Do tasks and exercises in English Foreign Language textbooks promote Intercultural Competence? An empirical study

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical background
2.1 Intercultural Competence in the EFL classroom
2.1.1 Definition
2.1.2 Purpose of the Intercultural Competence as an educational goal
2.2 Tasks and Exercises in the EFL classroom
2.2.1 Definition and function
2.2.2 Quality features of tasks and exercises in terms of promoting Intercultural Competence

3. Empirical study
3.1 Methodology
3.2 Blue Line 4 (Hauptschule)
3.3 Red Line 4 (Realschule)
3.4 Findings

4. Conclusion

5. Works cited

List of tables

Table 1: Selected textbook tasks

Table 2: Blue Line 4, task 1

Table 3: Blue Line 4, task 2

Table 4: Blue Line 4, task 3

Table 5: Blue Line 4, task 4

Table 6: Blue Line 4, task 5

Table 7: Blue Line 4, task 6

Table 8: Blue Line 4, task 7

Table 9: Blue Line 4, task 8

Table 10: Blue Line 4, task 9

Table 11: Blue Line 4, task 10

Table 12: Blue Line 4, task 11

Table 13: Blue Line 4, task 12

Table 14: Blue Line 4, task 13

Table 15: Blue Line 4, task 14

Table 16: Blue Line 4, task 15

Table 17: Blue Line 4, task 16

Table 18: Blue Line 4, task 17

Table 19: Blue Line 4, task 18

Table 20: Blue Line 4, task 19

Table 21: Blue Line 4, task 20

Table 22: Blue Line 4, task 21

Table 23: Blue Line 4, task 22

Table 24: Blue Line 4, task 23

Table 25: Blue Line 4, task 24

Table 26: Red Line 4, task 1

Table 27: Red Line 4, task 2

Table 28: Red Line 4, task 3

Table 29: Red Line 4, task 4

Table 30: Red Line 4, task 5

Table 31: Red Line 4, task 6

Table 32: Red Line 4, task 7

Table 33: Red Line 4, task 8

Table 34: Red Line 4, task 9

Table 35: Red Line 4, task 10

Table 36: Red Line 4, task 11

Table 37: Red Line 4, task 12

Table 38: Red Line 4, task 13

Table 39: Red Line 4, task 14

Table 40: Red Line 4, task 15

Table 41: Red Line 4, task 16

Table 42: Red Line 4, task 17

Table 43: Red Line 4, task 18

Table 44: Red Line 4, task 19

Table 45: Red Line 4, task 20

Table 46: Red Line 4, task 21

Table 47: Red Line 4, task 22

Table 48: Red Line 4, task 23

Table 49: Red Line 4, task 24

Table 50: Blue Line 4, overall result

Table 51: Red Line 4, overall result

Table 52: Evaluation of both textbooks

1. Introduction

It is common in today's globalised world that diverse cultures exist closely next to each other and it requires a mutual understanding and acceptance of present cultural differences. As a result, the necessity of interest in and appreciation for foreign cultures is already positioned in the school curricula. The importance of the so-called Intercultural Competence is prominent: e.g. especially in geography in the context of EFL classrooms in class eight, students deal with Cultural Studies and get to know diverse cultures. Finally, this should contribute to raising awareness for other cultures and the reflection of the own one which is important due to us living together in a multicultural society.

Since the textbook is a central teaching and learning aid, this work will examine a part of the tasks and exercises of two books. Referring to this, textbook research is a relevant field of study, because a critical look at current teaching material is always needed to ensure that it is appropriate for pupils as well as it is of good quality considering the achievement of educational goals. To give exemplary research findings, the analysis will focus on textbooks of class eight at Hauptschule (Blue Line 4) and Realschule (Red Line 4) in Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany, published by Klett, whereupon in each case the recent version of the year 2017 was chosen. To narrow down the research project furthermore, the work will zoom in on the first unit of the books, which is “Gateway NYC”. The main topic of this bachelor's thesis will therefore be: “Do tasks and exercises in English Foreign Language textbooks promote Intercultural Competence? - An exemplary analysis based on the topic New York”. The intention of the work on hand is to evaluate the quality of tasks and exercises for the promotion of Intercultural Competence.

