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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.

This summer the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do statements for Intercultural Communicative Competence will be released for curricular planning in the 2017-2018 academic year. As educators unpack yet another tool it may lower the stress to focus on five simple take always.

1. ICC Can-Do tool serves as a framework to integrate culture and target language use.

This tool, like the NCSSFL-ACTFL language Can-Dos, focuses on communication, but with the added benefit of being presented within a cultural context. The Can-Dos show language progression across the Proficiency Scale, as well as what learners can do through language to express their cultural knowledge and intercultural mindset. All language can be taught through a cultural lens. Using this tool, educators will discover ways to naturally permeate language teaching and learning with culture and, at the same time, shape learners' intercultural perspectives.

2. The ICC Can-Do tool is not a curriculum.

The broad global benchmarks and the more specific indicators of the tool provide clear descriptions of performance expectations at each proficiency level. The tasks, however, are merely samples of how learners might demonstrate their interculturality within the confines of the benchmarks and indicators. The tasks do not constitute a prescribed curriculum, rather they suggest what can be done. Users are encouraged to create their own Can-Dos within the parameters of the benchmarks and indicators.

3. The ICC tool is a starting point for performance-based rubrics & assessment

Educators will find that the tasks often sound like performance assessments and can certainly be used as such if they fit into the context of the lesson. The benchmarks and indicators naturally lend themselves to serve as criteria for rubrics, and support performance-based grading.

4. ICC Can-Dos are as much for the learner as they are for the teacher.

The more educators share this tool with their learners, the better learners will understand the process of developing proficiency and be able to set and self-assess appropriate learning goals.

To start use the statements as lesson goals, sharing them with learners, then asking them to co-create Can-Dos, and finally set their own goals

5. Using the tool is one step in the ICC process.

Developing interculturality is more than demonstrating targeted Can-Do statements. It involves opportunities to interact with native speakers in authentic contexts and reflect on the mediation of meaning, while striving to act without bias or judgement. It also involves a change in mindset, which requires reflection. Reflection scenarios are provided to help educators develop a reflective process while still staying in the target language during instruction.