Attitudes in ICC development and towards materials used 30

Attitudes in Byram’s (1987) model of ICC are seen as indicators of development towards the acquisition of ICC because the expression of attitudes (positive or negative) provides evidence of awareness of the existence of differences in cultural practices. Attitudes are concerned with judgments (positive or negative) made about cultural practices, whether one’s own or a foreign culture. These judgments are greatly influenced by the knowledge we have about the cultural practices. The knowledge, on the other hand, is determined by the

experiences we have with the culture, whether gained from personal contact or through an external source such as readings from texts, videos, or from conversations with others. In the case of a foreign culture, language learners make interpretations and judgments about the culture by drawing upon their inventory of values and cultural beliefs that they possess about their own and the foreign cultures. Byram (1997) states that the attitudes learners have towards the foreign culture are frequently “characterized as prejudice or stereotype” (p. 34) with a tendency to be negative. However, Byram explains that negative attitudes may be triggered by feelings of the unknown, the different, and these attitudes can change to feelings of acceptance and appreciation.

According to Byram (1997), judgments made about the cultural practices of the foreign culture result from the identification of the practice and comparing the practices of the foreign culture to one’s own. In the cases where the practice is not part of one’s

inventory, it may be perceived negatively since the knowledge about the practice from which judgments can be made is not existent. For example, when learning about eating habits, a foreign language learner may have a negative reaction when discovering that a common practice in some Hispanic countries is eating internal organs of animals and even insects. Even though this practice does exist in the US, it is not common. Learners may experience a negative reaction to this eating practice, but upon learning about the reasons behind it they may have different perceptions. However, this type of attitude is also influenced by the openness of the learner to the identification and acceptance of the otherness, the acceptance of the fact that other cultures have different practices. Sercu (2010) proposes that the identification and acceptance of the otherness is a process that can be illustrated as a continuous line in which learners can be placed as indicated in Figure 1.

--- X --- X --- X --- X --- X --- Preparedness to tolerate Preparedness to respond to difference Valuing the difference Organizing the difference into one’s mind map

Tolerance of otherness Figure  1.  Continuous  attitudinal  scale  for  assessing  ‘tolerance  of  otherness’.  Adapted  from  

“Assessing  intercultural  competence:  More  questions  than  answers,”    by  L.  Sercu.  In  A.  Paran  &  L.   Sercu  (Eds.),  Testing  the  untestable  in  language  education,  p.  26.  Copyright  2010  by  Multilingual   Matters.  

The scale presented in Figure 1 illustrates the process that learners, and people in general, go through when coming into contact with a culture that is foreign to them. The scale can also be used in the analysis of native cultures. The use of the scale is not restricted to foreign cultures since individuals may come into contact with cultural practices of their own culture that are new to them, such as in the case of less-common practices for an individual acquainted with mainstream cultural practices. The scale also serves to illustrate the process learners are involved in when coming into contact with the foreign culture in the foreign language classroom. The use of the scale can assist us in the analysis of the

development learners make while being exposed to a foreign culture. The expression of attitudes towards the foreign culture can give an indication of where in the spectrum a learner is located in regard to the culture as a whole, but also in relation to a particular topic or cultural feature.

In his model of ICC, Byram (1997) considers attitudes as one of the dimensions that serve as indicators of ICC development. There are four dimensions included in Byram’s model of ICC: 1) knowledge and awareness, 2) interpreting and relating, 3) discovery, and 4) attitudes. In Byram’s (1997) model of ICC, the ability to relate knowledge of one’s self and one’s culture to that of the foreign culture and foreign self is seen as a key component for the development of ICC. According to Byram, the cultural comparisons subjects make influence

the attitudes they develop towards the cultures. Based on this premise, and following Belz’s (2005) suggestions in regard to the elicitation of knowledge about the foreign culture and one’s own that allows for the making of comparisons and the increment of cultural and linguistic awareness, what and how questions were used in discussion forums that are integrated in the Intercultura materials. According to Belz (2005), what and how questions “may indeed be one means of increasing declarative knowledge about the other which may eventually lead to intercultural awareness” (p. 23).

The use of what and how questions in the discussion forums has a dual purpose. First, they serve to elicit declarative statements in which learners express their attitudes towards the foreign culture and their own. Secondly, these questions also bring about questions that learners have in regard to the topic, which fosters dialogue between members. As Belz (2005) explains, when engaged in the analysis and discussion of a foreign culture, there is the possibility for misinterpretation and missed interpretations to occur. This dialogue about differentiations of cultural interpretations (of the foreign and one’s own) creates tensions that lead to the creation of positive attitudes, which, as explained above, is an indicator of the development of ICC.

Despite all the benefits that have been found in empirical studies in regard to the central role that attitudes about the foreign culture have towards the development of ICC, little is known about the attitudes learners have towards the materials used to promote ICC. The judgments learners make about the foreign culture may be greatly influenced by the attitudes they develop from their interactions with the materials they use to gain information about the culture or to communicate with others to learn about the foreign culture. To my knowledge, there is only one study that has focused to a certain extent on the investigation of

the attitudes learners have towards the materials used in ICC development. Elola and Oskoz (2008) conducted a study that focused on the investigation of ICC development of students in a language class in the US who communicated via blogs with students from the same

university studying abroad in Spain. Elola and Oskoz applied Byram’s (2000) assessment guidelines for the analysis of ICC development. Elola and Oskoz reported that both groups of students exhibited instances of ICC development based on the analysis of their interactions in blogs. Students in the US were asked to rate their experiences communicating via blogs with students studying abroad. Even though this study inquired about students’ perceptions of their experiences, it did not specifically asked them to rate their experiences with the particular tools (e.g., blogs) that they used for their interactions. In light of the limitation in the research of ICC in regard to learners’ attitudes towards tools used in ICC development, in this study I investigate the attitudes that participants develop from their interactions with the tools used in their discussions (e.g. Intercultura materials, discussion forums).

Considering that attitudes are affected by different factors such as the knowledge subjects have about the culture, the materials used to elicit comparisons, and the comparisons made by participants, this study utilizes Activity Theory as the framework of analysis in the examination of ICC development. In the next section I describe Activity Theory in terms of its use in previous ICC research, and how it will be used in the present study.