The intercultural dimension in language classrooms in Aotearoa New Zealand: A comparative study across languages and teachers’ levels of proficiency

Abstract

In the last two decades, language teaching around the world have shifted the place of culture from the periphery to the core, acknowledging that cultures shape language and how it is used. This has led to the development of intercultural language teaching. The benefits of this approach and how teachers understand and implement it are part of a growing field. However, few studies have addressed the issue of the influence of language teachers’ level of proficiency in this context. Language teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand schools are encouraged to follow an intercultural approach in their classrooms. In 2010, a report was published to provide language teachers with an intercultural communicative language teaching (iCLT) framework of principles to integrate culture into the teaching of languages (Newton, Yates, Shearn, & Nowitzki, 2010). The report focuses on the development of intercultural capacities to communicate empathetically and respectfully with people of different languages and cultures, rather than simply concentrating on language skills. This study investigated the relationships between language teachers’ conceptualisations of iCLT and their practices. Furthermore, it investigated whether teachers’ level of proficiency in the target language was related to their conceptualisations and practices. Subsequently, potential points of departure (i.e., opportunities) for language teachers’ development of interculturality in their classrooms are illustrated. These examples may also be useful beyond the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. Given that the iCLT framework (Newton et al., 2010) was influenced by intercultural theory from various contexts, this study is part of a global conversation around the implementation and development of the intercultural dimension in the language classroom. Qualitative data were gathered from semi-structured interviews, teachers’ reflections, and classroom observations of 16 language teachers of Chinese, Japanese, French, and Spanish (four of each) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Data were analysed using Newton et al.’s (2010) framework of principles as a lens for interpretation. The findings demonstrated an inconsistent relationship between conceptualisations and practices. Evidence of a principle in teachers’ conceptualisations was not a reliable indication of the principle in their practices, or vice versa. The data were also quantified to provide a visual depiction of teachers’ conceptualisations and practices, and the relative difficulty participants experienced with implementing aspects of the principles in their classrooms. As a contribution to the field of iCLT, the findings suggest that neither being a first language (L1) speaker, nor proficiency in the target language, ensured teachers’ implementation of iCLT. Across all languages and teachers’ levels of proficiency, participants generally demonstrated an implicit potential for intercultural teaching. Implicit potential is understood as unconscious, unplanned, and automatic abilities, conceptualisations and practices, attributes that were investigated to indicate teachers’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and iCLT. Furthermore, the target language did not appear to play a role in the development of the intercultural dimension in teachers’ classes. There was some evidence of the efficacy of teacher professional development on intercultural communicative language teaching, highlighting that professional development appeared to be most effective when interculturally targeted. Finally, another contribution of this thesis is an illustrative narrative for language teachers, constructed to summarise the complexity inherent in the iCLT principles; to demonstrate each principle’s inextricability from the others; and to facilitate their implementation.