1. With the support of the EU Lifelong Learning Programme Grant 142672-LLP-1-2008-1-DE-COMENIUS-CMP icEurope Intercultural Communication in Europe a Comenius Web Collaboration Project to foster intercultural communication in English Kurt Kohn & Claudia Warth University of Tübingen Applied English Linguistics kurt.kohn@uni-tuebingen.de claudia.warth@uni-tuebingen.de www.iceurope-project.eu

2. Contents I. About icEurope II. The theoretical and methodological background III. What we have accomplished so far (in the 1 st year of the project) IV. The icEurope web collaboration course V. References & websites

3. ABOUT ICEUROPE

4. About icEurope: the Project 4 classes (10/11 th grades) from 4 countries (BG, HU, IT, TR) English as Lingua Franca (ELF) Web collaboration in international online teams in Moodle: intercultural activities that link to English language strategies and means Aims : raising awareness of dynamic relationships between language and culture linking intercultural and language knowledge enable learners to use own lingua franca (English) to express or negotiate cultural concepts in authentic contact situations Aims : raising awareness of dynamic relationships between language and culture linking intercultural and language knowledge enable learners to use own lingua franca (English) to express or negotiate cultural concepts in authentic contact situations

5. Project consortium

6. How you can participate Use the icEurope materials & the Moodle platform for your teachingMoodle platform Participate in one of our free regional workshops (in BG, DE, HU, IT, TR) for teachers, trainers, university (teaching) students or others interestedfree regional workshops

7. How it all started: the motivation behind icEurope The pitfalls of international contacts… Darn school exchange! “Everything‘s different” Other customs, roles, notions, concepts, taboos… Other ways of addressing problems Culture no longer as in the textbook Anxiety & uncertainty Managing language barriers … leaving the foreign language classroom

8. THE THEORETICAL & METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

9. Intercultural communicative competence: different components Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) Intercultural competence Cultural competence Communica- tive competence

10. Intercultural communicative competence A working definition (based on Byram): Someone with some degree of intercultural competence is someone who is able to see relationships between different cultures is able to mediate, that is interpret each in terms of the other it is also someone who has a critical or analytical understanding of (parts of) their own and other cultures is conscious of their own perspective, of the way in which their thinking is culturally determined, rather than believing that their understanding and perspective is natural.

11. Byram’s model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) Competence areaDescription Attitudes curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one's own. Knowledge of social groups and their products and practices in one's own and in one's interlocutor's country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction. Skills of interpreting and relating ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents from one's own Skills of discovery and interaction ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction. Critical cultural awareness / political education an ability to evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria perspectives, practices and products in one's own and other cultures and countries.

12. ICC, yes, but: How can we realize all this in our foreign language? How do we show attitudes in English? What are linguistic strategies to mediate interculturally with the help of English? How can we express understanding, curiosity or awareness in a language that is not our first language and in a culture that is not our own? How does “communicative competence” come in here?

13. Communicative competence of non-native speakers Scope of explanation  Why/how do speakers from the same speech fellowship manage to understand each other?  Why/how do speakers from different speech fellowships manage to understand each other?  Why/how do emotional factors play a role in supporting or reducing communicative success? Models of communicative competence  Dell Hymes (1972): accuracy – appropriateness – feasibility – probability  Canale & Swain 1980, Canale 1983: grammatical – socio-linguistic – discourse - strategic  limited explanatory power

14. Coping with cognitive & emotional divergences Cooperation & face  Cooperative imperative – territorial imperative (Widdowson 1979)  To ensure communicative success, cognitive and emotional divergences require appropriate cooperative interventions. Everyday communication – intercultural communication  Everyday communication and intercultural communication are not different in kind.  Intercultural communication is often characterised by special types of cognitive and emotional divergence and thus may require special cooperative interventions.