To answer the main question of this thesis, the work has been divided into two parts: the first one summarises the most important information and theses on the topic and the second one examines the available textbook material in detail by means of an empirical method. In the theoretical chapter, Intercultural Competence with respect to its definition, importance and establishment in didactics will be explained. Thereupon, the relevance of tasks and exercises in class will be discussed and four quality features of assignments promoting Intercultural Competence will be chosen, which will allow an evaluation of these. In the following, the tasks from the Blue Line 4 and Red Line 4 schoolbooks will be analysed. After investigating the tasks' quality individually, the findings will be comprehended and discussed. In the conclusion, the fundamental research findings will finally be recapped and the question of the bachelor's thesis will be answered.

2. Theoretical background

2.1 Intercultural Competence in the EFL classroom

2.1.1 Definition

In this part, relevant terms for the further analysis will be named and explained. The terms “Competence”, “Culture”, “Intercultural Competence” as well as “Intercultural Learning” need to be specified in the very beginning to make the following work more transparent and understandable. Of course, it should be clear that these concepts and definitions of terms are socially and culturally determined and defined by e.g. time, place and politics.

Recent objectives with reference to teaching mainly imply competences, which describe “complex, mostly situational imbedded and social-life-oriented skills” (translation mine¹ ), and outrun former educational goals, which were rather “isolated individual skills” (translation mine², cf. Thaler 19). Current education therefore aims at the development of specific competences, whereupon the principal purpose of English teaching as well as other subjects is represented by the Intercultural Communicative Competence (Haß 144). Intercultural Competence is not only a separate competence, it is one that is embedded in many other competences as well and cannot be necessarily isolated from those. The terms “Intercultural Competence” and “Intercultural Communicative Competence” are often used synonymously, whereupon the Intercultural Communicative Competence emphasises the communicational aspect of interculturality. For the sake of simplicity, the term “Intercultural Competence” will be used in this work, but still, communication can be described as the quintessence of interculturality, because interculturality is about interacting with people of other cultural backgrounds and avoiding misunderstandings that can be caused by their differences. Situations in which such misunderstandings appear are the so-called “Critical incidents”. The overcoming of these can be practised in the EFL classroom by presenting examples in form of e.g. texts or short clips, whereupon the pupils are asked why a misunderstanding occurred and how it could have been avoided (Volkmann: Fachdidaktik Englisch 181). Firstly, dealing with critical incidents can be helpful for students to understand how communication works best with people of different cultural background and how linguistic and cultural barriers can be overcome. Secondly, it can be useful for pupils even for future real-life interactions with foreign people, both when they are e.g. travelling in (Anglophone) countries as foreigners themselves or communicate with those in their own country.

In this context, the term “intercultural” appeared for the first time in 1979 and a few first articles on the topic of intercultural education in kindergarten were published in 1980 (Haß 144). The initial advancement of intercultural pedagogy was caused by labor migration and the development of a multicultural society that followed (Haß 144). Apart from the intensified migration situation e.g. during the time between the mid 1950s up to 1973, migration is normal, has happened in the past and is present now, too. What remains unclear is how society deals with immigrants and how it interacts with the unknown considering its own culture (Matthes and Heinze 7). A reason why some people dislike immigrants may be human primal fear of the foreign, which can be traced back to early mankind, when food resources and territorial claims provoked competition (Pöggeler 17). In the past, the fear of the unknown had the function to protect oneself and save the own survival. Foreign people could have been life-threatening, because the fight for food resources was violent. Therefore, the fear and possible refusal of people of different migration background and foreign cultures is deeply-rooted, even though competition for food is mostly uncommon in the Western world today. In this regard, the roots of realising that tolerance towards people from different cultures should be one purpose of education policy in the 1970s and 1980s. Tolerance was needed back then when the USA and Canada assumed a role in the economy as well as tourism on a global level and developed an increasingly multicultural society (Volkmann: Fachdidaktik Englisch 21). In the following years, interculturality became a more and more important aspect in didactics, and especially Michael Byram as well as Claire Kramsch had a major impact on its concepts (Volkmann: Fachdidaktik Englisch 1f.). Learners were no longer seen as mere ‘receptables' to be filled with factual information. Instead, they were invited to become personally involved in the exploration of English-speaking cultures as self-reflective co­constructors of cultural meanings. (Delanoy and Volkmann: Cultural Studies in the EFL-Classroom 13)

