Dimension

5
Developing and Evaluating Language Learners’
Intercultural Competence: Cultivating
Perspective-Taking
Kristin Hoyt
Kennesaw State University
Abstract
This study investigates the development of intercultural competence (IC) in a university
French conversation class through a course module that features student ethnographic
interviews with native French speakers. Data collected from 50 students across
three semesters are examined through the lens of Byram’s (1997) five domains of IC
and used as a framework to identify change in the development of students’ IC. This
mixed-method study draws on quantitative and qualitative data from pre- and postquestionnaires
along with data documenting instructional delivery. Quantitative results
indicate significant change in the skills domains of IC (Skills of Interpreting and Relating
and Critical Cultural Awareness), and qualitative data point to IC-related attitudes
and knowledge associated with perspective-taking. Analysis of findings by interpreting
the convergence of quantitative and qualitative data yields implications for language
and culture educators with respect to the impact of consciousness-raising pedagogical
strategies for advancing IC.
Keywords: Intercultural competence, ethnographic interviews, pedagogy of culture
Background
The development of intercultural competence (IC) has come to the forefront
in conceptualizing the teaching of languages, literatures, and cultures (Byram, 2008,
2010; Garrett-Rucks, 2013a; Kramsch, 1995, 2008; Liddicoat & Scarino, 2010, 2013;
Scarino, 2008b, 2009, 2010). Teaching that is characterized by tenets of IC features
learning experiences that go beyond teacher or textbook dissemination of information
about cultural practices and products to address multiple cultural perspectives
and elicit meaningful cultural comparisons. As such, language learners must have
opportunities to investigate the diverse perspectives behind cultural products and
practices, from the point of view of natives of the target culture(s). This approach
to teaching culture goes beyond teaching a unilateral and fixed culture for a group
of peoples and leaves behind the idea of teacher as cultural expert. Moreover, an IC
approach to the teaching of culture calls for language learners to deconstruct their
own cultural perspectives – to acknowledge their own culture and its influence and
impact on their capacity for seeing, understanding, and accepting the “other.” With