CROSS-CULTURAL AWARENESS AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE
Patricia Ann Mehegan
Monash University, Australia
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Edinburgh, 20–23 September 2000
The demands of rapidly increasing globalization require communities that are multi-lingual and cross-culturally aware. Language teachers will have an important role to play in achieving this. The role of cross-cultural awareness in second language acquisition and the achievement of an appropriate balance will be crucial. The question of the significance of cultural awareness to the effective and efficient acquisition of a second language is an important one. Further, the meaning of cultural awareness and how such awareness should be delivered within the teaching package are debatable. Also at issue within this debate is whether and how the contribution of cultural awareness training to effective language learning can be assessed. The converse issue is whether second language ability without accompanying cultural awareness can ever be said to have been achieved.
I carried out investigations into the role of intercultural awareness in Australian Defence Force language training, specifically in the Indonesian Department at the Australian Defence Force School of Languages. This paper presents some of the findings of this research.
-1-
The research was conducted by surveying students of the Indonesian Department of the School by means of a two-part written questionnaire. The content of Part I of the questionnaire tested general knowledge of Asia and Asian issues at various levels ranging from simple or straightforward to quite difficult. Part II addressed attitudes to Asia and its importance to Australia. It also obtained further information about the students' backgrounds, future plans and sources of knowledge about Asia. It distinguished the students' own attitudes from what they thought were the attitudes of others. Part II of the questionnaire also aimed to explore the relationship between cultural awareness and language acquisition.
The study found that there was a correlation between age and general knowledge of Asia but not between educational background and knowledge of Asia. It also indicated links between cognitive competence and positive attitudes to Asia.
The Concept of Culture
The issue of culture was central to this research yet it is not an easy concept to define. I defined culture in Part II of the questionnaire as meaning "all things pertaining to aspects of Indonesian life". Samovar and Porter (1991:50) define culture:
as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
They say that up to one hundred and fifty different definitions are to be found in the literature ranging from those that believe "it is everything" to those who define it more narrowly as the Arts.
Models of Cultural Awareness
Milton Bennett's Development Model is widely quoted by writers in the field of intercultural studies. It describes the stages that individuals experience when they are placed in an unfamiliar culture. He presents six stages:
(1)denial
(2)defence
(3)minimization
(4)acceptance
(5)adaptation
(6)integration.
The first three stages are labelled the "ethnocentric stages" and the next three stages the "ethnorelative stages" (Brislin & Yoshida, 1994). Not all people experience all the stages nor do they necessarily experience them with the same intensity or for the same duration. For example, a person who has lived in a multi-cultural society may not experience the first stage with the same intensity as someone who has lived all their lives in a mono-culture, even if the target culture is one that they have not previously encountered. Some people may never move through all the stages and others may regress after initially making great progress.
In discussing culture theory, Bhawuk and Triandis refer to models based on Individualism versus Collectivism. According to Bhawuk and Triandis (1996:19), "The constructs of individualism and collectivism have been used in most of the social sciences since the 1600s." Hofstede defines Individualism as:
the emotional independence of individuals from groups, organizations, and/or other collectives.
Conversely, collectivist societies are ones:
in which people are born into extended families or kinship systems that protect them in exchange for giving their loyalty to the collectives. A person=s identity is derived from the social system, rather than from individual attributes. (Bhawuk & Triandis, 1996:19)
-1-
The Acculturation Model is a major theory in relation to cross-cultural awareness. It has existed in various forms for many years and is thought by many to have grown out of Oberg's writings on Culture Shock in the early 1960s. However, references to it can be found in writings as early as 1936 when it was used by Redfield, Linton and Herskovits to describe Achanges that occur as a result of continuous first-hand contact between individuals of differing cultural origins.@ (Ward, 1996). Schumann, in work during the 1970s and 1980s, developed an Acculturation Model to account for second language acquisition in the immigration condition where there is no formal instruction. Acculturation theory also has application as a model for intercultural training.
These models provided a theoretical framework for the study of cross-cultural awareness and its significance among students of the School of Languages, bearing in mind that many of the students needed to interact effectively in a cross-cultural setting in their later professional lives. The issue of cross-cultural awareness training has a double significance at the Australian Defence Force School of Languages. There is the role it plays in second language teaching and its direct cross-cultural training role.
Models of Intercultural Training
Samovar and Porter declare (1991:303) at the beginning of Communication Between Cultures regarding intercultural communication:
... a changing world has made intercultural communication an important field of study ... those changes will accelerate in the future; they will not diminish.
The term "cross-cultural" or "intercultural" has a variety of interpretations, especially when used as part of cross-cultural awareness or cross-cultural training. Although there appears to be general agreement that Across-cultural@ applies to an interaction of some kind between two individuals or groups from different cultures, there is no such general agreement when the concept being discussed is cross-cultural awareness or cross-cultural awareness training. Paige and Martin (1996:36) define intercultural training as:
educative processes intended to promote culture learning, by which we mean the acquisition of behavioral, cognitive, and affective competencies associated with effective interaction across cultures.