15. Cooperative interventions Communicative purpose in relation to divergences  noticing and ascertaining divergences – and related linguistic-communicative moves  exploring divergences – and related linguistic-communicative moves  reducing divergences – and related linguistic-communicative moves Communicative macro functions  exchanging information – and illocutionary realisations  discussing a controversial topic – and illocutionary realisations  specifying/clarifying procedures  solving a problem – and illocutionary realisations [Different types of interaction and different levels of complexity]

16. Task design  from simple to complex (in terms of purpose and function)  from emotionally neutral to emotionally loaded Research objectives  to analyse cognitive & emotional divergences and related cooperative interventions  to determine ELF deficiencies and learning needs  to develop and evaluate pedagogical modules Intercultural contact tasks for our icEurope explorations

17. icEurope design Theoretical & methodological considerations overview Intercultural Communication Theories (the nature of IC/C) Other approaches Intercultural Foreign Language Learning (how ICC-FL is acquired) Culture in the EFL classroom ‘is vs. should be‘ ‘Linguaculture‘: Language strategies to express intercultult. concepts Communicative comp. Didactics (didactic models & reflections on FLA) CMIFLL: Computer-mediated intercultural foreign lang. learning Rich learning environm. Construct. task design Autonomy Authenticity Social exchange Assessment / Evaluation Criteria CA / Intercultural Discourse Analysis Byram‘s INCA model Constructivism E-learning CALLeDidactics FLA / FLT design Ethnography Cooperative interventions & strategies

18. Web collaboration* Didactic use of web tools & WWW for joint and collaborative learning Constructivist approach  learning by working and by solving problems or tasks together Different combinations possible (e.g. hybrid learning, web-enhanced, local and international) 18 * Also known as: telecollaboration, web based collaboration, online networking

19. Using web collaboration to support intercultural foreign language learning Authentic … Practical …  Use of the foreign language  Between learners of different cultures 19

20. WHAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR (1 ST YEAR)

21. What have we accomplished so far? (in the 1 st year of the project) 1.Desk research & grassroots analysis report This report presents introductory, summative chapters on the general concepts involved in the project: intercultural communication, English as a foreign language and as a lingua franca, e-learning & Moodle as well as issues of assessment and e-portfolios. Each chapter also outlines the status of the particular topic within each partner country in policies, curricula, teaching or teacher education. The report can be found on the project website under “Research & Publications”. 2.Empirical study on web collaboration tasks & linguistic strategies An empirical study (carried out by Department of Applied English Linguistics, Uni Tübingen, Germany) provided insight on how international students teams deal with potential activities for the web collaboration. The linguistic strategies and means employed by the participants went into the web collaboration design process. 3.Theoretical-methodological frameworks partners took up results from the grassroots report and the questionnaires on curricula on teaching to investigate suitable approaches to the web collaboration and workshops results, frameworks as well as course outlines were summarized in a report on “Theoretical and Methodological Design”

22. 4.Web collaboration course and supporting materials set up web collaboration course prototype on the icEurope Moodle platform several constitutive prototypes for the web collaboration were created prototypes underwent regular feedback from all the partners and pilot teachers The international web collaboration student teams will collaborate on the following topics:  General aspects of intercultural communication  Food and eating around the world  International music & creating a song for the international group with lyrics and music (through Wikispaces and with Windows Movie Maker) Teaching support documents and learning materials were assembled or created and included in the Moodle course: ‘teacher’s notes’: to help teachers carry out a multilateral, intercultural web collaboration, each activity in the course is accompanied by such ‘teacher’s notes’ Moodle guide for teachers ‘language notes’: they link intercultural foreign language strategies with general intercultural aspects. The didactic aim is to raise higher, comprehensive awareness of intercultural communication from a linguacultural perspective. The icEurope Moodle can be reached online at: www.es-courseportal.uni-tuebingen.de/iceurope/moodle/

23. 5.Teacher training workshops and supporting materials All icEurope partners will offer free workshops on intercultural web collaboration in the English classroom between March and September 2010. Main target groups are English teachers and teacher trainees or students as well as teacher educators.workshops on intercultural web collaboration Focus will be on: intercultural communicative competence in English developing intercultural communicative competence through web collaboration activities creating own units or activities for this purpose in Moodle & teaching online sharing ideas on using Moodle and other e-learning tools to foster intercultural communicative competence in the foreign language classroom The workshops are based on a flexible phase model. Workshops thus will be offered either in 2 day face to face sessions or in a blended learning approach with a mix of face to face and online work. A form to pre-register or to receive more information was set up on the website at: www.iceurope-project.eu/index.php/workshop-pre-registration.htmlwww.iceurope-project.eu/index.php/workshop-pre-registration.html A teacher training course was set up on the icEurope Moodle platform. It offers theoretical and methodological introductions on the icEurope topics and background, the general workshop materials, a Moodle sandbox, a sample unit, and the possibility for exchange and networking amongst participants and trainers.