To explain this turning point in didactics more detailed, it means that the role of students in the EFL classroom changed. From that time on, pupils were seen as important participants in the process of Intercultural Learning and the focus on a more critical and self-reflective look at cultural concepts increased. EFL teaching started to aim at promoting skills by the students and not simply convey prescribed information.

To approach the definition of Intercultural Competence it might be helpful to define the term “culture” first. Kramsch suggests defining culture as a “common system of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating, and acting” (Kramsch 10). Thus, culture is not e.g. explicitly situated geographically or linked to religion alone, as often supposed at first. It is rather a complex and dynamic set of everything that belongs to one personally, what is also partly influenced by the environment, such as beliefs or attitudes. After Cultural Studies were established as a field of study in Great Britain and the USA in the 1950s, culture was assumed to even be “a whole way of life”, including the “big C culture” and the “small c culture” (Haß 153) . Ildiko Lazar attaches the “big C culture” to “literature, geography, history and arts” and describes the “small c culture” as something being “less visible and less tangible and [having] no traditional subjects assigned to them in schools” (Lazar 7). According to Thaler, the extension of the everyday-culture in the small-c-culture was important for Intercultural Learning (Thaler 271). It is relevant because it brings peers from the different culture and one's way of living closer to the native pupils and rises both authenticity and chances of identifying themselves with those. It is important for the understanding of this thesis to also know that Intercultural Learning describes the process of developing Intercultural Competence (Haß 147). “Culture”, considering all the points above, is “no static, homogenous, closed system” (Haß 154) , a definition rather has to “catch the dynamism and comprehensive character” of it (Witte and Harden 94). According to that, viewing culture as a lifestyle and huge part of one's identity is a good start to appreciate how far-reaching this concept is.

Finding one all-encompassing definition of Intercultural Competence is quite a challenge and it is not possible to do all aspects justice in one attempt. Despite this, it may be helpful to incorporate Friedrich Lenz first, who states that Intercultural Competence is never achieved completely and does not mean a knowledge of culture in its many aspects (Lenz 212). So, students never actually learn Intercultural Competence and then possess it, the acquiescence of Intercultural Competence is much more comprehensive and while there might be different levels or stages regarding the development of this skill, it can never be fully acquired and finished. Also, it does not only consist of knowledge about the foreign culture, but it is connected to many interpersonal factors that enable individuals to interact with people of different cultural backgrounds. Of course, it might be useful to be aware of how the foreign person sees politeness, e.g., and what may be important to know about culture-specific body language, so that misunderstandings in Intercultural Communication, critical incidents, can be reduced, but it could bear a risk of overgeneralising and stereotyping people from the other culture because even within both the German and American culture concepts of politeness differ. Stereotyping is a form of simplifying our complex world with its diverse people and cultures, it can e.g. help to classify people into certain categories and make it easier to perceive and understand them. However, a negative effect of stereotypes is that it does not acknowledge diversity and it is mostly dangerous, because it can lead to generalised and often false ideas of, for instance, a country, its people and culture. Consequently, English teaching should aim at pointing out and reducing stereotypical thinking. A difficulty in EFL teaching, and textbooks in particular, may be to establish a balance between providing students with information and allowing them to gain knowledge and at the same time stressing that the presented aspects of the foreign culture are exemplary as well as not representative for all people of the culture and our ideas of the other may therefore hold stereotypical concepts.

