Assessment in intercultural language learning.

Scarino, Angela

ABSTRACT

This paper provides background to considering how to assess intercultural language learning. It describes why traditional views of assessment are not sufficient. Essentially, assessing intercultural language learning requires assessment of both students' performance of communication in the target language and how they understand and explain the intercultural (that is, the movement between two languages and cultures) to themselves. A set of features of assessment of students' intercultural capability is included.

KEY WORDS

Intercultural language learning, language assessment, intercultural capability, assessment paradigms.

INTRODUCTION

ASSESSMENT IS THE LEAST WELL--DEVELOPED DIMENSION OF INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE LEARNING. THIS IS DUE AT LEAST IN PART TO THE FACT THAT DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL CAPABILITY DOES NOT SIMPLY INVOLVE AN INDIVIDUAL, PERSONAL QUALITY, SKILL, OR ITEM OF KNOWLEDGE THAT CAN BE LEARNT, DEVELOPED, AND ASSESSED. RATHER, IT IS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON THAT NECESSARILY REQUIRES INTERACTION. INTERACTION INVOLVES OTHER PEOPLE AND, IN ASSESSMENT, THIS RAISES THE QUESTION IMMEDIATELY OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE INVOLVEMENT OF OTHERS INFLUENCES THE PERFORMANCE, AND THEREFORE, WHOSE PERFORMANCE IS ACTUALLY BEING ASSESSED IN ANY INTERACTION (McNAMARA, 1996 AND 1997). IT ALSO INVOLVES DEVELOPING g REFLECTIVE STANCE TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING ONESELF AND OTHERS AS COMMUNICATORS, AND MOVING BETWEEN LANGUAGES and cultures (Kramsch, 2008)--a dimension that is not generally assessed in languages education, perhaps because it touches on the sensitive realm of values. The complexity in assessing intercultural capability also results from

* how the construct is described, given the diverse ways in which intercultural capability is understood, and therefore determining exactly what it is that is to be assessed

* the need to take variable linguistic and sociocultural contexts into account

* the constraints of traditional views of assessment.

Each of these aspects is discussed in turn below and some suggestions are offered as a way of beginning to experiment with assessment within an intercultural orientation to teaching and learning languages.

DESCRIBING INTERCULTURAL CAPABILITY

Approaches to assessing culture

A number of approaches to assessing culture have been developed where culture is described as a body of knowledge, facts, or descriptions of phenomena. These approaches have tended to emphasise the assessment of knowledge of culture as a fixed set of facts about the target culture, removed from people as constructors and users of that knowledge. This view of culture does not capture what it means to engage in intercultural interaction or dialogue focused on the exchange of meanings. Nor does it capture what it means to operate as an intercultural person, i.e. being both a 'performer' (a user of language) and an 'analyser' of experiences of interacting with people in diverse contexts across languages and cultures, which is what intercultural capability in communication and in learning entails.

Other approaches to assessing intercultural language learning and communication include attitudinal tests (Cadd, 1994; Seelye, 1994), culture assimilator tests (Brislin, Cushner, Cherrie, & Yong, 1986), and cultural awareness tests. These procedures tend towards processes of generalisation and decontextualistion that reduce intercultural communication to binary oppositions (us/them, self/other) and these do not reflect the sociolinguistic and cultural complexity of intercultural interactions. A particular difficulty with cultural awareness assessment is that it tends to focus on cultural (not intercultural) knowledge and recta-awareness, often with minimal connection to language in use. This, in turn, positions the person being assessed as an analyser rather than as a performer of intercultural experiences.

Assessing intercultural competence

The most elaborated model of intercultural competence and its assessment is the model of savoirs (French for 'knowledge'), developed by Byram and Zarate (Byram, 1997; Byram & Zarate, i994), and its use as a basis for assessment as elaborated by Byram (1997). This model includes savoir comprendre ('knowing how to understand'), savoir apprendre/faire ('knowing how to learn or do'), savoirs' engager ('knowing how to engage or commit'), and savoir etre ('knowing how to be'). While these are important processes in education, the model does not elaborate on the important ways in which language affects culture and culture affects language and what this means to the learner as a participant or performer in communication. It does not specifically deal with the interrelationship between these savoirs and linguistic competence. Sercu (2004) proposes that the Byram model of savoirs be extended to include 'a metacognitive dimension', i.e. self-regulating mechanisms that enable students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning processes. This is a valuable additional dimension. In the context of intercultural language learning, however, the evaluation of students' learning how to learn needs to include specifically reflection on language and culture and the interrelationship that exists between them.

The difficulty with any modelling is that inevitably it involves some form of categorisation or breaking down of capabilities into component parts. Such a conceptualisation mitigates against a holistic understanding of the capability (intercultural, in this instance) and equally, it foregrounds an analytic component-parts rather than a holistic view of assessment.

Implications

In assessing intercultural language learning it is necessary to take into account that it

* is a multi-dimensional and at the same time a holistic capability

* entails language learning, awareness, and use in communication--specifically, this involves using language as a performer in interaction to interpret and construct meaning; analysing and reflecting upon this experience of language, culture, and meaning-making; and continuing to learn from the use of language in intercultural interaction

* is developed over time, and therefore assessment processes that capture progress or growth will be most valuable.

