BYRAM VERSUS BENNETT: DISCREPANCIES IN THE ... - CERCLL

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Paula Garrett-Rucks Byram Versus Bennett extensively with the Educational Council of Europe in the development of a portfolio assessment called “Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters” (Byram, 2008). Byram described the portfolio as, “focused entirely on helping learners to analyse encounters with otherness” (p. 222). However, to date there remains a lacuna of qualitative studies that provide empirical evidence of learners’ development within each of five dimensions in his model—attitudes, knowledge, skills of interaction/discovery, skills of relating/interpreting and critical awareness. THE IMPETUS OF THE STUDY: SITUATING THE ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER Having taught introductory French language instruction for over a decade, I am concerned with the lack of attention to fostering beginning language learners’ understanding of the target culture. Information from my informal discussions with Teaching Assistants and other introductory level FL instructors corroborates Philips (2011) survey results where many instructors reported difficulty fitting extended cultural work into the curriculum, particularly at beginning levels of instruction. Fox and Diaz-Greenburg (2006) found that many introductory FL instructors still focus primarily on the mechanics of language skills, believing that students' understanding of the target culture will occur in advanced courses or during study abroad. Yet, the majority of American students do not continue FL study beyond institutional requirements (MLA report). Consequently, few Americans are exposed to the kind of cultural instruction that fosters learners’ understanding of target-culture members’ perspectives toward their cultural practices and products. My personal interest in this study was to integrate cultural projects reported to be successful at intermediate and advanced levels of instruction into the beginning FL curriculum. The three salient features of successful culture learning projects in advanced FL instruction in the professional literature I encountered were 1) exposure to differing cultural practices, 2) exposure to diverse target culture members’ perspectives and 3) personalized discussions comparing different perspectives toward cultural practices that recognize learner agency (Furstenberg et al., 2001; Johnson, 2008; McBride & Wildner-Bassett, 2008). Due to learners’ limited linguistic mastery at beginning levels of instruction, I felt it was important to support the use of English during cultural discussions. However, I strongly believe in target-language use in communicative based classroom instruction in order to foster learners’ linguistic development. Furthermore, I knew that I could not disrupt the instruction of a beginning French course with the typical overextended curriculum. For these reasons, I situated supplemental cultural instruction and peer discussions in a computer-mediated environment. The purpose of this paper is not to analyze the effectiveness of the pedagogical interventions investigated (Garrett-Rucks, 2010), but rather to provide readers with examples of the types of discrepancies I encountered after analyzing the data to detect the emergence of learners’ IC at the individual level using Byram’s models in case study paradigms and Bennett’s theories to detect the collective shifts in the classroom discussions from ethnocentric to ethnorelative thinking. For this reason, I provide only a brief overview of the study and data analysis. THE STUDY: A BRIEF OVERVIEW In the fall of 2008, 13 students enrolled in a second-semester French course at a Midwestern technical college participated in weekly online classroom discussions on BlackBoard for course credit. The class was a communicative language course taught primarily in the target language. Outside of the classroom instruction, there were online classroom discussions in English, centering on French greetings, French education, and French family life over the course of a 16week semester. Each of the three discussions lasted five weeks and consisted of two phases. For Phase 1 of each discussion, participants were required to access two sources of cultural 16 CERCLL ICC Proceedings
Paula Garrett-Rucks Byram Versus Bennett instruction; 1) specific online cultural instruction designed to explicitly teach Americans about French cultural practices and 2) selected authentic texts written by French native speakers for French native speakers about the cultural practices found on the Internet (Appendix A). Students were required to post their reactions to online cultural materials during Week 1 of the discussion and then to respond to two of their peers’ postings on the discussion board during Week 2. For Phase 2 of each discussion, participants were required to access pre-recorded interviews with four diverse French informants (Appendix B) and then to post their reactions to the interviews on the discussion board during Week 3 and to respond to two of their peers’ postings on the discussion board during Week 4. During Week 5 of each discussion, participants were instructed to reflect on all of the cultural materials and comments made on the discussion board and then to post their final impressions of the French cultural practices. For each of the three discussions, the discussion prompts instructed students how to make their weekly postings (where to find the cultural instruction, the posting word limit and the discussion questions) over the course of each five-week discussion. I developed the discussion prompt questions to promote students’ exploration of the relationships between the practices and products of French culture and the perspectives of the French people, in adherence to the goals of the National Standards for FL Learning (Standards 2.1, 2.2, and 4.2). Nine students, four females and five males, volunteered to be interviewed by the researcher at the close of each of the three discussions. Semi-structured interviews were intended to elicit learners’ impressions of French people and French culture and the influences on these impressions. Pre-and Post- semester questionnaires were also administered in an attempt to capture changes in learners’ thinking about cultural practices as well as changes in learners’ impressions of French people and French culture. The two research questions I investigated were: RQ (1): In what ways do changes in learners’ intercultural competence (IC) correspond with changes in their impressions of French people and French culture? RQ (2): What factors in the discussions (e.g. the online cultural instruction, the authentic texts, the French informants, peer interactions, the instructor, textbook, prior experiences with native speakers) appear to influence collective shifts between learners’ ethnocentric and ethnorelative perspectives? DATA ANALYSIS In order to respond to RQ1, I identified the changes in the four focus participants’ impressions of French people and French cultural practices in relationship to their developmental trajectory of IC over the semester by using a case study paradigm. I analyzed focus participants’ statements from their questionnaires, the transcripts of the online discussions and the transcripts of the post-discussion interviews using an open coding technique (Berg). Using line by line coding, I first coded all statements learners’ made about French people and French culture. After I identified changes in participants’ statements about French people and French culture on a week by week basis, I then attempted to find influences on these changes. I then identified changes in four focus participants’ developmental level of IC by coding the data for instances where I could detect evidence of the participants’ intercultural attitudes, knowledge and skills for each of the two phases in each discussion based on Byram’s (1997) definitions. Because learners were speaking in English in intracultural discussions with their peers rather than intercultural exchanges, I followed Byram’s objectives for intercultural competence, rather than intercultural communicative competence. Byram claims, “omitting reference to communication, I CERCLL ICC Proceedings 17
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BYRAM VERSUS BENNETT: DISCREPANCIES IN THE ... - CERCLL

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