Culture and Language_Evaluation (Vania_Baldan)_November 15th 2021 (pd)

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Student: Vânia da Silva Baldan | Course: Ensino de Língua Inglesa | Teacher: Renata Gomes | Date: November 15th, 2021 
 
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Language and Culture Evaluation. 
 
I would like to start this work by referring to the definition of intercultural communicative 
competence. 
Intercultural communicative competence, or ICC, refers to the ability to understand diferent cultures, 
including your own, and use this understanding to communicate with people from other cultures 
successfully. 
Example: ICC could include understanding how gestures and the distance between speakers vary from 
culture to culture. 
 
According to Kramsch (1993), the intercultural perspective involves reflection on the native and the 
target culture (C1 and C2) rather than simply transferring factual information from one to another. 
Therefore, an intercultural speaker would be, within this perspective, someone who is aware of the 
relation between a certain language and its particular context, capable of interacting through cultural 
frontiers, predicting possible misunderstandings and dealing with cognitive and social demands 
intrinsic in the relationship with the others. 
 
Byram (1997) expands the interpretations of interculturality with the notion of intercultural 
competence, particularly made up of savoirs (knowledges), which establish the foundations of 
intercultural speakers/mediators. These components are constituted of attitudes, knowledges – which 
include sociolinguistic competence as well as the capability of decentering perspectives from one’s 
own values by the understanding that different cultures have distinct behaviours and beliefs – and the 
skills of discovering/interacting (savoir apprendre), interpreting and relating to the other (savoir 
comprendre) and critical cultural awareness (savoir engager). 
The role of the language teacher is, therefore, to develop these skills and attitudes that will make 
students aware of the meaning behind the words and the world represented by them. 
 
 
Examples of intercultural activities in the classroom. 
 
1. Making use of postcards. 
Based on the main principles of the intercultural approach, I would like to propose an intercultural 
activity that can be carried out in the classroom with intermediate level students (B1 - teenagers). 
 
Summary of the activity. 
On the first part of the lesson, teacher will explain to the learners that they are going to analyze 
postcard pictures of the communities where they live; discuss the messages that those images are 
sending to people from other cultures, and whether those messages are accurate and proper. 
The learners can write a brief paragraph in order to state why they think the postcards they have are 
(or are not) a good representation of the community they belong to. 
After that, ask the students to read their answers and set a discussion based on them. 
During the second part of the lesson, learners organize themselves in groups and create a new 
postcard that represents the community where they are currently living. 
After creating new postcards, ask the learners to present them to the classroom. 
 
 
Student: Vânia da Silva Baldan | Course: Ensino de Língua Inglesa | Teacher: Renata Gomes | Date: November 15th, 2021 
 
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Objectives. 
The main goal of this activity is to set an intercultural discussion based on the analysis of postcards. 
In order to do so, the learners will be encouraged to contrast cultures, and construct their opinions by 
understanding how different groups of people have different perceptions of contexts (comparing C1 
and C2). Moreover, through this activity the aim is to develop the learners’ speaking ability on 
describing and evaluating places, landscapes and texts, by encouraging them to use interpretative and 
critical skills. 
 
Leading the activity. 
Provide the students with local postcards and ask them to describe the pictures. This first moment 
will focus on grammar and vocabulary, and the students should use grammatical structures such as 
‘there + to be’ to accomplish this part of the activity. After the students have described their 
postcards, set a discussion by asking the following questions: 
 
• Do these postcards represent your community? 
• Can you guess what a person from other country would think about your city through these images? 
• What is the intention of a postcard? To whom is it created? 
 
After the discussion. 
Ask students to divide themselves in groups and create a new postcard that represents the 
communities where they are currently living. Ask them to keep in mind what they consider as 
representative in their communities. (This part of the activity can be done after the lesson as 
homework, and the students can use digital cameras to photograph their community). 
After creating new postcards, ask the learners to present to the classroom the new representations of 
their communities that they have created, and encourage them to compare the postcards handed in 
the beginning of the activity to the new one designed by them. 
 
Reflecting on the activity. 
Through this activity the learners will be fostered to reflect on cultural stereotypes portrayed by 
postcards. From this point, it is possible to set a discussion on how their points of view are many 
times based on the stereotypes. Being intercultural, in this sense, is to develop critical cultural 
awareness which might lead students to deconstruct stereotyped perspectives. 
 
 
2 - Interview about other cultures. 
Language level: Advanced C1 (teenagers and adults). 
 
In this speaking and discussion activity students will be able to share their views and knowledge of 
other cultures. 
 
Preparation. 
Download the interview questions (on the next page) and make enough printed copies so that every 
student can have one. 
 
 
 
Student: Vânia da Silva Baldan | Course: Ensino de Língua Inglesa | Teacher: Renata Gomes | Date: November 15th, 2021 
 
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Other cultures interview questions. 
Find out what your partner knows about other cultures. 
 
1. What foods from other countries have you tried? Which did you like? 
 
2. Do you often see people wearing clothes from different cultures in the streets of your 
town? Do you know which countries they are from? 
 
3. Do you ever listen to music from other cultures? Do you know the names of any of the 
artists? 
 
4. Do you ever watch films with subtitles? 
 
5. Would you like to go and live in a country that has a different culture to your own? 
 
6. Do you have friends from other cultures and countries? Would you like to have more 
friends from other cultures? 
 
7. What do you think about marriages with people from different cultures? Does it 
encourage greater cultural understanding? 
 
8. Do you think sport is a good way to build intercultural understanding? 
 
9. Would you recognise any art from another culture? 
 
10. What most interests you about other cultures? 
 
 
Procedure. 
If there is some music from a different culture, it might be nice to bring it in and play it to the 
students, to check if they know where the music is from. This can be the lead in to discuss other 
cultures. 
It can also be given printed images to the students for classroom use, or if the teacher has a computer 
and projector in the classroom, he/she can open the images and start showing them to the students. 
Get their reactions and ask them if they know which countries the images come from and how they 
relate to culture. 
 
Ask the students if they have ever experienced another culture, either through travel and holidays or 
knowing someone from another culture. 
Tell them that they are going to explore their views of other cultures. Hand out the interview sheets 
and put the students into pairs. Tell them to ask and answer the questions with their partners. 
Teacher may want to put students into new pairs once they have had the opportunity to discuss for a 
little while and he/she must be sure to monitor carefullyand help with vocabulary. It is important to 
focus on any new vocabulary that has come up during the lesson. 
The teacher may also want to check that there are no strong disagreements among the students and 
can complete the activity with a full class discussion to enlarge their knowledge and experience. 
 
Student: Vânia da Silva Baldan | Course: Ensino de Língua Inglesa | Teacher: Renata Gomes | Date: November 15th, 2021 
 
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References. 
 
- Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
 
- Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, NJ: 
Multilingual Matters. 
 
- https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/intercultural-communicative-competence. 
 
- British Council Open Cities Project. 
 
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/intercultural-communicative-competence
	2 - Interview about other cultures.