but transmission is not sufficient, these values and
norms should be communicated, mediated and developed
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New relationships with students
 Teachers should manage to engage the learners and succeeds in
boosting and building their confidence (Jimenez Raya & Sercu, 2007)
 Following humanistic and socio-constructivist theories (Williams &
Burden, 1997), learners as individuals cannot be seen as separate
from their environment (Jimenez Raya & Sercu, 2007) which must
be taken into consideration in the interactions between teachers
and learners
 According to sociocultural theories (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986), via
interactive mediation, teachers or other more capable peers help
learners to reach levels of development they were not able to
realize independently
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Language teachers as facilitators
 For constructivists (Bandura, 1986; Bruner, 1985) learning can be seen as
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an ongoing process of construction and reconstruction and for learners to
become more autonomous, teachers have to facilitate these processes
A concern shared by many educators: teachers expect their learners to
gradually acquire the knowledge, the skills and attitudes needed for lifelong development (Jimenez Raya & Sercu, 2007)
The essential question is how teachers can help learners make sense of the
world they are part of :
Therefore the development of LA and ICC are major pedagogical goals of
foreign language education
Through introducing and facilitating intercultural learning, teachers can
affect a learner’s motivation to learn a foreign language significantly
(Jimenez Raya & Sercu, 2007)
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A new way of considering evaluation
How to develop self-assessment?
 A questionnaire at the beginning of the semester for the
students to help them determine their own objectives for the
semester
 Questions about what they think ICC is and different
considerations about intercultural relationships
 They will have to fill in the document regularly with reflexive
thinking about their learning either after a course in class or
after a session of autonomous working
 Students‘ self-evaluation will be part of the final oral exam. It
should involve a personal reflection about their learning
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Integration of this new role in the
curriculum
• Promoting dialogue and exchanges between
students and teachers (anecdotes with teachers’
and learners’ experiential learning)
• Promoting reflexivity with the logbook,
connecting and relating patterns of thinking and
behaviour across cultural boundaries
• Promoting, personal research through cultural
briefing
• Accepting evolutions in the curriculum
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Evolution of the curriculum
New organisation with large groups of students which
involves a necessity to reinforce students’ autonomy
through different means:
 more research work carried out by students
 increased use of information technology
 but also essential to keep teachers’ presence for
exchanging personal experiences and facilitating
students’ personal reflection
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Conclusion
 Essential to link Intercultural communicative competence learning
and learner autonomy in preparing for study abroad (Jimenez Raya
& Sercu; Zumbihl, 2012)
 Therefore we need to reconsider teachers’ roles in this preparation
 Their skills
 Their relationships with students
 The evaluation of the work done by students
 Their new roles of mediators or facilitators
It is more a question of communication, mediation
and development rather than transmission
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Thank you for your attention!
helene.zumbihl@univ-lorraine.fr
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