Many people who work in the field of intercultural training allocate priority to only one or two of the competencies or prioritize all three in a strict rank order. This is linked to the disagreement among some interculturalists about the relative importance of culture-general and culture-specific cross-cultural awareness training.
The field of intercultural training is said to have emerged out of the social and political turmoil wrought by the Second World War. Not only were diplomats going overseas to represent their countries but also large numbers of technicians, advisers and, in time, businesspeople. Times had changed and even diplomats no longer moved exclusively in the rarefied atmosphere of the diplomatic circuit. Consequently, many expatriates found themselves unprepared for the challenges of living and working overseas. In response, the Foreign Services Institute was established in the United States of America. The people chosen to staff it were distinguished linguists and anthropologists. They introduced a new type of training that was different to the old approach of simple language learning.
-1-
The most dominant training group, in the American context, throughout the 1950s and 1960s was the Peace Corps. They trained thousands of trainees and experimented with a variety of models. Probably the most popular model of intercultural training in the 1960s was the University Model based on the early work of the Foreign Services Institute. This model "emphasized a cognitive-centred, lecture dominated, information transfer pedagogy". (Paige & Martin, 1996:40) This was followed in the 1970s by the Human Relations Sensitivity Model. It was radically different from the University Model in that it focused almost exclusively on:
experiential, participative learning designed to promote personal growth rather than the acquisition of information ... the training pedagogy emphasized confrontation with the trainees' own and others' value and belief systems, attitudes and prejudices. (Paige & Martin, 1996:41)
This approach quickly fell out of favour. It was:
extremely confrontational and stressful ... it required processing and debriefing skills that many trainers did not possess ... it also created such frustration and resistance in trainees that learning was inhibited especially as it lacked a sound conceptual framework. (Paige & Martin, 1996:40)
The 1980s saw the popularization of the Integrated/Alternative Learning Model. This decade saw globalization of the economy on a scale not previously imagined. A new element was added to intercultural training and that was diversity training to adjust to the increasing diversity of the community and the workforce in domestic situations. As a result of the problems encountered in the 1970s, extreme confrontation as a training tool was discontinued and other, more sophisticated, models were introduced. The Integrated/Alternative Model uses both experiential and cognitive learning approaches and continues to enjoy currency.
-1-
According to Cushner and Landis (1996:185), the aims of intercultural training are to:
affect the cognitive, affective and behavioural domains of trainees and subsequently people's overall adjustment and effectiveness in cross-cultural settings ... intercultural training has attempted to (a) help people communicate more effectively, (b) help people deal with the inevitable stresses that accompany an intercultural encounter, (c) enable people to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships with those whose backgrounds are different from their own, and (d) enable people to accomplish the various tasks they originally set out to do in a new context or setting.
A training approach known as the Intercultural Sensitizer or Culture Assimilator has been developed in two forms: culture-specific assimilators are designed to prepare people for experiences in highly specified settings. Culture-general assimilators are designed to prepare people for experiences that are common in a variety of cross-cultural encounters (Cushner & Landis, 1996).
The two models that receive the most attention in the literature are the Experiential and the Intellectual Models. The Intellectual Model is also known as the Cognitive or Didactic Model and the Experiential Model is sometimes referred to as the Participatory Model. The practice of using different labels to describe the same model often leads to confusion. Both the Intellectual Model and the Experiential Model have their supporters, and there is a third group that see the ideal model as being an integrative one.
-1-
Both the articles written by, for or about practising intercultural trainers and those written about research and theory, agree that there is not, as yet, a definitive model for intercultural training. Perhaps, given the diversity of applications for this field, such a definitive answer can never be achieved.
Assessment and Evaluation
Gannon and Poon (1997:444) call for increased and improved research that may lead to consensus on the positive aspects of intercultural training and, particularly, what works and why:
... the development of reliable and valid measures of cultural awareness should remain a high priority for those interested in this line of research. Equally important is the identification of appropriate success criteria for cross-cultural training programs.
Experienced intercultural trainers are divided over the assessment of intercultural training programmes. One of the major differences of opinion is the question of whether assessment can be objective or is necessarily always subjective. The process of evaluation is also made difficult by the fact that it may be a considerable time before the students understand and appreciate what they have gained from a programme.
In much of the literature, there is an emphasis on self-reporting as a desirable mode of evaluation of the effectiveness of cross-cultural awareness training programmes. My research suggests that this is problematic. Significant factors can inhibit the accuracy of an individual's self-assessment, not only in the cognitive domain, but also attitudinally and behaviourally. These include modesty or conceit and arrogance, unrealistic expectations, perceptions of political correctness, naivete or deliberate obfuscation.
