Proceedings of Intercultural Competence Conference http://cercll.arizona.edu

September, 2012, Vol. 2, pp. 227-237

 

LEARNER AUTONOMY IN ACQUIRING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE FOR STUDY ABROAD Hélène Zumbihl Université de Lorraine - ATILF - Nancy (France) email: [email protected] Education for learner autonomy is a key element of today’s language-and-culture learning process. The immersion experience corresponds to the ‘independent learning’ concept described by Byram (1997) in which learner autonomy plays a central part. This paper examines the concept of learner autonomy in language-and-culture learning and how it can be applied to intercultural communicative competence. Learners’ selfreflection and self-development are at the center of this process in which the teacher plays the role of a guide or facilitator. The study presented in this paper is based on an action-research project conducted at a French university with four cohorts of secondand third-year students attending a specific program for linguistic and intercultural preparation for study abroad, and independent learning which is part of a life-long learning process. The different tools implemented to enhance learner autonomy will be presented and analyzed, such as self-reflection guided by the teacher and students’ writing about their experience in a journal. Particular attention is given to the exploitation of journal writing to develop the capacity to learn and to take control of one’s learning through self-exploration as well as self-development, as it seems to be particularly adapted to the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence.

INTRODUCTION The research presented in this article centers around the learner’s autonomization process while acquiring intercultural communicative competence. It also focuses on the teacher’s role in enhancing learners’ autonomy. This analysis of the learner’s autonomization process will be conducted through the study of a specific curriculum incorporating both communicative competence and cultural awareness, and will be aimed at preparing students for study abroad. Learner autonomy is a key question today in language learning research. However, the learner’s autonomization process is still to be studied in depth concerning language-andculture learning and more broadly speaking the autonomization process in the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence. Byram’s (1997) four aspects of intercultural interactions (knowledge, attitudes, skills of interpreting and relating, and skills of discovery and interaction) can, in principle, be acquired through experience and reflection, without the intervention of teachers or educational institutions. This means that the learner plays the most important role in this learning process. It also means that if they are acquired with the help of a teacher, the learning process will have to take the learner’s role and the autonomization process into account in the design of the curriculum. It will be the teacher’s responsibility to promote learner autonomy and to create modes of teaching and learning accordingly (Byram, 1997), incorporating theory of learner autonomy (Holec, 1981). This paper will first describe the theoretical background which enabled me to integrate the autonomization process in the design of a specific module aimed at preparing the students for a study abroad experience. I will give a definition of learner autonomy, then study the possible solutions for integrating learner autonomy while acquiring intercultural communicative competence by introducing the concepts of “independent learning” (Byram, 1997) and “experiential learning” (Rogers, 1969; Kolb, 1984). I will then describe the curriculum designed at the University of Lorraine in Nancy for helping the students prepare for their immersive experience abroad. The second part presents the practical integration of