THE NEED TO TAKE VARIABLE LINGUISTIC AND SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXTS INTO ACCOUNT

In developing a capability to communicate interculturally, students come to know that the forms of a language and knowledge of facts about culture are only part of what is involved when people interact to exchange meanings in a particular target language. These forms and facts are important only as socially shared communicative resources that people draw upon in different ways in different contexts. The diverse sociocultural contexts of use that students experience as participants in communication across cultures cannot be reduced to an inventory of items to be mastered. They are too intricate and variable. For students, managing the variability becomes an integral part of the process of learning to be intercultural. Intercultural communication is situated in particular contexts that include students' interpretations of the context; these interpretations comprise not only knowledge of linguistic forms and cultural facts, but also the meaning the individual learner makes of these in context. From the point of view of assessment, therefore, it is necessary to assess not only knowledge/subject matter, but also students' personal engagement with that knowledge. This includes assessing their ability to negotiate language use as participants within variable contexts as they move between languages and cultures. This process, however, cannot be managed successfully without students knowing what is the same and what is different in different languages and cultures.

Implications

In assessing intercultural capability, therefore, it is necessary to take into account that

* it is developed through experience of interaction in a range of variable contexts

* students need to learn to manage this variability, and that managing the variability is integral to the capability that is to be elicited in assessment

* it involves not only seeking to draw out students' understanding of intercultural language experiences as observers of others' participation in interaction but, most importantly, it involves drawing out an understanding of themselves as participants in intercultural interactions, i.e. how they understand the distinctive social and cultural context of each communicative performance.

CONSTRAINTS OF TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF ASSESSMENT

In the broader context of educational assessment there has been an important shift over the past 20 years that relates to a changing understanding about the process of learning. Whereas learning was seen traditionally as a process of accumulating atoms of factual knowledge that were tightly sequenced, organised as a hierarchy, and had to be explicitly taught (Gipps, 1999; Shepard, 2000), it is now recognised that

* intellectual abilities are socially and culturally mediated

* students construct knowledge and understanding within a sociocultural context

* new learning is shaped by prior knowledge and cultural perspectives

* intelligent thought involves metacognition or self-monitoring of learning and drinking (Shepard, 2000, p. 8).

The clear message from research about learning is that it is an active process of knowledge construction and sense making, a process that is essentially cognitive, social, and cultural (Sfard, 1998).

The assessment paradigm that is aligned with traditional views of learning and the conception of culture as a fixed body of knowledge is the psychometric paradigm. The focus within this assessment paradigm, which is also the most prevalent in education, is on standardised testing of fixed content through objective procedures. Within this paradigm the basic approach to understanding student learning is through comparison with either the performance of other students (norm referencing) or a predetermined standard or cut-score (criterion referencing). The assessment paradigm that is aligned with more recent views of learning and the understanding of the intercultural as a process of developing personalised knowledge is the contextual and personalised paradigm (Mabry, 1999). The focus within this assessment paradigm (often referred to as 'performance', or 'authentic', or 'alternative' assessment--Gipps, 1994; Gardner, 9006; Stobart, 2008) is on constructed-response assessment procedures (rather than selected-response procedures such as multiple choice) and subjective evaluation of personalised learning for each individual.

The tension between these paradigms places constraints on teachers as they try to respond simultaneously to multiple purposes of assessment. The psychometric paradigm remains so pervasive that teachers may be hesitant to experiment and develop a more expanded view of assessment that is necessary in assessing intercultural capability.

Implications

In the context of differing paradigms, it is necessary in assessing intercultural capability to take into account that it

* requires assessment of both students' performance of communication in the target language in variable contexts (students as performers) and how they explain the intercultural to themselves (students as analysers)

* includes feedback from peers and student self-assessment as part of the social processes that mediate the development of intellectual abilities, the construction of knowledge, and the formation of student identities (Shepard, 2000, p. 4)

* requires an emphasis on developing self-awareness as a performer in communication for both the student and the teacher/assessor.

Where to from here?

While the complexities of seeking to assess intercultural capability are recognised, it is important to experiment in this area so that we build up creative possibilities (see Scarino, in press). Some features of the forms of assessment that we might use as a starting point include the fact that they

* involve interactions in the target language on the part of students in which they negotiate meaning through the use of language in diverse contexts among communicators from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and in which they are required to decentre from their own language and culture

* elicit students' developing understanding of the social, cultural, and linguistic construction of human experience and the way our enculturation affects how we see the world, interact, and communicate in the world

* involve eliciting students' meta-awareness of the language-culture nexus in such interactions and that they be able to analyse, explain, and elaborate this awareness

* position students as both performers and analysers in interaction, though in any individual procedure one or the other role may be foregrounded for different purposes

* elicit students' developing use and analysis/understanding of the use of language in communication

* ensure that students learn from the ongoing direct experience of the target language and culture

* draw upon a range of assessment processes including interviews, conferences, journals, observations, and narratives, and capture students' cumulative learning so that development and progress can be taken into account, e.g. through portfolios

* include sell-assessment that recognises learning as a personal process

* include dimensions that require reflection on the part of students on their developing knowledge and understanding.

CONCLUSION

The value of considering assessment of intercultural capability resides in the fact that the assessment process sharpens the conceptual focus on the construct, i.e. the nature of this capability and how it can be elicited and evidenced. At this stage in our engagement with the phenomenon of intercultural capability, what is needed is ongoing experimentation and research that is grounded in teachers' practice so that we begin to locate some central features of assessment of the capability to move between languages and cultures.

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Angela Scarino is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures in the School of International Studies at the University of South Australia. She is currently the President of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia. Her research interests include intercultural language learning, curriculum design, and assessment. Her e-mail address is angela.scarino@unisa.edu.au.