Approach to a Proposal of Criteria to Assess Intercultural Competence in Future Teachers of French as a Foreign Language

Abstract

In foreign language programs, students are trained to understand and produce coherent and grammatically cohesive discourse; however, it is imperative to place greater emphasis on the development and evaluation of intercultural competence. The daily reality and previous studies show that there is not enough training in the area, adequate materials, explicit assessment, and clear criteria for assessing intercultural competence. To begin with, it is essential to be clearer about the concept of intercultural competence, to assume it as the ability to analyze a foreign language and culture with a vision devoid of prejudices, with a realistic and non-idealized dimension of the cultural group under study, adjusting to the foreign interlocutor, modifying one’s criteria and references, recognizing the differences, without judging. For all these reasons, additional training is necessary to know how to guide the development of intercultural competence, especially the study of stereotypes, the parameters of social conventions, and physical and verbal distance. It is concluded that the proposal of criteria to evaluate intercultural competence can be based on the notions of knowing, knowing how to be, knowing how to do, and knowing how to learn to evaluate the performance and attitude of students in concrete communicative situations.

1. Introduction

In this digital era, professionals are interested in training to develop global competencies required worldwide. Within these global competencies, foreign language learning occupies an important place. For this reason, educational institutions that teach foreign languages must make efforts to offer a quality service, taking into account that the importance of the foreign language for an individual also lies in the approach to a different culture. In this sense, Alonso [1] states that “there has always been a feeling, no doubt accurately, that one must know a language to gain access to the mentality, the way of being and the culture of the people who speak it” (p. 18). Since languages are a reflection of social groups, the use and analysis of a foreign language facilitates the understanding, acceptance, and approach to a foreign culture.

Learning a foreign language brings with it several implications; it is not only knowing how to understand and elaborate coherent and grammatically cohesive discourse but also knowing how to adapt to intercultural encounters. Garcia [2] emphasizes that “those who approach a foreign language and culture must not only learn another language and another culture but must also acquire another way of living.” (p.494). It is not about losing cultural identity, it is about adjusting behavior, understanding, respecting, and accepting the cultural particularities of the foreign community, such as social conventions, values, and beliefs, among others.

In view of the above, intercultural competence acquires great importance in foreign language learning and recent didactic approaches have tried to give it the place it deserves, sometimes without the desired success. One of the main limitations is the lack of adequate materials. Echavarría and Rojas [3], after analyzing a group of textbooks, reiterate the following: “the coexistence of several cultures is noted, but there is no significant influence or exchange between them.” (p.16). Without sufficient support material that illustrates the cultural particularities and daily life of the foreign community, the difficulty of teaching a foreign language out of context, that is, without the student’s immersion in foreign territory, is even more accentuated. Overcoming the various obstacles in the development of intercultural competence involves managing cultural knowledge as well as know-how and know-how-to-be in order to interact as well as possible in an intercultural communicative situation.

2. Walking the road to intercultural competence

One of the greatest difficulties in developing intercultural competence is the influence of stereotypes. Aden and Anderson [4] indicate that “we always approach the alien and the foreign from our stereotypes, it is important to understand that our point of view is not universal and above all, it is important to experience it.” (p.1). This is where the work of the foreign language teacher becomes more important: one of his or her functions is to guide the analysis of the foreign language and culture to a vision devoid of prejudices, with a realistic and non-idealized dimension of the cultural group under study.

The foreign language teacher faces another obstacle in the development of intercultural competence: the implicit presence of a hierarchization of cultures. Mousa [5] explains the following, “in any interaction between two individuals from different cultures, it sometimes happens that the concept of a dominant culture and a dominated culture is placed above the concept of an equality of cultures.” (p.7). Another task of the foreign language teacher is to dismantle this hierarchy and guide students in the analysis of the foreign culture without underestimating or overestimating, understanding that there is room for all cultures.

In learning a foreign language, developing a communicative competence is not enough; it is necessary to develop, in a flexible and progressive manner, an intercultural competence capable of adapting to different contexts. This competence includes the ability to adjust to the foreign interlocutor, modifying one’s criteria and references, and recognizing differences, without judging and without trying to imitate in order to situate oneself in the communication [6].