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learner autonomy in the curriculum with different tools such as reflexivity, anecdotes or experiential learning, and cultural briefing. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Learner Autonomy Autonomy can be defined as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning” (Holec 1981, p. 3) or “as the capacity to take control over one’s own learning” (Benson 2001, p. 2). It is something that needs to be developed as it is not innate (Holec, 1990). Moreover in his definition of the term, Little (2003) insists on the role of the teacher, which is to create a learning environment in which learners accept responsibility for their learning role in order to become more autonomous. According to Riley, “learner autonomy in institutional settings inevitably requires both teachers and learners to modify their representations of these respective roles” (1986, p. 70). Furthermore, although different terms are sometimes used to name the person whose role it is to accompany learners in their autonomization – Riley speaks of “Helper”, “Knower”, “Facilitator” and “Counsellor” (1986, p. 19) – most researchers agree that autonomy necessarily implies a change in the pedagogical relationship between teachers and learners. The teacher has a new role to play, as Byram and Morgan (1994) point out that “the teacher is important on two levels in the development of empathy: both as a model and as a source of information” (p. 27). As far as intercultural communicative competence is concerned, Jimenez Raya and Sercu (2007) assert that “a focus on learner autonomy holds the promise that values and norms are communicated, mediated, and developed rather than being transmitted” p. 22). Indeed they insist on the fact that the mere transmission of values and standards is not sufficient and could lead to undesired behaviours from students in many cases. Therefore the essential question for Jimenez Raya and Sercu (2007) is: how teachers can facilitate learners to make sense of the world they are very much part of. How can language education be organized in such a way that a learner is able and willing to mediate the often conflicting values, standards and norms by which s/he is surrounded? (p. 22) The answer to this essential question for Jimenez Raya and Sercu (2007) is in the development of learner autonomy and intercultural competence as “major pedagogical goals of foreign language education.” Integration of Learner Autonomy in the Acquisition of Intercultural Communicative Competence As for communicative competence, Van Ek (1986) suggested that foreign language teaching should not be concerned merely with training in communication skills but also involve the personal and social development of the learner as an individual. In other words, it should enhance the individual’s self-reflection and self-awareness and his or her ability to interact in an intercultural context. Van Ek presented a framework for comprehensive foreign language objectives which included aspects such as social competence, the promotion of autonomy and the development of social responsibility which Byram included in his definition of intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997, p. 9). When Byram (1997) considers the objectives of intercultural communicative competence, he recognizes the limitations of the classroom context of learning, which does not mean that the teachers do not have a role to play, as we have already seen. They can still structure and influence the learning opportunities involved. For Byram (1997), the aim may be, for example, to develop learner autonomy within a structured and framed experience of otherness outside the classroom during periods of independent vacation or periods of residence, exchange, etc. Indeed there are three broad categories of location for acquiring 228

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intercultural competence: the classroom, the pedagogically structured experience outside the classroom, and the independent experience (Byram, 1997). Our aim with the curriculum described in this article is to enhance learners’ autonomy in the classroom to enable them to experience the period of independent learning while studying abroad with the lowest possible level of anxiety and the highest possible level of autonomy while facing different types of everyday situations. In the intercultural communicative competence learning model described by Murphy-Lejeune (2003), she considers autonomy and self-confidence as strategic skills as “they derive from combined efforts to reach the goal of managing one’s life in a new cultural environment. They are the means by which success abroad is attainable” (p. 104). It also means that preparation for study abroad experience should help students develop these strategic skills. Similarly, among the dimensions of intercultural competence which are described by Byram (1997) in his model, savoir-apprendre and savoir-comprendre are particularly interesting for this specific issue of the learner’s autonomization process in the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence. The language teachers’ objectives should be to help students be able to learn and to understand by themselves, which, for teachers, consists of creating opportunities for learners to learn how to acquire competencies and skills in addition to knowledge. Sercu (2004) points out that “autonomous learning is already practiced by many foreign language teachers who consciously or not occasionally include problem-based or task-based learning approaches in their classroom” (p. 64). Intercultural communicative competence may also be autonomously acquired by students through problem-solving activities which will encourage critical thinking, collaborative learning, self-initiated knowledge acquisition, and cooperative evaluation of alternatives (Sercu, 2004). This implies new roles for teachers which are widely described in the literature. They become guides, tutors, counselors, facilitators (Riley, 1986). Autonomous learning approaches involve more, not less, teacher direction or preparation. In a learner autonomy approach, the selection of the culture topics to be explored or the culture learning tasks to be completed remains the responsibility of the teacher or course developer (Sercu, 2004). As for Jackson (2008), the course developer has to consider the students’ needs to build a course for preparing for immersion abroad. The content should also incite learners to reflect on their own culture and on what they consider to be normal from their own point of view. For Kern and Liddicoat (2011), “the speaker is no longer someone who speaks, but someone who acts - that is, someone who acts through speaking and thus becomes a social actor” (p. 19). Therefore the speaker or learner will experience several modalities of learning, speaking and acting which may take place both inside and outside of school at different periods of his or her life. This interpersonal communication will take place in a context of social interaction. This means that we may consider languages as dynamic resources that individuals combine with other resources to act in a social world. This combination of the two terms ‘speaker’ and ‘actor’ highlights the individual’s power to participate in the creation and the modification of contexts in which he or she is learning the language. The speaker is an actor, not only in class, but also in the social and cultural world which surrounds him or her. This could lead to a new way of considering learners in our classes of intercultural communicative competence. It also implies the need to enhance the learner’s autonomization process. Independent Learning When Byram (1997) considers acquiring intercultural competence, he makes a difference between the work done in class, fieldwork, and independent learning. I will consider this last learning context in more detail. Independent learning is a factor in life-long learning and can be both subsequent to and simultaneous with classroom and fieldwork. “It will be effective only if the learners continue to reflect upon as well as develop their knowledge, skills and CERCLL ICC Proceedings

