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

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
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