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Determining Progress
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Kramsch (1993) cautions against
too narrow an assessment of the cultural element of a language course,
arguing that its benefit might not be realised (in both senses of the word)
until long after the course has ended. Byram (1997b: 75) also warns against
viewing cultural education as a step-by-step progression up a metaphorical
ladder – he argues that a jigsaw puzzle is a better metaphor for the process of
learning, whereby the earlier stages of learning provide points of reference
(‘the edges and the corners’), and a richer, more detailed picture emerges at
later stages of learning. Byram (1997b: 75–6) observes that:
Learners often need to revisit issues and encounter them in different
contexts and perspectives. Furthermore, their needs may suggest a
different order from that usually taken, and their needs may change
and require different priorities at different points in their learning
process, particularly when that process is life-long.
Byram also notes, for example, that younger learners may not benefit as
much as older ones from cultural content in their lessons. The ability to
abstract content from experience, and even to perceive difference, is partly
dependent on maturity. As a case in point, various research projects
suggest that dialect-speaking children under the age of 10 have not
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acquired a full awareness of the differences between their own speech
variety and the standard language (see the articles collected in Cheshire
et
al
., 1989). Evidently, the kinds of cultural exploration which depend upon a
comparison between language varieties and their relation to their speech
community would need either to be radically modified for younger
children, or postponed until they are in their early teens.
Although he grants that all aspects of the
savoirs
that he defines as
elements of intercultural competence are related, Byram is currently
working with colleagues across Europe to specify a ‘threshold’ of
intercultural competence, that is, a point at which it might be argued
that learners have achieved an institutionally sanctioned blend of
cultural knowledge and skills. The desire to specify a threshold level of
intercultural competence itself reflects Byram’s background in the state
education sector, and his involvement in the Council of Europe’s
ongoing project to harmonise language learning goals across the
European Community (cf. Byram & Zarate, 1997; van Ek, 1975). Even so,
Byram acknowledges that such a threshold would vary from context to
context, depending in part upon (1) the social demands upon learners to
acquire language for purposes such as commerce and diplomacy, as
well as for personal recreation; (2) the orientations of the home country
towards those cultures (national and professional) where the second
language is used either as a mother tongue or as an auxiliary means of
communication; (3) the resources available in the educational institu-
tion where the language is taught (materials, methods, trained teachers,
technology, etc.); (4) a specification of the situations in which the
learners are likely to use their communicative and intercultural skills
(e.g. on study trips, in personal contacts, or in secondary exposure
through the media or internet contacts).
At present, the specification of readily available curriculum objectives,
and work towards a consensus about a threshold for intercultural compe-
tence, are in their infancy. No widely used ELT examination, such as the
UCLES or Oxford examinations, currently specifies or tests intercultural
competence as here defined, and so it is up to the individual teacher and
institution to decide if or how a cultural component in their teaching
should be tested. This chapter has been able only to offer general guidance
to the issues surrounding assessment in the cultural classroom. However
brief the discussion must be here, the topic remains of fundamental impor-
tance to the concept of language teaching more widely. In a lively critique
of language assessment up to the 1990s, Harrison (1991: 97) comments:
One of the first consequences of looking at a language from a commu-
nicative point of view is the realisation that the context of an utterance
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has a vital importance in establishing its meaning. A question for
testing is whether this context is necessary for the assessment of com-
municative skills.
It is a point which, unfortunately, Harrison does not pursue in detail: he
proceeds, instead, to remind his readers that test-taking, like theatre, is
about performance and display, as much as it is about the performance of
‘real-life’ tasks, and that good tests should engage the candidates’ creativ-
ity and allow them to be ‘spontaneously appropriate’ (1991: 104). Tests of
intercultural competence face many of the same questions as communica-
tive language tests: how best to specify context, and how best to construct
test formats in which knowledge of the cultural functions of language
inform but do not straitjacket students’ creativity. Implicit in Harrison’s
observations is a reminder that testing, too, is a cultural variant: it takes
time for the culture of testing to bend itself to the prevailing winds of
teaching and learning. The test formats suggested in this chapter do not
stray far beyond those well-established already in the language testing lit-
erature, and so teachers and students should not balk at their unfamiliarity.
However, the tasks have been modified to probe more specifically the
cultural aspects of language knowledge and use, and the candidates who
undertake such culturally oriented assessments should be clearly briefed
about what is required of them, and the criteria to be used in grading their
performance. Until general examinations in intercultural proficiency
become widely available, it must be the responsibility of local curriculum
planners and teachers to flesh out the details of the most appropriate goals,
formats and grading criteria for the assessment of the intercultural content
of their language courses.
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Chapter 10
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