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attitudes, as a consequence of previous training” (Byram, 1997, p. 69). If experience of otherness in one’s own environment or in another country is not based on self-reflection, it remains mere experience and will not facilitate learning. Byram (1997) notes that: “for experience to become learning, learners must become autonomous in their capacity for refining and increasing their knowledge, skills and attitudes. This in turn suggests a classroom methodology which allows learners to acquire explicitly the underlying principles of the skills and knowledge they are taught, and the means of generalizing them to new experience. In that case one could properly speak of a learning biography and expect that far more cultural learning will take place outside the classroom than inside, whether consecutively or simultaneously.” (p. 70-71) For Murphy-Lejeune (2003, p. 101), “life abroad represents an extensive natural learning situation which stimulates many more aspects of learners’ personalities than are usually catered for in educational institutions.” She defines autonomy in the experience abroad as a twofold competence: the ability to manage without family assistance and without a mental clamp connecting travelers to the home environment. This means that you have to acquire “the ability to get through tough times by yourself particularly through language difficulties” and to “be prepared that’s it’s not going to be a rose garden because entering into a new cultural world is comparable to a rite of passage” (Murphy-Lejeune, 2003, p. 106). A new socialization process and, therefore, an autonomization process must be engaged in, and this effort makes the arrival, in particular, a trying period. This means that preparation before the immersive experience abroad is fundamental (Zumbihl, 2004). Experiential Learning Humanistic theory is often associated with a heuristic approach. In 1969, Rogers asserted that the only type of learning which could really influence the individual is when he or she discovers by himself or herself and which he or she makes his or her own. Thus, for Rogers (1969), experiential learning is central. Through their choices, learners are responsible for their decisions and the acts they carry out. They discover something which is significant for them and in a way which will influence their thoughts and their feelings. According to a heuristic approach, only the knowledge which is discovered by the learner is really integrated. In any case, this experiential method, which includes a stay abroad, enables the creation of a link between the experiential and the intellectual (Barro, Jordan and Roberts,1998). Kolb (1984) argues that “learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world” (p. 31). Experience importantly plays a central role in the foundation for feeling, reflecting, thinking, and acting (Kolb, 1984). In learning, people touch the bases of four adaptive learning modes that form the experiential learning cycle. Immediate, concrete experiences make the basis for observation and reflection, which subsequently transform the experiences which are then assimilated into abstract conceptualization, from which active experimentation is deduced. This active experimentation then entails creating here-and-now concrete experiences. When the cycle is completed, it begins anew. Kolb’s (1984) theory of experiential learning could also be an avenue for researchers to explore learners’ experience while abroad. EXPERIMENTAL CONTEXT The course described in this article, which takes place at the University of Lorraine in Nancy (France) for students in literature and social sciences, prepares students for the Erasmus program of a European university exchange. The design of the course is based on theoretical research defining intercultural communicative competence, objectives, and

