Reconceptualising learning programs for intercultural language learning.

Scarino, Angela

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the need to reconceptualise teaching and learning programs for intercultural language learning. The shift is from concepts such as 'content' and its 'coverage' (intended to address 'learner needs and interests') to developing programs focused on meaning making in interaction and on learners as meaning makers. Specific questions are provided to stimulate a reconsideration of programming practices.

KEY WORDS

Intercultural language learning, content, interactions, reconceptualising programs.

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INTRODUCTION

Thinking about program development for intercultural language learning presents us with a fundamental tension between traditional and more recent views about curricula and programs. Curriculum and program design have traditionally focused on 'objectives', 'content', 'activities', and "outcomes' and the effort to map these in some coherent way across defined spans of time. The process of curriculum and program design has therefore entailed the selection, specification, and ordering of content (generally expressed as knowledge and skills) and the articulation of predicted outcomes. Inevitably, this emphasis on defining content and outcomes has led to the standardisation of curricula and programs. This standardisation, in turn, has tended to pre-structure both what happens in the teaching and learning process and teachers' interpretations and understanding of teaching and learning (see Pinar, 2003). If the goal in teaching is to 'cover the content' of the programs, there is little space for considering the people involved, and in particular, what they bring to the learning process, i.e.

* their linguistic and cultural identities

* their diverse life-worlds, desires, motivations, and aspirations

* how they interact in communication and learning

* how these influence their interpretations and meaning making in the process of learning.

What is neglected in this traditional conception of curriculum and programming is a consideration of how the learning program is actually experienced by the participants, primarily the teachers and students, and in particular how teachers and students interact and what meanings they make in and through these interactions (Bullough, 2006; Greene, 1973; Mayes, 2005). The meaning making of people in interaction (as a process in which they necessarily draw upon their whole linguistic and cultural make-up) is the very focus of language learning, and it is this focus that intercultural language learning programs seek to incorporate. This paper explores the implications of a shift from the prioritisation of content in developing programs to the prioritisation of social interaction and the interpretation and meaning making of the participants in the teaching-learning process.

TRADITIONAL PROGRAMS AND PROGRAMMING

Traditional programs usually set out the scope (range, extent, depth) of the learning that is to take place over the period of a lesson, a week, a term, a semester, a year, or a span of years. Whether short or long term, such programs tend to specify the 'content' that needs to be learnt. In the language learning area, this is most frequency described as a set of themes and topics (a way of defining subject matter content), e.g. grammatical structures; vocabulary or a list of characters; a list of possible contexts, roles, situations; possibly a list of cultural items; a list of text types; and a list of skills and subskills to be developed (see Munby, i978). Generally, there is some discussion about which items are for 'receptive' as opposed to 'productive' use, and how these items are to be ordered. Such programs, however, do not specify how these items are integrated because that is seen as a matter pertaining to pedagogy, and pedagogy is considered to be separate from programming. Programs based on a communicative or task-based approach also include some indication of the kinds of activities or tasks that are to be performed as well as an outline of the resources that will be used (see Breen & Candlin, 1980; Stem, 1983; Widdowson, 1978; Wilkins, 1976; see also Kramsch, 2006 and Larsen-Freeman & Freeman, 2008 for a critical analysis of communicative language teaching). There is often discussion about what constitutes a task and how tasks are to be ordered, but essentially tasks are grouped in a sequence within topics or themes. The scope of learning is defined primarily by a notion of 'coverage', i.e. the 'content' that needs to be worked through as items of learning per se or within a task and within a designated time frame. Most frequently, the scope is expressed as particular chapters or units in the textbook that have been selected for the program or as specified items from the kinds of lists mentioned above.

Traditional programs generally also take into account the "needs and interests" of learners. This has led to the process of needs analysis becoming the precursor of programming. However, two problems arise with needs analysis. The first relates to the terms or categories by which learners" needs arc identified. These are normally understood in terms of the categories of the program itself, e.g. the themes and topics (which are deemed to be of interest to learners), the grammatical items needed to accomplish tasks, and so on. Thus the categories tend to construct and define the needs. The second problem relates to the fact that such programs tend to "freeze' the description of learners' needs in time, when in fact they are constantly changing.

Practices differ across schools and systems regarding the degree of freedom that teachers have in developing their programs. It is generally recognised that much of the work in programming is personal and that individual teachers will want to exercise their own preferences in designing programs to match their own teaching styles, beliefs, and values, as well as the particular context in which their program is situated. No matter what the style of programming, however, it is understood that such programs place learning into a structured time frame, a notion that reinforces a sense of linearity.

Schools and educational systems provide professional advice to teachers regarding program development mainly through the concept of 'best practice'. The work of excellent teachers is showcased without necessarily highlighting that it results from the integral relationship of the school, its community, its teachers, its students, and the substance and processes of learning, which might not necessarily be duplicated in another context.

