Why the intercultural matters to language teaching and learning: an orientation to the ILTLP program.

Scarino, Angela ; Crichton, Jonathan

ABSTRACT

The Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning in Practice (ILTLP) Project is a large scale, national professional learning program designed to extend the understanding and practice of language teachers with regard to intercultural language learning. The latter is an orientation to language learning that underpins the National Statement and Plan for Languages Education in Australian Schools (MCEETYA, 2005). This paper describes the ILTLP Project, its design, goals, and outcomes. It offers a rationale for and a description of an intercultural orientation.

KEY WORDS

Intercultural capability, intercultural language learning, interpretation, meaning making.

INTRODUCTION: THE ILTLP PROJECT

The Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning in Practice (ILTLP) Project was developed and implemented in all States and Territories of Australia in 2006-2007? by the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures (RCLC) at the University of South Australia in conjunction with all educational jurisdictions. The project involved some 400 primary and secondary language teachers across Australia participating in a supported professional research and learning program. The project was aimed at engaging language teachers in a nationally coordinated program to increase their knowledge and understanding of the principles and pedagogy of intercultural language learning and to experiment with using this knowledge and understanding in their classroom practice to enhance student learning. Participating teachers undertook a program of professional learning led by the ILTLP Project team and were supported in carrying out classroom-based investigation. The focus areas for investigation and development were long-term programs for teaching and learning and processes to assess intercultural language teaching and learning as two areas that are currently underrepresented in both research and practice. The project constitutes one of the largest Australian Government funded programs of professional learning and classroom-based research ever conducted in the languages education area in Australia.

Phase I of the project involved the teachers meeting in Adelaide for a two-day national workshop presented by the project team, in which current key ideas about intercultural language learning were explored. Following the workshop the teachers, supported by one or more members of the project team, developed either a unit of work or a long-term intercultural language learning program. Teachers and project team members communicated through face-to-face meetings and an extensive feedback process via c-mail and other written exchanges.

Written and tape-recorded feedback from the project team to the teachers was collected, reviewed, and analysed in an attempt to capture what is involved in the process of programming for intercultural language learning. Findings from this process provide insights into developing programs for intercultural language learning and will be of interest to and have relevance for language teachers in Australian schools who are involved in implementing an intercultural orientation in their teaching, as well as those who may be considering such an approach.

Design of the ILTLP Project

As a highly collaborative endeavour, the ILTLP Project brought together language educators from all sectors of education: primary and secondary language teachers, school leaders, academics and researchers, educational administrators, and the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations (AFMLTA).

Close collaboration in each State and Territory was central to coordinating the delivery of the ILTLP program. Through participation in the project, teachers and school leaders

* engaged with a nationally coordinated research and professional learning program that is underpinned by current research in language teaching and learning and grounded in classroom practice

* increased their knowledge and understanding of the principles and pedagogy of intercultural language learning

* integrated this knowledge and understanding into classroom practice to enhance student learning.

Goals

The goals of the program were to

* elaborate the group's understanding of the intercultural as it applies to language teaching and learning

* identify the implications of an intercultural orientation to language teaching and learning for developing a long-term program

* explore the question of how to assess the intercultural in language teaching and learning

* plan and carry out an investigation of an aspect of intercultural language learning in particular contexts.

The ultimate goal of the program was to invite teachers to develop an investigative stance (see Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999 for a discussion oft he notion of 'stance') through talking, interacting, thinking, and questioning in this professional learning program and through noticing, documenting, and enacting change within their own classrooms.

Outcomes

The outcomes of the project include

* professional learning on the part of the 400 participating teachers, the educational administrators, and the team of researchers who worked with them

* a national network of collaboration and a general understanding of the value of collaboration

* a set of professional learning' resources that can be used by individuals or groups to extend their understanding of intercultural language learning

* reports by teachers on their experience of investigating aspects of intercultural language learning in their classrooms

* an interactive website that brings together these resources (http://www.ildp.unisa.edu.au/).

A report on the external evaluation of the project is available from the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures.

Another outcome includes a set of discussion papers on issues that emerged from the development process, written by members of the ILTLP Project team. This article is one of several of these papers that have been revised and brought together in this special issue of Babel.

A RATIONALE FOR AN INTERCULTURAL ORIENTATION TO LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

The rationale for an intercultural orientation to language teaching and learning resides in what might be called a 'peopled' view of language (Candlin, 1999) that takes as its starting point people and how language matters to them. This is a view of language that acknowledges that what matters in using language is the meanings that are created, shared, and interpreted by people in interaction with each other and with texts (understood in very broad terms). This focus on meaning requires an expanded view of language. Shohamy (2006, p. 5) sets the scene for an expressive description of such a view by stating:

 Language is open, dynamic,
 energetic, constantly evolving and
 personal It has no fixed boundaries,
 but is rather made of hybrids and
 endless varieties resulting from
 language being creative, expressive,
 interactive, contact-and-dialogue-based,
 debated, mediated, and
 negotiated.