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assessment (Zumbihl, 2010). The objective of this curriculum is to prepare the students for the immersive experience abroad through linguistic and intercultural training. Organization of the Curriculum The ten-week course includes twenty one-hour sessions. The enrollment in this course is limited to twenty to allow for greater oral participation. These twenty students are divided into two groups. Each group meets with a native English-speaking teacher or a French teacher of English every week. The native English-speaking teacher is responsible for the linguistic component. Different aspects of everyday life (e.g., finding lodgings, understanding public transportation, traveling or engaging in small talk), which are predeparture concerns for students, are addressed. The intercultural part of the course, which is meant to prepare students for their stay abroad and derive maximum benefit from it, is led by the French teacher of English. While there are two parts to the course, it should be remembered that they are closely intertwined, since “teaching for linguistic competence cannot be separated from teaching for intercultural competence” (Byram, 1997, p. 22). The intercultural part of the course is organized around five main topics, which are discussed in English during the five sessions each group has with the French teacher. The link between language and culture is central in each topic discussed in class. These five main topics are: a) What culture means to you b) The different skills or ‘savoirs’ defined by Byram (1997) c) The different areas in intercultural communication where problems may occur such as dos and don’ts, behaviors, body language d) ‘culture shock’ e) ‘individual specificities’ and ‘learning and teaching styles’ All these topics are studied through discussion between the students and the teacher based on documents and reflection exercises. An important point is for the students to realize that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. The objective is to share ideas to help them progress individually. Students are required to write their personal impressions in a journal after each session, which enables them to keep notes about the course and to integrate them into a personal reflection. They can also add their personal research about ‘cultural briefing,’ which is the process of finding out about another culture, especially in preparation for a period of residence, as well as the different steps in the construction of their own plans abroad. This journal is also a means to help them prepare for the final interview of the evaluation described later. Format of the Evaluation The evaluation is designed following Corbett’s (2003) model and focuses on language, personal reflection on the intercultural encounter, evolution of the student’s plans to study abroad, as well as the student’s research on cultural briefing. Consequently, the final form of the evaluation is an interview starting with a short role-play with the native English-speaking teacher about an everyday situation to assess speaking skills followed by a presentation by the student. This presentation should include intercultural aspects discussed in class and be integrated into a personal reflection, cultural briefing about the country of the stay, and the evolution of the organization of the stay abroad. Thus, the evaluation integrates the criteria to be assessed in the curriculum. On the whole, what has to be evaluated is the students’ personal development concerning their project abroad as well as their efforts to improve the ability of communicating in everyday situations and, in a more general way, their motivation to prepare for their stay abroad. We must take into account that the student’s personal evolution is not finished, that it is a lifeCERCLL ICC Proceedings

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long process and that their stay will also be a part of this evolution. The question for the assessment in this curriculum should be more concerned with what learning has taken place rather than if the content of the course has been learnt. Integration of Learner Autonomy in the Curriculum through Reflexivity For Gudykunst and Kim (2002) the development of intercultural competence is concerned with three different levels, which are emotional, social and cognitive. The module to be studied is designed to develop these three different levels. The first level to be studied is the emotional one with the expression of emotions and feelings linked to experience through an autobiographical approach. Anquetil and Molinié (2011) point out that “the autobiographical approach […] offers a means of tracing one’s changing subjectivity” (p. 78). Our research question, based on a practical problem with the implementation of this curriculum, is how to enhance learner autonomy in acquiring intercultural communicative competence and how to help the learner in what Byram (1997) calls the “independent learning” process or what Rogers (1969) calls the “experiential learning” process. Students are required to write their own feelings and impressions in a logbook after each course session of the module. As most exercises are conducted orally in class, students have to describe what they did. Thus, they have the opportunity to develop their reflection on a more personal and emotional level including their own personal experience. This logbook can support their reflection on the intercultural issues and can be written in the language they want to use. It can also be used to detail the necessary steps students have taken to make their project evolve, as well as their own research or cultural briefing about the country where they want to stay and which they will have to present during the interview. Although keeping a journal is a course requirement, it is not graded. It is also a basis of discussion for the final examination. For Byram (1997), the classroom offers a potential for reflection: So the classroom has a potential for two kinds of relationship with learning outside: a prospective relationship of developing skills in anticipation of learning through fieldwork, and a retrospective relationship in which learners can reflect on learning in the field. This critical reflection is particularly important and can focus on the efficacy of the skills learned in the classroom, and the need for further development. (p. 67) This also means that the teacher has a specific role to play, as discussed earlier, and there should be time in class for interaction between teachers and learners about the interpretation of and reflection upon the experiences they have had in real-time interaction. For students, the logbook is the document in which they store their thoughts, work out their plans, and record the difficulties and progress they experience in pursuit of their self-directed work. It may involve thinking and action and consequently can become an important instrument for motivation, especially self-motivation. In the framework of this module students are responsible for the organization of their stays abroad. In this context, the logbook may also be a planner for the students’ projects. Finally it is a historical overview in which the project is considered within the framework of students’ life in general. By writing in their logbooks regularly, students may acquire a feeling of personal control and pride in what they have achieved. Students are, of course, encouraged to continue this reflexive writing during their stays abroad. It has to be noted that students also have rights to privacy and therefore are in control of their journals. Consequently, the teachers of the module negotiate the conditions of journal review at the beginning of the semester. Moreover, students are informed that the other