Developing programs within an intercultural language learning orientation presents a challenge in relation to these traditional views. This is because the content of language-and-culture learning and the needs analysis of the learners are only a part of what is involved in learning to communicate interculturally in a particular language and culture at any particular time and over time. The essential feature of intercultural language learning is its focus on the interpretation, the making, and the exchange of meanings in interactions among teachers and students, processes that are central to both communication and learning. This focus is not amenable to being listed as an inventory of items, and therefore cannot be presented as such in a program.

The traditional view of programming is derived from a view of learning as a process of accumulating items of factual knowledge (i.e. content) that are tightly sequenced and organised hierarchically (Shepard, 2000). These items are then explicitly taught by teachers and, in turn, are received, internalised, and incrementally stored in the minds of individual students. With the recognition that learning involves more than this, that it is socially and culturally mediated, that students construct understanding within a sociocultural context, that new learning is shaped by prior knowledge and cultural perspectives, and that intelligent thought involves metacognition or self-monitoring of learning and thinking (Shepard, 9.000), a different kind of programming is needed, one that also takes into account learners as interpreters and makers of meaning.

When students learn and use language (i.e. both their home language(s) and the language being learnt, and when they move between the two) constant attention is given to the meanings that people (both teachers and students) make of different ideas, texts, images, etc. These meanings are not given in advance, but rather emerge from the interactions of the participants. The process occurs within an orientation to teaching that gives salience to students using their learning in their own terms and for their own purposes. As the educational philosopher Nell Noddings states:

 We too often associate teaching
 almost exclusively with competence in
 one subject and we expect teachers to
 'motivate' students to learn that
 subject. However, when we look at
 teaching as a practice, and not just as
 a means of introducing students to
 other practices, we see that teachers
 have a responsibility to find out what
 actually does motivate students ... I
 would not want students to like
 mathematics or philosophy less as a
 result of my teaching, bat I would not
 insist that they adopt my interests as
 their own ... That goal is to hero
 students use my subject effectively for
 their own legitimate purposes.
 (Noddiags, 2003, p. 250)

In developing programs for intercultural language learning, the choices about the content of learning (linguistic, cultural, and subject matter), activities, and assessment are guided by the focus on students' own meaning making and purposes. Following Candlin (1999) we might call this a 'peopled' view of content. Intercultural language learning programs need to focus on

* meaning making in interaction

* learners as the interpreters and makers of meaning (see Kramsch, 2006).

A FOCUS ON MEANING MAKING IN INTERACTION

Interaction is central to intercultural language learning. Interaction in this context is understood as more than "tasks'. It focuses on the processes of interpreting and making meaning, which requires participants to draw on their whole linguistic and cultural repertoire in all their languages: English, their home languages(s) (if not English), and the target language. It captures the lived reality of communication, where students come to understand their own location in languages and cultures and the linguistic and cultural location of all the people with whom they communicate. In any interaction, learners act simultaneously as performers and audience, contributing their own meanings and seeking to interpret those of others, considering how their contribution influences others and how others' contributions influence them, and recognising the impact of the exchange, i.e. understanding how they perceive and are perceived in communication and the consequences of this. In addition to articulating the linguistic and thematic content and tasks, an intercultural language learning program needs to articulate the opportunities and scenarios for interaction and the processes of interpreting meaning in interaction in and through language.

These interactions are rich in content. They are about themes and topics (i.e. the subject-matter content) and about their participants. They incorporate grammar, vocabulary, skills, processes, and contexts that comprise the linguistic and cultural content, and they integrate these within learning experiences that draw upon and develop interpretations made by the learners themselves. Such interactions should capture both experiences of dialogue/exchange and simultaneously the thinking, analysing, interpreting, explaining, and elaborating that occurs in communication in real time (what Sfard (1998) refers to as participation), while drawing on a range of content to be learnt (what Sfard refers to as acquisition).

The challenge in developing programs for intercultural language learning is to find ways of describing these interactions since they are largely omitted from traditional programs. What needs to be described in the program is the nature of the intended or planned interactions, together with rich and challenging input such as contemporary, authentic texts, or a central question that will stimulate the exchange of views, or a consideration of multiple interpretations brought to bear by other participants. By documenting the interactions, the teacher and students have an opportunity to review the range and variety of interactions provided as a starting point for dialogue. By describing them in some detail, the teacher and students also have a sense of the increasing contextual variability and complexity of the considerations that students need to take into account in participating in the interaction. Both the range and complexity of interactions are important dimensions of developing the scope of learning at any moment in time and over time.