Developing this attitude and aptitude requires a process of reflection guided by confrontation with the ideas, beliefs, feelings, and other cultural aspects of the foreign community. This confrontation of the foreign cultural identity with one’s own cultural identity, devoid of prejudice, should lead to the formation of intercultural awareness. An awareness that makes it possible to reflect on a real dimension of one’s own identity (without overestimation or contempt) and on the acceptance of a variety of perceptions that may be held about the foreigner’s cultural identity [4].

In the process of building intercultural awareness and developing intercultural competence, the foreign language teacher plays an important role as a facilitator of intercultural mediation. Such mediation should allow for a favorable encounter between the foreign language learner and the cultural group under study. Hence, the need for the teacher to perform several tasks, including getting to know the social groups and interaction processes, orienting the view on stereotypes and prejudices, and interpreting and relating aspects of the two cultures [7].

To execute such intercultural mediation, it is necessary to know the phases to develop intercultural competence. Iglesias [8], from the University of Oviedo, carried out a work to explain how to activate and develop intercultural communication effectively. After describing the different phases that lead to the construction of intercultural competence, the researcher proposes competencies and topics to work on in each of these phases. For example, for the initial stage (denial and defense), she suggests identifying sources of stereotypes; for the intermediate stage (minimization and acceptance), she presents, among other competencies, the importance of the ability to maintain a nonjudgmental posture in interaction; and finally, for the advanced stage (adaptation and integration), she suggests practicing effective and respectful cross-cultural and cross-gender communication skills.

In the area of evaluation, Facciol and Kjartansson presented the results of their research to the Council of Europe in 2005. This study aimed to examine evaluation methods for intercultural communication courses. For this purpose, they described a set of instruments that were based on three dimensions [9]: knowledge about the foreign culture, intercultural awareness, and intercultural attitudes and skills. Among the instruments studied, it is highlighted that some test models to assess attitude could show what students think the evaluators want to hear and/or read; therefore, they recommend adding academic and literary texts to complement and obtain the most reliable answers possible.

In 2009, Bartel-Radic from the University of Savoie in France conducted a study to analyze different ways of assessing intercultural competence. He synthesized several scale models proposed by different experts and classified them into four approaches: a- past performance. An assessment is made of actual lived experiences based on certain criteria; b- verbalization of intercultural competence. The person being evaluated is asked to talk about his or her intercultural interactions, his or her view of them and the emotions felt; c- culture assimilator. A series of critical intercultural situations are presented, four response possibilities are presented and finally, feedback is given on the answers given, complemented with explanations; d- personality trait measurement scales. They are used to measure the presence or absence of personality traits linked to intercultural competence, such as empathy, flexibility, and open-mindedness, among others. The researcher highlights that there is no ideal instrument, but rather a group of approaches that can be adapted according to the assessment context.

In 2018, Maouchi from the University les Freres Mentouri Constantine I in Algeria, proposed a scale to favor intercultural mediation between a foreign literary text and the reader. This scale was built on four levels. The first level corresponds to the intercultural process, which is described by various experts as the one that allows negotiation to integrate new knowledge about the foreign culture into the structure containing one’s own cultural identity. The second level corresponds to intercultural competence, defined as the sum of knowledge, attitudes, and skills for effective intercultural communication. The third level is called enrichment, which should enable the user to understand and interpret the foreign culture and to relativize his or her own reference system. The fourth level corresponds to the obstacles and difficulties that may emerge in the reading and analysis of foreign literary texts. These should be previously identified by the teacher. The researcher recommends a partial and progressive application of the scale according to the construction of learning in intercultural competence.

3. Background of criteria for assessing intercultural competence

Among the researchers who have most studied the assessment of intercultural competence, Hofstede Minkov [9] constitutes an inescapable reference. They propose to consider the following aspects:

• Individualism vs. collectivism: predominance of one or the other according to the particular situations or behaviors of the cultural community.

• Hierarchical distance: gradation from respect to familiarity toward members of a family, professional or social structure.

• Control of uncertainty: attitude of anticipation or adaptation in the face of the unknown.

• Masculinity vs. femininity: clear differentiation or homogenization between male and female roles.