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students will not have the possibility to read what they have written even if it is an online diary. Trust is essential in this process. Learning autonomously also means self-development. Through reflection, students may become truly self-directional. They see themselves more clearly and can understand better what their personal choices are from a life-long perspective. Examples of Sentences in the Logbooks Below are some specific examples found in students’ logbooks during the last four sessions and translated from the French. “I learnt that you have to pay attention to what you say and the way you say it in a foreign language because other cultures do not perceive things in the same way as you do in your culture”. “The most difficult thing for me is to speak English. It is also for this reason that I want to go to England next year. In the meantime what I want is to evolve in my learning of the language and the culture.” “The exercise we did today (role-play) enabled us to know each other a little better not as students but as individuals. When I am in England I hope to learn and understand the British culture but also to make people discover mine. Exchanging with the other brings open-mindedness and therefore greater tolerance. At least I hope so!” Logbook and Questionnaire Results The module has existed for two years and has been studied through an action-research process. The students fill in a questionnaire at the end of each semester. One question concerns the usefulness of the logbook. The results obtained with the first four cohorts are presented below. Figure 1

Depending on the cohorts, it appears that the usefulness of the logbook has not always been understood by the students, especially those of the second cohort who wrote, “it is a good idea but it is not always necessary,” “I am not used to criticizing a course,” “progress could be noticed week after week but it was not really necessary to write it down,” “I don’t know what to write in it.” Other students, on the contrary, really appreciated this tool and wrote the following comments in the questionnaire, “I could see where I was standing regarding my project,” “as we do not take lots of notes in class it enables me to keep a trace of what has been said,” “it enables me to think about the course again, we can go a little further in our reflection.” Consequently, it seems that explanations are still necessary to make students understand the interest of this tool which will also be essential during their stays abroad as a tool for selfreflection on their experiential learning. It is still difficult for some students to think metacognitively about their language and culture learning.

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Integration of Learner Autonomy in the Curriculum Through Anecdotes and Experiential Learning The classroom offers a potential for reflection which suggests that in this context of learner’s autonomization process, teachers will have a specific role to play (Byram, 1997). However reflection in class is very different from a simple discussion with friends and family, because it is the teacher’s responsibility to conduct the discussions within the framework of the educational objectives of intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997, p 68). In this classroom context, the use of anecdotes could be useful to support reflection. An everyday definition of anecdote is: a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident. Therefore the use of anecdotes in class should enhance the analysis of emotions and interactions experienced during the periods of experiential learning. A study on the use of anecdotes has been carried out since 2003 by the Centre Européen des Langues vivantes. For Wright (1987), “there are two main elements of a task - the cognitive, or ‘thinking’ aspect, and the affective, or ‘feeling’ aspect” (p. 34). Indeed, according to Camilleri (2002), the situational or experiential anecdote seems to be a tool which combines the cognitive and the affective. Anecdotes in intercultural communicative competence learning can be used either to illustrate the teacher’s speech or to enable a verbalization of the learner’s experience. Through stories or anecdotes, learners can associate language learning with an experience of feelings and emotions. Listening to anecdotes may also be important, as anecdotes told by others can give a new light to your own experiences. Telling anecdotes helps learners give a pattern and a meaning to their own experiences, but listening may also be important. As far as listening to anecdotes is concerned, Rogers (1969) argued, “it is exactly me, it is exactly what I felt.” Through anecdotes, the learner can make the experience his or her own and analyze it. In the same way, Rogers (1969) emphasized the inclusion of feelings and emotions in education which should aim at personal change and self-knowing. According to Rogers (1969) learning should lead to personal growth and development. This is also the goal which should be achieved by the learner’s immersive experience abroad. For Rogers (1969), experiential learning could be significant at both the affective and the cognitive levels. It could change the learner’s attitudes, behaviors and even personality. Rogers (1969) also emphasized the fact that teachers should be non-judgmental. It reinforces the idea that enhancing the learner’s autonomization process involves new pedagogical relationships between the learner and the teacher, who should become a counselor in this new learning context. Preparation for study abroad and the importance of experiential learning could also be analyzed through Kolb’s (1984) theory of experiential learning, as the theoretical background demonstrated. Indeed, for Kolb (1984), “learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world” and experience plays a central role in the foundation for feeling, reflecting, thinking and acting (p. 31). This is the reason why students are encouraged, during the sessions dedicated to intercultural competence to exchange anecdotes about previous experiences of intercultural interactions either abroad or in their everyday environment. Telling anecdotes is generally activated by exercises aimed at analyzing different intercultural issues or situations (Utley, 2004). Students are encouraged to tell personal anecdotes when they listen to other students telling a personal experience. Listening to a personal anecdote helps other learners make connections with their own experience.

