What is a useful framework of understanding intercultural language learning in primary school

language learners? (Research question 3)

In answering Research question 1, this thesis discussed areas of student behaviour, from analysis of the data, considered to be indicative of intercultural competence. Research question 2 focused on areas of teacher behaviour, from analysis of the data, considered to be contributing to facilitation of intercultural competence in students. Research

question 3 draws a summative descriptive picture of the intercultural competence of the case study students. This is in order to construct a framework which may be useful in the understanding of intercultural language learning. While not generalisable to every

educational environment, it will add to knowledge of intercultural competence in the wider language community. To answer Research question 3, this discussion will first examine the relationships between case study student and teacher behaviours, and then focus on the development of the summative picture of student experience.

4.4.1 The relationship between teacher behaviours and student behaviours

The purpose of this section is to describe the particular relationships operating in the case study environment. At the conclusion of the discussion of Research questions 1 and 2, Tables 16 and 17 respectively presented students’ and teachers’ behaviours as mapped against indicators derived from the theoretical literature. In order to see the interaction of students and teacher, Table 18 below takes the student and teacher behaviours from Tables 16 and 17 and maps them in relation to each other. Teacher behaviours in the left- side column have been moved around from the order in which they appeared in Table 17, to facilitate observation of the connections they have with the student behaviours.

However, none of the teacher or student behaviours are discrete items, but are constantly in a process of interaction and synthesis.

Within the three areas, the teacher and student behaviours are not exactly matched in point-for-point correlation. The table suggests a facilitative connection, however, in the similarity. Similarly, the three indicated areas of interculturality in the first column are not discrete, but operate in synthesis. As has been noted, in consideration of both the

variables in students and teachers and the complex nature of student development, these alignments are meant to imply only facilitative, not causative relationships. A number of relationships emerging from Table 18 are discussed below.

Table 18: Researcher’s mapping of student intercultural competence against indicators of teacher facilitation of competence

Aspect of

intercultur. Case study students’ behaviours and attitudes Teacher behaviours and attitudes in case study

Students use language purposefully, meaningfully in interaction

Students self-evaluate target language competence in terms of speaking ability. Students negotiate frequent teacher/student spoken interaction.

Students report they model teacher target language.

Students prioritise interactive speaking tasks. Students prioritise experiential tasks.

Students see themselves as language users. Some students use target language outside classroom.

Teachers initiate frequent spoken interaction in class, demanding comprehension and response from students.

Teachers understand that speaking represents mastery to students, and encourage risk-taking. Teachers frequently design tasks for maximum spoken interaction.

Teachers design tasks for student interest, hands- on, experiential, cognitive content.

Students make linguistic connections

Students observe features of target language, analyse differences L1/target language. Students compare L3/4/5.

Some students report they think in target language.

Some students report they experience L1/target language ‘shift’.

Students display learning strategies which involve metalinguistic skill.

Teachers generate attention to aspects of target language syntax, structures, draw some

connections with English.

Teachers demonstrate language as culture in class. Some tasks included reflective connections.

Students make cultural connections

Students have knowledge of target language cultural practices.

Students see target language culture as continuous with target language. Student recognise change in self.

Students recognise ethnorelative outlook. Students express perception of change in self is aligned with speaking target language. Some students express dual identification L1/ target language.

Students express idea of non-native membership of target language group.

Teachers have individual awareness of intraculturality.

Teachers express their interculturality as ‘shift’ between 2 cultures, and languages, in their thinking. Teachers express their interculturality through their understanding of language as culture, and

communicate this to students.

Teacher interculturality can include modelling as a learner, and as a non-native member of language group.

Teachers are aware that their interculturality influences students. Teachers feel personally involved in students’ intercultural development.

A number of relationships can be surmised from Table 18. Firstly, it is apparent that the immersion language teaching methods and tasks employed by the teachers facilitate in students:

• contextual understanding and negotiation of language . • confident participation in frequent spoken interaction • sense of being a purposeful language user

• understanding of continuity of language and culture.

Secondly, while some attention is drawn in class to L1/TL linguistic connections, the teachers largely maintain a focus on the target language itself. They facilitate attention to aspects of the target language, but not often in relation to English. Nevertheless, students, with the opportunity afforded over several years in the immersion context, make some L1/target language connections themselves and display metalinguistic skill.