According to Hofstede’s team, these four aspects help to better understand the behavior of cultural groups and, in the case of intercultural competence, favor the analysis necessary to become aware of cultural identity and accept the cultural differences of foreign communities.

For their part, Byram et al. [10] put forward concepts that later became the theoretical support for the common European framework of reference for languages on intercultural competence. These experts point out four fundamental aspects to consider for the development of intercultural competence:

• Knowledge: A system of cultural references that assists the particular needs of the learner in situations of intercultural interaction.

• Knowing-being: Affective capacity to accept the foreigner and cognitive aptitude to establish and maintain a relationship between one’s own culture and the foreign culture.

• Knowing how to learn: Ability to develop and apply a range of strategies to interpret the cultural meanings, beliefs, and practices of the foreign community.

• Know-how: Ability to integrate knowledge, know-how, and know-how-to-learn and to interact effectively in an intercultural situation (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Aspects of intercultural competence presented by Byram et al. [10].

Years later, in Canada, Toussaint and Fourtier [6] conducted a study to determine the perception of future teachers on professional competencies, their conception of intercultural competence and their adherence or rejection to the introduction of this competence in their university training. From this work, they highlight specific components of intercultural competence that could guide its development and evaluation; among them, one’s own cultural identity, intercultural particularities, general culture through concrete situations supported on the geographical and historical level, religious beliefs and practices, as well as some anthropological notions, such as prejudice, race, ethnicity, culture, assimilation, among other notions that converge in different cultures.

These major groups of proposed criteria could be placed in aspects inherent to the knowledge, know-how, and know-how-to-be required of any user of a foreign language. These aspects could be summarized as follows:

1. Sociocultural knowledge:

   • The daily life of the foreigner

   • Their manners

   • Holidays

   • Living conditions

   • Family structures and relationships

   • Social structure

Values, beliefs, and attitudes of the foreign community. People and events representative of the foreign community.

• Representative characters and events

• Foreigner’s body language

• Their social conventions: punctuality, gifts, farewells, etc.

• Behavior at ceremonies

1. Intercultural skills:

   • Ability to establish relationships between one’s own culture and the foreign culture.

   • Cultural sensitivity and the ability to employ a variety of strategies to establish contact with people from other cultures.

   • Ability to act as a cultural mediator between one’s own culture and the foreign culture in order to deal effectively with misunderstandings and conflict situations.

   • Ability to overcome stereotyped relationships.

2. Attitudinal traits, those already mentioned, allow to show:

   • Openness toward other people, ideas, peoples, and cultures.

   • Willingness to relativize one’s own cultural perspective and cultural value system.

   • Willingness and ability to distance oneself from conventional attitudes regarding cultural differences (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Elements of intercultural competence.

Additionally, Labbate [11] suggests adhering to the criteria raised in the work of Deardorff:

• Respect (valuing other cultures)

• Being open (to intercultural learning and to people from other cultures)

• Tolerance of multisense (a phenomenon can have several interpretations)

• Flexibility (the use of behaviors and ways of communicating appropriately to intercultural discourse situations)

• Curiosity (willingness to learn about cultural differences)

• Avoidance of judgment (being open to cultural differences)

• Cultural awareness and understanding (recognizing differences in one’s own culture from the foreign culture)

• Understanding the worldview of others

• Culture-specific knowledge (e.g., knowing a culture’s rituals or ways of doing things)

• Sociolinguistic awareness (the use of other languages in social contexts)

• Listening, observing, and interpreting skills

• Ability to analyze, evaluate, and relativize a cultural phenomenon

• Empathy (doing to others what you would like them to do to you)

• Adaptability (to different communication styles or behaviors and to new cultural environments)

• Communicative competence (appropriate and effective communication in different intercultural contexts)

Bartel-Radic [12] summarizes four approaches to assess intercultural competence:

• Past performance: the performance shown is measured against certain expected standards.

• Verbalization of intercultural competence: the individual is directed to talk about his or her experiences and emotions within intercultural interactions.

• Culture assimilator: the presentation of concrete situations to use knowledge, and interpretive skills and assume a position.