A FOCUS ON LEARNERS AS THE INTERPRETERS AND MAKERS OF MEANING

Given that the goal of learning languages within an intercultural orientation is to enable students to come to understand how meaning is interpreted and created in and through language and culture in the act of communication, then, in developing programs, it is necessary to focus on learners as the interpreters and makers of meaning. This means going beyond canvassing their needs and interests. The process of understanding the social, cultural, and linguistic make-up of learners, the diverse experiences that they bring to the learning process, and their diverse motivations, desires, and purposes, is a continuous one that is integral to understanding their evolving interpretations and meaning making. More than students' needs and interests, it is their ever-developing interpretive capability (the distinct, interpretive resources that each student brings to the act of learning and the act of communication) that is of interest to the teacher, because it is this 'culture within the person' that informs the way individual students see the world. This culture is dynamically developed in an ongoing way as each experience of interaction builds on previous ones and draws upon and extends the interpretive frame of reference of the individual. The challenge for teachers in programming is to recognise that in addition to working with content, they are working with the interpretive frame that students' bring to and develop in learning, and that this interpretive frame is ever evolving. The focus in program development, therefore, needs to shift from an exclusive consideration of the content of the program and the needs of learners to the 'knowledge/content' as understood by learners in relation to their particular, evolving, interpretive frame. Kramsch (2008, p. 403) sees teachers in this context as 'becoming teachers of meaning'.

PROGRAMMING AS DIALOGIC

A program focused on learners as diverse, ever developing, and individual on the one hand, and on interaction to interpret and make meaning on the other hand, is necessarily dialogic. In this context, while teachers, knowing the learners well, can anticipate a great deal about the interactions (their purpose, key questions to stimulate reaction, noticing and comparing that lead to learning, resources to be used to challenge thinking), they also understand that any interaction cannot be fully specified in advance. There will "always be a degree of unpredictability because it is not possible to fully anticipate how particular individuals (both students and teachers) will interpret particular contexts and how they will react in interaction. The program cannot fully predict and represent how individual students interpret experiences, and it is this personalised interpretation and understanding of experiences and the way they are shaped by and articulated through language and culture, which are developed ultimately through interaction in intercultural language learning.

The program and the teacher represent one part of the dialogue. The other part must be provided by the learner and the teacher's response to the dialogue in action as constructed in the moment. Traditional programming assumes full predictability because the focus on standardisation assumes full predictability. Programming, understood as dialogic in the context of intercultural language learning, questions this assumption.

The challenge of this element of unpredictability, and the fact that one may never be able to capture a part of the interactions, may lead to a questioning of the value of developing programs at all for intercultural language learning. Even if the documentation can only ever be partial, it is valuable to document the scope of learning interactions (their range, variety, and complexity) as a point of reference for monitoring the nature and extent of variability that students have the opportunity to work with, and the range of resources (focus questions, direct input, texts, learning scaffolds, and examples) that are brought to bear to generate learning.

RECONCEPTUALISING PROGRAMMING

Developing learning programs for intercultural language learning does not involve simply addressing issues of content and methods, or approaches to teaching and learning, or issues of preparing a product or artefact to be used as a basis for 'managing' the teaching and learning process. Rather, it is a conceptual matter that relates specifically to how teachers, as program developers, conceptualise language learning, and their part in the ongoing dialogue with learners.

Given the central role of both the teacher and learners as interpreters with their own interpretive capability, how they each understand interactions cannot be fully anticipated. With ongoing experience, experimentation, and reflection, teachers continue to build into their programs the benefit of continuously working with not only the predictable, but also the unpredictable and the novel in students' responses.

IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPING PROGRAMS FOR INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

Some implications for teachers in developing programs for intercultural language learning include the need to

* create a range of opportunities for different kinds of interactions and different kinds of participation that bring to the fore students' roles as both performers and analysers as they interpret and try to make sense of the nexus of language, culture, learning, and communication, and developing their understanding of themselves, others, and their world within and across languages and cultures:

* What kinds of experiences are afforded to students and why?

* What constitutes 'a range', given that interaction/participation is not generic?

* How do we know how students understand the nature of interaction/participation in particular cases?

* How will the particular interaction/kind of participation promote interpretation and the creation of meaning?

* include various resources/artefacts to support interaction and reflection on interaction mad thereby promote learning, e.g. teacher talk/input (content and processes), focusing questions, the use of challenging, contemporary, authentic texts, scaffolds, and examples to stimulate learning:

** What kinds of input/questions/ texts/scaffolds are useful for diverse students?

* include content, concepts, skills that are best learnt through direct instruction:

** What aspects are best taught explicitly? How are they to be explained/represented/elaborated?

* include opportunities for analysing language and culture in interaction and learning:

** How do we develop the role of the learner as analyser?

* recognise that there is no single end point to the development of students' knowledge and understanding of language, culture, and communication, and that a feedback process needs to be included in the program for monitoring the ongoing development of students' interpretive frame that shapes their interpretation and making of meaning:

** What does the students' participation reveal about the interpretive frames they bring to language learning?

** What exactly is each individual learning? How do we know? How does each student make sense of the interculatural interaction and analyse his or her experience of language and culture in his or her own terms? How does each student personalise his or her knowledge and explain it to him or herself?. How do we best develop this explanatory dimension?

** How is individual development best monitored through the program?

** How is what the teacher learns through the experience of teaching captured so as to inform ongoing refinement of the program?

* recognise the relationship between learners, learning, programming, and classroom practices:

** How does the program contribute to the culture of learning created in the classroom?

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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.