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Jacqueline Van Houten was the 2015 president of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and 2010-12 president of the National Network for Early Language Learners. She is World Language Specialist for Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky and served as the World Language and International Education consultant at the Kentucky Department of Education. Prior to her state work, Jacque taught French at the elementary, high school, and university levels.

The goal in language classrooms across the country is to develop learners’ language proficiency and cultural knowledge in preparation for successful engagement in our increasingly global society. The NCSSFL-ACTFL Can Do statements, that clearly outline what learners can do with their language at each sublevel on the ACTFL Proficiency Scale, have proven to be practical tool for educators to set targets, guide Standards-based instructional decision-making, suggest performance assessments, and create rubrics.  A similar tool is being used in 3 states: KY (2013), SC, UT, as part of their state standards, to determine learners’ Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC).

Intercultural (communicative) competence has been defined by Deardorff (2004) as the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, and by Fantini (2000) in terms of 5 dimensions: awareness, attitudes, skills, knowledge (A+ASK), and proficiency in the host tongue (Fantini). Byram (1997) understands it to be comprised of 5 savoirs: attitudes, knowledge, skills or relating, skills of discovery and interaction and critical cultural awareness. The developers of the states’ ICC tool drew upon the work of these researchers and their own work on LinguaFolio, but intentionally focused on the linguistic aspect, which supports the revised World Readiness Standards’ Cultures’ goal of integrating culture into language instruction.

Educators and learners are asked to assess and self-assess ICC progress based on:
•    investigating our own and others’ cultural products and practices;
•    understanding cultural our own and others’ ways of thinking; and
•    interacting, bridging one’s own and the other’s culture.

A series of benchmarks, indicators, and sample learning targets, aligned to the ACTFL Proficiency Scale levels detail how learners can participate in cultural interactions at survival, functional and competent levels. They are asked to demonstrate, for example, how they can:

a.    identify characteristics of national identity (Novice), e.g., I can identify importance of historical events through celebrations or monuments;
b.    recognize when they have caused a cultural misunderstanding and try to correct it (Intermediate), e.g., I can recognize when I have acted or spoken too informally and try to correct it.
c.    analyze how peoples’ practices and behaviors reflect their cultures (Advanced), e.g., I can explain why practices of disciplining children differ among cultures.

As a result, districts are designing thematic curricular units around both language and intercultural learning targets and creating integrated performance assessments (IPA) that ask learners to demonstrate what they can do with the their language skills and cultural knowledge in authentic contexts. When ICC is included in the curriculum, activities and assessments, students gain an understanding of how their language and culture skills can result in meaningful intercultural relationships (Moeller & Nugent, 2014).

References

Byram, Michael (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Deardorff, D.K. (2004).“Internationalization: In Search of Intercultural Competence” in International Educator (vol XIII, no.2).

Fantini, Alvino E. (2000). "A Central Concern: Developing Intercultural Competence." in: Fantini, Alvaro ed. (2000), About Our Institution, 25-42.

Jefferson County Public School curriculum https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3zogFjY86wgfkdyTGNrVDdJNml2eS1NbU5oSnNLSExrenFiTzJvYmJRN3hoMnhUT0luaWc&usp=sharing

Kentucky Standard for World Language Proficiency.  2013. http://education.ky.gov/curriculum/conpro/Worldlang/Pages/Standards.aspx

Moeller, A. J. and Nugent, K. (2014). "Building Intercultural Competence in the Language Classroom" Faculty Publications: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education. Paper 161. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/161