24. THE ICEUROPE WEB COLLABORATION COURSE

25. breakfast What do you associate with this?

26. “Breakfast for me…“ & ‚Cultural scripts‘ 26

27. Cultural concepts – linguistic concepts  „cultural scripts“ „breakfast“ toast, pancakes, bagels, cereals, omelets, peanut butter, jelly, yoghurt, maple syrup, donut, sausages, bacon coffee, tea, juice, milk 7 to 8 am with the family often on the go or in the car „Frühstück“ Brötchen, Vollkornbrot, Müsli, gekochtes Ei, Wurst, Käse, Marmelade, Nutella, Honig Kaffee, Tee, Saft, Milch 6:30-7:30h mit der Familie

28. „cultural scripts“ & ethnographic questioning Why so early? Where did you get fresh bread at dawn? How come your grandmother was there? “I had fresh bread and bacon for breakfast with my grandma at 6:30 this morning.”

29. 29 “teaching mode“ Teacher‘s notes (didactic and technical tips for teachers) Language and culture notes (for learners)

30. 30 “Language Notes“ - example

31. 31 Collaboration example: Forum exchanges

32. icEurope Demo Course 32 www.es-courseportal.uni-tuebingen.de/iceurope/moodle/course/category.php?id=7

33. REFERENCES & WEBSITES

34. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This presentation reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. References and websites Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fantini, A. E. (2005). About Intercultural Communicative Competence: A Construct. VT: Brattleboro. School for International Training. http://www.worldlearning.org/SITOccasionalPapers/feil_appendix_e.pdfhttp://www.worldlearning.org/SITOccasionalPapers/feil_appendix_e.pdf Gochenour, Th. (1993). Beyond Experience. An Experiential Approach to Cross-Cultural Education. Boston: Intercultural Press. Huber-Kriegler, M., Lázár, I. & Strange, J. (2005): Mirrors & Windows – an intercultural communication textbook. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. INCA – Framework & Manuals (LdV Projekt, 2004) http://www.incaproject.org/http://www.incaproject.org/ Kohn, K. (2006). Blended Language Learning. Potential und Herausforderung. In: Jung, U.O.H. (Hrsg.). Praktische Handreichung für Fremdsprachenlehrer. (4. völlig neu bearb. Aufl.). Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang. Kohn, K. (2009). Computer assisted foreign language learning. In: K. Knapp & B. Seidlhofer (Hrsg.). Foreign Language Communication and Learning. Handbooks of Applied Linguistics, vol. 6. Mouton de Gruyter. Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O'Dowd, R. and Waire, P.(2009). Critical issues in telecollaborative task design. In: Computer Assisted Language Learning, 22:2,173-188. O'Dowd, R. (2007). Online Intercultural Exchange: An Introduction for Foreign Language Teachers. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Sercu, L. (2002) Autonomes Lernen im interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht. Kriterien für die Auswahl von Lerninhalten und Lernaufgaben. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht. 7, 2: 1-16 Warth, C. (2009) Interkulturelles Englischlernen mit Moodle. E-Learning-Aktivitäten in einer deutsch-amerikanischen Web- Kollaboration. In: zeitschrift für e-learning - lernkultur und bildungstechnologie, 4, 3, 32-48. Project info & materials http://www.iceurope-project.eu http://sprachlernmedien.de Project info & materials http://www.iceurope-project.eu http://sprachlernmedien.de Picture sources (14) pixelio.de www.masternewmedia.org/images/synchronous-vs- asynchronous-collaboration-by-Ramius.gif (15) pixelio.de

35. Thank you for your interest in icEurope! On behalf of the entire icEurope crew, Claudia Warth (claudia.warth@uni-tuebingen.de)claudia.warth@uni-tuebingen.de Don‘t hesitate to contact us! www.iceurope-project.eu