Intercultural awareness: an approach to teaching language and culture in ELF

1. ELF 3 – Vienna Intercultural awareness: an approach to teaching language and culture in ELF Will Baker

2. Language and culture in ELF • Increased significance of the cultural dimension of language teaching/use, especially in ELT (e.g. Kramsch, 1993; Byram, 1997; Risager, 2007) • However, many of these models are based on the notion of a ‘target culture’ for language (UK/USA) • Expansion of English in global contexts as a lingua franca problematises a target culture

3. “the goals of traditional language teaching have been found wanting in this new era of globalisation. Its main tenets (monolingual native speakers, homogeneous national cultures, pure standard national languages, instrumental goals of education, functional criteria of success) have all become problematic in a world that is increasingly multilingual and multicultural” (Kramsch 2009: 190)

4. Language and culture Problematic with global languages such as English – what is the culture that English creates or enacts? • Is culture inevitably linked to a target culture (e.g. the UK or US)? (e.g. Whorf, 1939; Byram, 1997; Wierzbicka, 1997) ? • Is English used as a lingua franca culturally neutral? (Kirkpatrick 2007; House 2002; 2003; Meierkord 2002)?

5. Language and culture in ELF • “Languages and intercultural communication are never just neutral” – Phipps and Guilherme (2004: 1) • Languages and cultures are notinexorably linked at the level of ‘national’ conceptions. • While participants bring individual lingua-cultural histories, the relationship is situated; created in each instance of communication. • Culture in intercultural communication and ELF • Third places/ Third spaces (Kramsch, 1993; 2009; Meierkord,2002; Jenkins, 2006) • Liminality (Rampton, 1995) • The local and the global (Canagarajah, 2005; Pennycook, 2007) • Trans-cultural flows (Dewey, 2007; Risager, 2006; Pennycook, 2007) • There is no one culture of ELF but emergent, hybrid and fluid cultures (Baker, 2009)

6. How are such multifarious communicative practices undertaken? • “…it may turn out that what is distinctive about ELF lies in the communicative strategies that its speakers use rather than in their conformity to any changed set of language norms.” (Seidlhofer and Widdowson, 2009: 37-38) • For models of successful communicators in ELF we need to look at the strategies of multilingual communicators (Canagarajah, 2005; 2007; Kramsch, 2009) • This goes beyond knowledge of a single variety of English and the associated mastery of a fixed grammar, lexis and phonology • Instead need to also incorporate skills and knowledge such as accommodation, code switching, cooperation, negotiation, cultural and linguistic awareness (see for example Cogo, 2009; Cogo and Dewey, 2006; Jenkins, 2007; Kirkpatrick, 2007)

7. Intercultural awareness • Intercultural awareness is a conscious understanding of the role culturally based forms, practices and frames of reference can have in intercultural communication, and an ability to put these conceptions into practice in a flexible and context specific manner in real time communication.

8. Intercultural awareness - Level 1 • An awareness of: • culture as a set of shared behaviours, beliefs, and values. • the role culture and context play in any interpretation of meaning. • our own culturally induced behaviour, values and beliefs and the ability to articulate this. • others’ culturally induced behaviour, values and beliefs and the ability to compare this with our own culturally induced behaviour, values and beliefs.

9. Intercultural awareness – level 2 An awareness of: • the relative nature of cultural norms. • cultural understanding as provisional and open to revision. • multiple voices or perspectives within any cultural grouping. • individuals as members of many social groupings including cultural ones. • common ground between specific cultures as well as an awareness of possibilities for mismatch and miscommunication between specific cultures.

10. Intercultural awareness – level 3 An awareness of: • culturally based frames of reference, forms and communicative practices as being related both to specific cultures and also as emergent and hybrid in intercultural communication. • initial interaction in intercultural communication as provisionally based on cultural stereotypes or generalisations but an ability to move beyond these through: • A capacity to negotiate and mediate between different emergent socioculturally grounded communication modes and frames of reference based on the above understanding of culture in intercultural communication.

11. Implementing ICA in the ELT classroom • Exploring local cultures – different local and national cultural groupings, cultural groupings that cut across nations • Exploring language learning materials – images of cultures in text books both local and others • Exploring the traditional media and arts through English – film, TV, radio, newspapers, novels, and magazines • Exploring IT/electronic media through English – the Internet, e-mail, chatrooms, instant messaging – tandem learning • Cultural informants – non-local English speaking teachers and local English teachers with experience in other cultures • Face to face intercultural communication (often with NES teachers)

12. In conclusion • ELF research highlights the inappropriateness of a ‘language=culture=nation’ correlation for English • This does not entail that ELF is culturally neutral • The relationship between language and culture in ELF is emergent, liminal and fluid moving between the local, national and global • Such an understanding of language and culture in globalised societies is a necessary part of intercultural communication • The language classroom is an ideal multilingual environment in which to explore such issues of globalisation, multilingualism and intercultural communication • ICA offers a means of conceptualising the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for successful intercultural communication and of incorporating this into the language classroom

13. Thank You E-mail:w.baker@soton.ac.uk

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