Lies Sercu

Assessing intercultural competence: a framework for systematic test development in foreign language education and beyond

The importance of intercultural competence is being increasingly recognized by educators and employers alike. Both in the professional and educational domain, ways are being sought to assess whether or not people have actually acquired intercultural competence. In this paper, a framework is presented for the systematic development of assessment tools. The paper first addresses the question of why the assessment of intercultural competence is important. Secondly, basic definitions and foundations regarding intercultural competence are outlined, and the implications for the assessment of intercultural competence are discussed. Thirdly, a framework for the assessment of test quality is presented, and a number of criteria that affect the quality of tools for assessing intercultural competence are discussed. Finally, the framework is applied to two existing approaches to the assessment of intercultural competence commonly used in foreign language education.The importance of intercultural competence is being increasingly recognized by educators and employers alike. Both in the professional and educational domain, ways are being sought to assess whether or not people have actually acquired intercultural competence. In this paper, a framework is presented for the systematic development of assessment tools. The paper first addresses the question of why the assessment of intercultural competence is important. Secondly, basic definitions and foundations regarding intercultural competence are outlined, and the implications for the assessment of intercultural competence are discussed. Thirdly, a framework for the assessment of test quality is presented, and a number of criteria that affect the quality of tools for assessing intercultural competence are discussed. Finally, the framework is applied to two existing approaches to the assessment of intercultural competence commonly used in foreign language education.

Culture learning from a constructivist perspective: an investigation of Spanish foreign language teachers' views

Today, teaching and learning tend to be viewed from a constructivist perspective. Learning is regarded as a self-directed process of constructing meaning, which takes place in interaction. The teacher supports the learning process by selecting input and approaches that can scaffold the learning process and guide learners towards independent learning. Teachers are being urged to embrace this paradigm, which focuses on learning by constructing meaning (e.g. Baines & Stanley, 2000). Research into educational innovation suggests that the success of innovations depends on the extent to which teachers can realise a ‘personal paradigm shift’ in their views on what constitutes effective teaching for good learning. A change in teachers’ beliefs is prerequisite for changes in teaching practice. This paper focuses on Spanish foreign language teachers’ perceptions of culture teaching. It investigates to what extent present-day teaching practice reflects constructivist approaches. Specifically, it shows the extent to which teachers depart from what they perceive to be their learners’ current understanding of foreign cultures when selecting cultural contents, and to what extent their culture teaching approaches can contribute to the learners’ acquisition of independent culture-learning skills. The results show that current teaching practice only in part reflects constructivist convictions on the teachers’ side.

Learning e-learning – a comprehensive investigation of course developers’ and language teacher trainees’ views regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of a multimedia self-tuition course

The paper presents the results of a comparative investigation of course developers’ and teacher trainees’ views regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of a multimedia self-tuition course designed to introduce foreign language teacher trainees to tools and methods for organising computer-assisted language learning. The paper first provides a brief description of the home-study course itself. It describes the course’s main components, its content as well as the learning and evaluation tasks the course provides in support of the learning process. Next, the paper reports on the way in which the evaluation project investigating teacher trainees’ and course developers’ views regarding the effectiveness of the course was set up. The project’s design is presented, and the way in which various procedures of data collection (written evaluations and individual interviews) were triangulated is commented on. In the third section we present the investigation’s main findings. The section focuses on points of agreement and disagreement between developers’ and trainees’ views regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of the course. Finally, we describe the changes brought about by the evaluation project, and reflect on the necessity to take account of future users’ views and requirements in the design and development process if the training of foreign language teachers is to benefit from web-based delivery.

Chapter 2.01.15: Effective Instructional Strategies in Collaborative Revision in EFL: Two Empirical Studies

Various methods have been suggested to teach novice revisers to improve their revision and writing skills such as peer interaction and collaborative revision, and strategy instruction. One form of strategy instruction which has proven to be particularly effective as far as learning-to-write and learning-to-revise is concerned is observational learning. The two research questions were explored in two relatively large-scale semi-experimental studies with undergraduate foreign language learners. In the two studies different forms of strategy instruction were implemented in collaborative revision to determine the impact of each separate approach. Pair composition moderates the effect of observation: homogeneous dyads in terms of writing proficiency seem to profit more from observation than from practising, whereas weak, heterogeneous dyads made up of two initially weak writers benefit significantly more from dyadic practising. Keywords: heterogeneous dyads; strategy instruction; writing proficiency; writing skills

Foreign language teachers and intercultural competence teaching: are they in favour or against it?: results from an international investigation

Foreign language curricula now frequently require foreign language teachers to integrate intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education. This studys objective was to investigate whether and to what extent foreign language teachers support this new objective. To that aim, an international research design was developed, involving teachers in Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Our findings suggest that the larger part of the teachers who participated in our study are clearly willing to teach intercultural communicative competence (icc) in their classrooms, but that this overall positive disposition is conditioned by a number of convictions regarding the best way to teach ICC. In addition, we found that, despite differences in national teaching circumstances, teachers in different countries share a number of these convictions.