Culture and Assessment

The very nature of culture teaching and learning make it impossible to use the same kind of assessment that is probably proper for other areas of language like grammar, reading or writing. However, the increasing need to include culture as part of the curriculum in language courses makes it necessary to find some way to assess the progress of the students in this area. Even though acquisition of information like social etiquette and politeness, and understanding of knowledge as in the case of historical facts can be more easily measured, they are just part of the intercultural competence. When we come to take into account attitudes, it is mandatory that we find different types of assessment (Byram, Gribkova, & Starkey (2002).

The “European Language Portfolio” developed by the Council of Europe offers one of the possible approaches to assess intercultural competence. This portfolio is composed by three parts: the “Passport” that indicates the student’s proficiency in the target language; the Language Biography” which includes the student’s planning, reflexion and self assessment on his/her own progress; and the “Dossier” that is a collection of materials and experiences. This approach emphasises self-assessment which encourage the student´s self awareness of his/her own abilities and progress, including those “acquired inside and outside the classroom” (Byram, Gribkova, & Starkey (2002).

Another approach for cultural assessment is the one presented by Kinnear, Steinman, and Swain (2011) which is called “Dynamic Assessment”. Among other techniques mentioned as useful like tests and portfolios, they present dynamic assessment from the “Socio Cultural Theory” perspective, which see the intercultural competence acquisition as a process rather than a product to be achieved. The assessment is done along this process, and feedback is important to guide students to develop sociocultural competence.

Even though these approaches represent a good starting point regarding intercultural competence assessment, there are still questions that do not have hitherto final answers like validity, reliability, scoring and fairness (Kinnear, Steinman, & Swain, 2011). Nevertheless, there are two clear issues we need to address when assessing culture: flexibility and integration. Culture is not an objective subject, it is shaped by the context and people´s experiences; thus, it is not possible to use the same measurement with all students and in all situations, we need to be flexible. Also, integration is important. Since culture involves so many aspects of life, when assessing intercultural competence we have to use different methods to integrate them all, or at least, most of them.

References

Byram, M., Gribkova, B., & Starkey, H. (2002). Developing the intercultural dimension in language teaching: A practical introduction for teachers. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Swain, M., Kinnear, P., & Steinman, L. (2011). Sociocultural theory in second language education: An introduction trough narratives. Tonawanda, NY: Multilingua Matters.

Globalization and English

We lived in a globalized world where English is spoken by people from many different countries, and where more and more countries are changing their status from EFL to ESL, and from ESL to English as the first language. The number of people who speaks English in the world is one out of five, and the other four are being pushed to learn it too. English is far the most spoken language in the world. The domain of English includes “books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and academic conferences, science technology, diplomacy, sport, international competitions, pop music and advertising” (Graddol, 1997, p. 32). This situation have raised some controversial issues: the extent to which the spread of English has hindered the literacy development in other languages, the socio-economic division it represents, and the detrimental results of the imperialism of Eurocentric ideologies over other cultures’ ideologies (Brown, 2000). Even though it is a fact that the ownership of English cannot be claimed by two or three countries anymore, the reality is that for many reasons the influence of Western over the rest of the English speaking countries is still very strong.

In this context, it is important to develop an extra sensitive position towards different languages and cultures. Even though as language teachers we will be limited somehow by the governmental or/and school policies and the material available regarding cultural issues, we must teach our students by example and preach to be respectful and open towards different languages and cultures.

References

Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson.

Graddol, D. (1997). The future of English? A guide to forecasting the popularity of the English language in the twenty-first century (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-elt-future.pdf