Thirdly, teachers are providing a model of interculturality as expressed in their bilingual fluency, the nature of their interactions and relationships, their communicated

understanding of language-as-culture, and their ability to move between two cultures. Students appear to admire and emulate teacher models.

Fourthly, students experience awareness of intercultural change in themselves. This is largely expressed in their ownership of their progressive bilingualism, their sense of membership of two language groups, and their ethnorelative (Bennett, 1993) outlook. Comments reflecting a perception of moving between two cultures were represented in 65% (32 of 49) of case study students.

The conclusion can be drawn that, while the immersion language teaching being carried out at this case study school facilitates some aspects of intercultural competence in students, it may also create its own limitations. Teachers pursue their obligation to teach the chosen curriculum topic. The case study teachers all mentioned in interview that, in their perception, some programmed curriculum topics (for example, natural disasters, ancient history) allow very limited opportunities for intercultural reflection, as they are not perceived to be relevant to the topic. In addition, the case study teachers appear to believe there is, in immersion method, a commitment to an exclusive presentation of the target language and culture, conducted in the target language. They reject the

suggestion that there is a role of L1 in target language learning, as proposed by Scarino (2006).

The discussion has noted (section 4.2.2.1.1) that immersion method facilitates an interculturality grounded in confident spoken interaction. It may be, however, that it also excludes opportunities to facilitate aspects of intercultural competence such as cultural comparisons and critical thinking about the student’s home culture. This will be

discussed further in Chapter 5 (Conclusion).

4.4.2 Theoretical framework

This research took the three-part model of Using Language, Making Linguistic

Connections and Moving Between Cultures (Board of Studies NSW, 2003), to represent the three areas of experience in which the student was engaged. The relationship between these three areas is represented in Figure 4 below, as a snapshot

representation of how these components operate dynamically for the case study student in the development of intercultural competence.

While the three-part UL/MLC/MBC model was a useful device in the research context, it falls short of completely representing the complex nature of intercultural competence. Changes to the model, and elements which have been added to the model, are explained:

• To this model has to be added a background or surrounding sense of student self, including the individual family background. It is against this sense of self that ‘change’ or transformation, identity, can be enacted in the student.

• Similarly, backgrounded is the school context within which these children are operating, their home class, the values messages they receive from teachers and leadership figures, the ethos of the school and values. The thesis has suggested the role this broader school context may play in several areas. It has suggested that, in addition to processes occurring in the language classroom, further metacultural and metalinguistic processes may occur in students often in the broader school setting. Although not the focus of this research, the broader school setting of this immersion program needs to be acknowledged as a contributing contextual factor in the students’ development.

• The three circles of the original model have been moved around. MBC is placed at the top. This is to represent the notion that it appears to students to be the most personal aspect, within which Using Language and Making Linguistic Connections are enacted. • Inside the UL, MLC, MBC areas have been added the particular behaviours which

from the data were the most marked in the case study students.

• The particular teacher behaviours are placed beside the UL/MLC/MBC area to which they are most closely linked in students. In addition, it should be noted that student’s intercultural competence is facilitated by their interaction with not just one particular current teacher, but a succession of teachers. Each of the students’ teachers has had their own way to construct the language and culture they taught and provided a different mediation, all of which cumulatively facilitates intercultural competence. • The placement of the arrows within the student circles implies the continuity and

exchange between elements.

• The placement of the arrows between the teacher areas implies the leading role which teachers’ interculturality assumes in their other behaviours.

Figure 4: Researcher’s conceptual model of student intercultural competence, adapted from Board of Studies NSW, 2003

The profile which emerges from analysis of the data and from Figure 4 is of a student who is engaged in a process of transformation. This transformation is enacted in the development of intercultural competence. The discussion has noted that there is differentiation amongst the case study students. It is possible, however, to conflate the list of behaviours and identify some indicators in common.

Student MBC cultural knowledge, self-reflection, Student UL purposeful TL users, spoken interaction Student MLC metalinguistic abilities, language shift teachers’ identity, interculturality, modelling teachers’ task design; teachers’ modelling of spoken interaction teachers’ making ling. and cultural connect- ions

student self, self-