Such an expanded view of language acknowledges that from the point of view of language learners and users in any instance of language use there are 'always at least two languages in play in a mutually informing way, and that the use of the target language does not involve forsaking the first language, but rather that the learner-user draws upon each and incorporates each into his or her communicative repertoire.

Understood in this way, the interpretations that learner-users draw on in understanding and creating meaning are always derived from and situated in their particular culture and their understanding of the other's culture.

This rationale is intensified in the current context of increasing globalisation. With the unprecedented movement of people and their ideas and the growing interdependence of people, it has been increasingly recognised that people need, on a scale greater than ever before, to be interculturally capable, i.e. to be able to negotiate meaning across languages and cultures. In such a globalised world, the bilingual/bicultural person is the norm. This need has implications for the way we live our lives and interact with others, for education in general, and for languages education in particular. Languages have a central role in this context because they mediate the interpretation and construction of meaning among people.

An intercultural orientation to language teaching and learning

Developing an intercultural capability requires an orientation to language teaching and learning that focuses on the lived reality of interaction among people in the context of multiple languages and cultures.

This orientation builds on work in a range of disciplines that has sought to understand how people make sense of themselves, their world, and other people in and through language and languages. It takes as its starting point how people understand and create meaning through their use of language and through where they are situated culturally. This orientation views

* language as not only a structural, grammatical system or as focused on language in use, but also as always involving interpretation of meaning by participants in interaction

* culture as not only facts about or ways of doing things in diverse cultures, but also as the lens through which people mutually interpret and communicate meaning

* learning as not only addressing the need to acquire new knowledge and to participate in communities of users of that knowledge, but as becoming aware of how learners themselves not only comprehend but 'also interpret knowledge according to their language and culture

* teaching as not only addressing the need to impart knowledge and create contexts for students to use and apply it, but also as foregrounding students' awareness of their own and others' meaning making across languages and cultures.

Intercultural language learning provides a basis for re-conceptualising language teaching and learning. The ILTLP Project has provided a forum for exploring these key ideas for the profession.

The papers that follow draw upon the experience of the ILTLP Project. As issues arose in the development process and in the work with teachers, members of the ILTLP team prepared discussion papers to document and begin to explore these issues. They are intended to address teachers' questions, including the following:

* How are we to develop programs for intercultural language learning?

* What is the role of English (the first language for most students in Australia) in intercultural language learning?

* How do we do classroom-based research? What do we mean by 'an investigative stance'?

* How do we assess intercultural capability? Is it even assessable?

As a project team, we asked ourselves the following questions:

* How do we best provide feedback to teachers on their work?

* What do our questions and comments reveal about our own understanding of intercultural language learning?

Connecting these questions is the overarching interest of the ILTLP Project, which poses its own questions:

* What is intercultural language learning?

* What is the relationship between language and culture in language learning?

* What are some of the features of intercultural language learning?

* What happens when we insist on language, culture, teaching, and learning being all about meaning?

These questions need to be explored further and continuously with sensitivity to specific languages, phases of schooling, and local contexts. They need to be explored by teachers in relation to their own work (Scarino, 2007) and also in thrums at State/Territory and national levels. The spirit of the dialogue should be in line with the view of the international curriculum researcher William Pinar (2003), who sees the direction in curriculum moving from an era of prescription to an era of understanding. Interrogating the key ideas of the profession and constantly interrogating our own participation and roles lead to the self-awareness that we strive for in learning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The ILTLP Project was funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Science, and Training- now the Department of Employment, Education, and Workplace Relations.

The authors wish to thank the AFMLTA for its support of the project as well as the network of participants who collaborated on the project and whose experiences generated new learning for all involved. They also thank the reviewers for their comments on these papers.

REFERENCES

Candlin, C.N. 1999. Researching and teaching for a living curriculum: Australia's critical contribution to praxis in language teaching and learning. Paper presented at the conference 'The AMEP. 50 years of national building.' Melbourne, 10-12 February.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. 1999. Relationships of knowledge and practice. Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education. 24, 249-306.

MCEETYA (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training, and Youth Affairs). 2005. National statement for languages education in Australian schools. National plan for languages education in Australian schools 2005-2008. Hindmarsh, SA: DECS Publishing.

Pinar, W.F. 2003. Introduction. In W.F. Pinar (Ed.), International handbook of curriculum research, 1-32. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Scarino, A., Liddicoat, A.J., Carr. J., Crichton, J., Crozet, C., Kohler, M. Loechel, K., Mercurio, N., Morgan, A-M., Papademetre, L., & Scrimgeour, A. 2007. ILTLP professional learning programme. Research Centre for Languages and Cultures. Canberra: Department of Employment. Education, and Workplace Relations.

Scarino, A. 2007. Words. slogans, meanings and the role of teachers in languages education. Babel, 42, 1, 4-11.

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.

Jonathan Crichton is a Research Fellow in the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures in the School of International Studies at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on the role of language in interactions that affect people's life chances in health, medical, educational, and legal settings. His e-mail address is jonathan.crichton@unisa.edu.au.