1. The Intercultural Dimension in How interculturally competent are you?
Dr. Alison Gourvès-Hayward: Ecole Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne, France
Dr. Fionnuala Kennedy: Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland.
Ms. Aleksandra Sudhershan: Dublin City University, Ireland
SIETAR Conference April 2007

2. Outline of Presentation
ELP and eELP (LOLIPOP)
The intercultural dimension
Pilot: Feedback on intercultural dimension of LOLIPOP
Creating a virtual intercultural space
How intercultural are you?

3. EU-Funded Lingua 2 Project (2004-2007)
On-line, interactive version of the ELP with an enhanced intercultural dimension
Uses Moodle as VLE
Project development
LOLIPOP learning platform
8 countries (Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Spain)
12 partners
7 target languages

4. ELP - Three Components
Passport Biography
Dossier

5. Paper versus ePortfolios (Barrett, 2005)
Collecting
Selecting
Reflecting
Projecting
Celebrating
Archiving
Linking / thinking
Storytelling
Collaborating
Publishing

6. e-features of Lolipop Online (via VLE Moodle) Interactive Multimedia
Allows customisation
“Share” function
Online teacher’s manual

7. Issues with existing ELPs
Focus on linguistic competence
Intercultural = cultural
Write reflectively (no guidance on this)
Describe experience of another culture
Describe cultural attitudes and behaviour
No self-assessment grids for intercultural
Testing = testing of cultural knowledge

8. Conceptual model: Byram’s Savoirs?
Savoirs - Knowledge
Savoir être - Attitudes
Savoir comprendre - Skills of interpreting and relating
Savoir apprendre/faire - Skills of discovery and interaction
Savoir s’engager - Skills of cultural critical awareness

9. Conceptual model: Bennett’s Scale
Ethnocentric Ethnorelative
(Bennett 1993)
Denial
Defence
Minimisation
Acceptance
Adaptation
Integration

10. Focus of assessment Assessment of learning - summative
Assessment for learning - formative

11. Issues which arose during the development of the IC dimension
opaque nature of ICC
difficulty of designing a progressive scale from A1 to C2
Possible ethical implications of statements
lack of familiarity with IC terminology (learners and teachers)
Possibility of being A1 on one dimension and C2 on another
Possibility of having a high level of linguistic competence and poor intercultural skills, or vice versa
ICC not necessarily related to one language
where to include ICC in ELP?

12. DCU Pilot Feb-April 06 Multicultural group (ESOL)
LOLIPOP in lab every 2nd week
Feedback:
Class discussions
Wikis
Questionnaire
Oral exam
Focus groups

13. Intercultural self-assessment

14. Questionnaire: Positive results of intercultural dimension
Students’ comments:
When I read those, they made me reflect about my intercultural skills and the examples were good.
Well organized
It's also important to improve my intercultural skills.
It was interesting to assess the intercultural skills. I could realize some intercultural aspect that had changed since I came here.
I had never evaluated my intercultural skills before so it was really useful. It is easy to evaluate your oral and written skills. However I think [the intercultural] is more difficult to answer.
I felt it was a bit easier to assess my intercultural skills than language skills.

15. Issues raised The students said:
It was hard because this kind of skills really depends on the situation, whom you talk with, or when.
It was difficult for me to understand a little bit.
It is hard to assess/reflect on your skills every week. Maybe you won't see any improvement etc. in this short term.

16. How can the ‘share’ function enhance the IC dimension?
Moodle community online
Chat
Forums
Blogs (in Moodle?)
Wikis
Digital storytelling

17. Conclusion We will… And we will…
Generate bank of student accounts of critical incidents as resources
Populate the resources section with linguistic and intercultural www links
And we will…
Seek accreditation for LOLIPOP from the CoE
Offer LOLIPOP as freeware to the HE sector across Europe and beyond

18. How intercultural are YOU?
Opportunity to try out LOLIPOP IC can-do statements
We would welcome your feedback
Thank-you

20. Bibliography
Bennett, M.J. (1993) ‘Towards ethnorelativism: a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity.’ in R.M. Paige (ed)., Education for the Intercultural Experience. Pp Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural.
Bruen, J., Crosbie, V., Péchenart, J. (forthcoming) ‘Have Portfolio: will travel’ RIA conference proceedings. Dublin City University November 2003
Byram, M., (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Byram, M., Gribkova, B. and Starkey, H. (2002) Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching – A Practical Introduction for Teachers. Strasbourg: Council of Europe
Council of Europe (2001) The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Cambridge University Press (available online through CoE site)
Hinkel, E., (ed.), (1999) Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kinginger, Celeste, Alison Gourves-Hayward, and Vanessa Simpson A Tele-Collaborative Course on French-American Intercultural Communication. The French Review, 72:
Little, D., Barbara Simpson, European Language Portfolio, The intercultural component and Learning how to learn [Online]. Available from: (accessed 22 April 2007)
Morrow, K. (ed) (2004) Insights from the Common European Framework. Oxford University Press
Rantz, F., Horan, P., (2005) Exploring Intercultural Awareness in the Primary Modern Language Classroom: The Potential of the New Model of European Language Portfolio Developed by the Irish Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative (MLPSI). Language and Intercultural Communication, Vol. 5, No. 3&4
Tosh, D. and Werdmuller, B ePortfolios and weblogs: one vision for ePortfolio
development [Online]. Available from: < [Accessed 3 July 2006].

21. Websites Barrett, H. Website:
Council of Europe ELP site:
Culture Active
INCA:
The International Profiler
Intercultural Development Inventory
ECML
Digital Storytelling association