-1-
Needs assessment is a core component of most of the recommended approaches to the design of cross-cultural awareness training. My research touched upon the reliability of needs assessment and self-reporting. A pertinent question for professionals designing cross-cultural awareness training either as a stand-alone package or, as in the case of the School of Languages, as an integral part of language training, is to what degree their expert judgment should over-ride the opinion of clients or students, who are often inexperienced in issues relating to cross-cultural situations, when there is a conflict.
There is, to date, little research on what methods of delivering intercultural awareness training are the most effective and also on the means of assessing how effective any particular programme of training has been.
The difficulty of the evaluation of the success of cross-cultural awareness training and the expense of conducting appropriate research has meant that an inadequate amount of research has been completed even though the need for a profound understanding of intercultural behaviour has become more important.
Intercultural Training in Language Teaching
Sociocultural values and beliefs frame the way we think and speak. This understanding of language ... has had a great impact on studies of intercultural communication and second language acquisition ... mastery of linguistic patterns alone does not ensure effective communication in the target language ... to be able to communicate in another language, one must understand not only the language but also the underlying principles of that culture ... cultural education is absolutely essential for both second language acquisition and effective intercultural communication.,
-1-
writes Liu (1995:254) summarizing recent work of scholars such as Fantini, Damen and Kramsch on the question of the importance of cross-cultural awareness to the efficiency and quality of second language acquisition. One might expect that the importance of incorporating cross-cultural awareness training into the language learning curriculum would be self-evident but the work of these and other writers suggests that this is not so.
In her review of Damen's book Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension in the Language Classroom, Ryffel (195:323) writes:
With communicative competence as the over-arching goal of foreign/second language acquisition, "culture" has joined the four traditional language skill areas (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) as a fifth dimension. "Culture" however differs from the others in that it is not separate from but intertwined with each.
Fantini (1995:143) comments that, even now, it is rare for language teachers and interculturalists to work hand-in-hand:
despite wide acknowledgement that language and culture are dimensions of each other, interrelated and inseparable.
-1-
Kramsch says that when foreign language teachers do venture into the cultural area, it is often nothing more than "an anecdotal transmission of cultural facts" (Kramsch, Cain & Murphy-Lejeune, 1996:99). This can have little possibility of opening language learners up to the new world view that is so crucial, in his view, to the success of second language acquisition and effective intercultural communication. This concept of a new world view is both essential to effective second language acquisition and intercultural communication and a function of it according to a number of writers such as Fantini, Samovar and Porter, Gudykunst, and Landis and Brislin. All these writers emphasize that this new world view should be complementary to the world view of the language learner's or the intercultural trainee's culture, not a replacement for it. Experience at the Australian Defence Force School of Languages shows that many adult learners are resistant to cross-cultural awareness components of language learning if this aspect is not handled well.
Because of the conflicting schemata in second language acquisition and cross-cultural communication (Smith, 1997), there are significant practical implications for teachers of a foreign language as they contemplate the realities of the language classroom and how best to make cross-cultural awareness an integral part of their teaching objectives and strategies.
Cognitive Approach to Cross-Cultural Training
The answers to Part I of the questionnaire showed that significant numbers of students had substantial gaps in their general knowledge of Indonesia and Asia. This raises the question of the value of the cognitive approach to cultural awareness, whether as a means of instruction, as content of cross-cultural awareness programmes or as a type of evaluation. In the literature, the cognitive approach is often minimized or dismissed. I think that in the context of language and intercultural training for expatriate work environments, the cognitive approach is valid. Most of the graduates of an institution such as the Defence Force School of Languages will go on to be professional linguists C translators and interpreters. In that position, it is not possible to perform effectively without a strong cognitive framework. Students who are learning Indonesian, for example, to prepare for postings such as diplomats and defence attaches also need to possess and be able to demonstrate a level of knowledge about Indonesia and Indonesian affairs, in addition to pure language ability, that will enable them to function adequately and gain the respect of, and have credibility with, their Indonesian counterparts.
-1-
Summary of Findings
The questionnaires were analysed by the three criteria of age, gender and pre-course educational levels. No significant variation based on gender appeared in the results. The participants= ages ranged from late teens to late thirties. The older students tended to perform better in the knowledge section of the survey than the younger students, even where the younger students were significantly better educated. Pre-course educational qualifications might have been expected to influence the questionnaire results significantly. It might have been expected that tertiary educated individuals would perform vastly better than those with only secondary school qualifications but this was not so. Students who had learnt another Asian language did not perform conspicuously better in the general knowledge section than those with no previous Asian language experience. The clear finding that emerged from Part I was that there were a large number of students whose general knowledge of Indonesia and Asia was poor in a number of areas.