• Personality trait measurement scales: the use of subjective aspects, such as open-mindedness, empathy, emotional stability, initiative-taking, flexibility, motivation, commitment, respect, and self-confidence (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Approaches to assessing intercultural competence according to Bartel-Radic [12].

As can be seen, the first two approaches (past performance and verbalization of intercultural competence) require previous experiences to assess behavior in intercultural interactions; while the last two approaches (culture assimilator and personality trait measurement scales) could well be applied to intermediate and advanced learners, as they involve cognitive and affective aspects that should be shaped and reinforced throughout foreign language learning.

All these factors should lead us to define criteria adjusted to the idiosyncrasies of the foreign language learner. For example, in the Venezuelan case, given that we are a contact culture, it is necessary to emphasize respect for verbal proxemics, as well as to understand and accept the values and beliefs of the cultural community under study. With precise criteria to evaluate intercultural competence, the teacher could use different didactic proposals to work according to the aspects presented in the preestablished evaluation criteria.

4. A pause along the way: Our proposed criteria for assessing intercultural competence

The approaches (culture assimilator and personality trait measurement scales) could well be applied to intermediate and advanced learners, as they involve cognitive and affective aspects that should be shaped and reinforced throughout foreign language learning. In that sense, intercultural competence assessment activities could focus on communicative situations to assess oral and written comprehension and expression, as is done to assess communicative competence. Assessment activities could be supported by measurement scales, not only to assess personality traits but also to define the gradualness of students’ performance in relation to other aspects inherent to intercultural competence.

From the diagnosis of the need for criteria for the assessment of intercultural competence of future teachers of French as a foreign language, the analysis of the feasibility of applying such criteria, the examination of teachers’ beliefs about intercultural competence, and the analysis of the gap between teachers’ beliefs and experts’ approaches to intercultural competence, it is possible to move on to the design of criteria for the assessment of intercultural competence within the profile of a future teacher of French as a foreign language. For this purpose, some criteria proposed by Deardorff were reformulated, and other criteria based on the aspects proposed by Byram et al. [10] and Toussaint and Fortier [6] were put forward. In this direction, a group of criteria with their descriptors is proposed to assess intercultural competence.

In the communicative activities of comprehension, it would be important to evaluate how students identify the knowledge and how they show the qualities of the knowledge-being with the discourse used for the comprehension work. For example, within the knowledge, the following criteria could be used:

• Describes the history, political, economic, and social structure of the foreign culture.

• Identifies the living conditions.

• Refers to the daily life of the foreigner.

• Distinguishes the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the foreign community.

• Recognizes the body language of the foreigner.

• Identifies the social conventions and manners of the foreign group.

Within the qualities of knowing-being, the following criteria could be adopted:

• Demonstrates respect for the other culture with his/her speech.

• Demonstrates tolerance of the multisense with his or her speech.

• Shows understanding of other people’s worldviews.

• Shows the ability to analyze and relativize a cultural phenomenon.

In the communicative activities of expression, it would be important to evaluate how students process knowledge and operationalize it to show it as know-how:

• Explains the influence of history on the political, economic, and social structure.

• Adapts to the living conditions of the foreign community.

• Adapts to the daily life of the foreigner.

• Accepts the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the foreigner.

• Uses the body language of the foreigner.

• Uses the social conventions and manners of the foreign group.

Concerning the qualities of knowing-being that students should display in speaking or writing activities, one could adopt the criteria suggested for comprehension activities and incorporate the following:

• Demonstrates adaptability to different communication styles or behaviors and to the new cultural environments of the foreign community.

5. By way of conclusion

The proposal of these criteria is the result of considering and combining the approaches proposed by other experts in foreign language didactics who have already walked the path of intercultural competence, which is why it was possible to reformulate and adapt these criteria to the profile of the future teacher of French as a foreign language. These criteria could serve as a guide for our teachers of French as a foreign language to explicitly evaluate the development of intercultural competence in their students.

This research is one more contribution in the field of didactics of foreign languages that should be considered perfectible, which is why it is recommended to further study the development and evaluation of intercultural competence, to design and apply complementary training on intercultural competence for practicing teachers and to study the approach of intercultural competence as a global competence for the professionals of the future.