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.