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Integration of Learner Autonomy in the Curriculum Through Cultural Briefing It is important to recall that this specific module was designed more to sensitize students to intercultural encounters in general and not to describe a specific culture, or to give facts about a specific culture, as the students who attend this course may decide to study in very different countries around Europe. Therefore, it is one of the teachers’ roles to make students understand that they have to find out about their final destination. This will be done through cultural briefing, personal research and construction of the project, which all form the cognitive level of the curriculum. From that perspective, students have to become responsible for their own cognitive preparation by doing some personal research about their final destination and by finding current, in-depth information on the customs, cultures, traditions and ways of life of people from other countries. This means that there must be a reflection in class to help students choose the necessary items for their personal research to make a distinction between geographical or political facts and more subjective areas such as moral or social values. Indeed Byram (1997) demonstrated that, generally, young people acquire some information but very little knowledge of the foreign culture through language classes. Practical exercises are conducted to highlight the different degrees of importance which students attach to different types of information. This, in turn, should show how cultural briefing needs to cover a wide range of topics in order to meet a wide variety of needs. For example, students are given a list of different items ranging from very practical aspects of a culture (e.g., tipping in a restaurant) to more abstract items (e.g., respect for authority). Students have to make a list of six different items which they think are important to study before going to a country they do not know. They then have to do the same exercise for a country they know. The interest of the exercise is to show the students that their choice is very personal and that students’ lists may be very different from one another. There is no correct selection of components from the list, as it will depend on individual experience and taste. It will also guide them in their personal research. CONCLUSION The objective of this curriculum is to prepare students for an immersive experience abroad by giving them the keys to analyze the year of study abroad. This can be done by enabling students to take responsibility for their own preparation. According to the students’ results on the final exam for each cohort, as well as the qualitative data obtained through the questionnaire each semester, this objective seems to have been reached. Because of obstacles inherent in the university organization, it is still difficult to obtain feedback from the students when they come back to France after their experience abroad. Our objective now is to obtain some feedback from the students to determine if this preparation has really helped them become more autonomous in their experiential learning. The objective of this study was to underline the importance of learner autonomy in the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence and to show how this autonomization process could be enhanced through the use of different tools in preparation for study abroad. Our objective as language teachers concerned with intercultural communicative competence should be to enhance learner autonomy and to contribute to the education of active and autonomous citizens.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Hélène Zumbihl is associate professor in English for Specific Purposes at the University of Lorraine, Nancy, teaching non-specialist students at the PEARL [Pôle d’Enseignement, d’Autoformation et de Ressources en Langues]. Besides ESP, her research interests in the Applied Linguistics research group at ATILF [ Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française]/CNRS [Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique] focus on the acquisition of intercultural competence as well as the use of Information and Communication Technology in language learning and teaching, learning-to-learn and autonomization in language learning.

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