Critique on “Developing Intercultural Competence in the Language Classroom”

Critique on “Developing Intercultural Competence in the Language Classroom”

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Twitter: @jonacuso

Post 172

“The person who learns language without learning culture risks becoming a fluent fool” (Bennett, Bennett, & Allen, 2003). And if this sentence is extended to the learning of literature, we can fully encase the dimension of culture learning for a better understanding of those others who speak the language that is being acquired. For this, “intercultural competence refers to the general ability to transcend ethnocentrism, appreciate other cultures, and generate appropriate behavior in one or more different cultures” (Bennett, Bennett, & Allen, 2003) and in its literature, which is part of their cultural heritage.

What Bennett, Bennett, & Allen (2003) propose is that culture must be “at the core of the language curriculum.” Based on their model, called the Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, culture understanding rests on six discernible stages “that can be explained by principles of constructivism.” These stages were labeled by Bennett, Bennett, & Allen (2003) as denial, defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation, and integration. And curriculum design should aim at working on culture teaching and comprehension throughout these six developmental stages differently but coherently since these can be linked to language development phases.

For Bennett, Bennett, & Allen (2003) there is a culture learning journey for learners, who are guided by their instructor, from a Stage I linked to the early-novice language learner all the way to Stage III connected to the late-advanced language student. As the authors admit, these stages in language development are not necessarily a reflection of culture understanding since an early-advanced language learner can be in a defense level. In addition to this observation, educators are confronted with the fact that culture-awareness activities must be designed and developed in accordance to cultural sensitivity. It is a shame that these authors did not go beyond in their explanation on how literature can be used in a culture curriculum design that can help students develop culture sensitivity.

If “it is the apprehension of this subjective culture –temporarily ‘looking at the world through different eyes’- that underlies the development of intercultural competence” (Bennett, Bennett, & Allen, 2003), literature can be greatly exploited in the classroom and vastly appreciated and enjoyed by learners in very specific levels of their culture and language training. Literature can be a way to move students from ethnocentric stages towards more ethnorelative ones, which could help students take great pleasure in novels, poetry, drama, and short stories written in the target language.

Bennett, J., Bennett, M., & Allen, W. (2003). Developing intercultural competence in the language classroom. In D. L.

Lange & R. M. Paige (Eds.), Culture as the core: Perspectives on culture in second language learning. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Developing Intercultural Competence in the Language Classroom by Jonathan Acuña