Annelie Knapp-Potthoff explains Intercultural Competence as the ability to communicate with members of other communication communities and as overcoming possible problems created by a feeling of foreignness through the activation of specific strategies (Knapp-Potthoff 196). This affirms the impossibility of teaching everything about the other culture in the classroom as well as it means that it is not necessary for interaction either. From this follows that Intercultural Competence is aimed at a mutual understanding of individuals with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It is significant to recognize the importance of language for Intercultural Competence here. Because of the strong connection between language and culture, it is also important for Intercultural Competence to acquire communicative competences, since language may be a medium to represent someone's culture. Moreover, language learners develop Intercultural Competence even indirectly through learning a foreign language itself. This is because students are confronted with a foreign language, which in this case is English, and they get to know aspects of Anglophone cultures, e.g. the rather open and casual attitude of addressing strangers with you and not a formal personal pronoun such as Sie which is used in the German language or concepts of politeness by learning common polite phrases. Concepts of politeness and impoliteness are, regarding to Volkmann, group-specific and not something every culture agrees on (Volkmann 175), what makes clear that social and cultural norms are for the most part embedded in our language. Such soft skills that take into account culture-specific concepts of communication and politeness are important to develop in regard to Intercultural Competence, because linguistic and geographical knowledge alone does not ensure successful communication with people of different backgrounds (Hammer 276f.). On the one hand, the way we speak influences our (to a certain degree culture-specific) thoughts and on the other hand, our thoughts determine our language that, again, creates many aspects of culture, e.g. attitudes and beliefs. Because of language and culture being so closely connected to each other, one cannot be taught isolated and interculturality is an obligatory topic in the EFL classroom.

Kramsch introduced the term “third place” in this context, which can only be found individually by learners and is dynamic (Kramsch: Context and Culture in Language Teaching 257). The concept of a “third place” describes, metaphorically speaking, a place of an individual somewhere between its own and a foreign culture he or she is confronted with. One reaches this place while developing Intercultural Competence. The “third place” includes the change between four perspectives as a goal of intercultural interaction: the perception from ones of themselves, the perception from one of others, the perception from others of themselves and the perception from others of others (Kramsch: Context and Culture in Language Teaching 207ff.). Switching between different points of view helps to find the approach to the own and a different culture, summarised as a position called the “third place”. The process of taking in variable perspectives and working one's metaphorical place out is embedded in Intercultural Learning, as it involves dealing with the own and different cultures and developing a tolerant way of approaching the other from one's own perspective. Volkmann also refers to perspectivity when explaining Intercultural Learning. He assumes “the ability of decentralisation of egocentric and ethnocentric perspectives” (translation mine³ ) as an important part of Intercultural Learning (Volkmann 163), what means that individuals should overcome an egocentric and ethnocentric attitude in order to be able to encounter people of different cultural background rather unbiased. This is a crucial part of Intercultural Competence, since aforementioned should enable learners to be open towards culturally different people and reduce the assumption that one's own culture is (potentially) the best.

To sum up the aspects above, Intercultural Competence can be defined as “a general capacity to relate to strangers or foreigners” (Byram: Routledge Encyclopedia 346). This includes the awareness and appreciation for (cultural) diversity, tolerance towards the other and the ability to communicate with people of different cultural background as well as overcoming linguistic and cultural barriers.

2.1.2 Purpose of the Intercultural Competence as an educational goal

Globalisation does not only imply the merging of economy and trade of different countries as well as the development of modern media, but it also leads the society to change. Society grows together, people migrate to foreign countries and bring their own culture with them, English language has become a lingua franca and is promoted at schools more than ever. Intercultural competent members of societies are needed and Intercultural Competence is embedded in modern educational goals. To meet the requirements of our multicultural society, foreign language guidelines and curricula in Germany as well as many other countries in Europe focus on “communicative, intercultural and strategic competences” in foreign language classrooms and refer to the CEFR (Rönneper: Policy Perspectives from Germany 54). The Common European Framework of Reference for Language (in the following referred to as CEFR), compiled by the Council of Europe, stresses the ongoing process of globalisation in our world, since it was created to act as a standard for European schools to rely on concerning Language Competence. In this chapter, the CEFR as well as the curricula of the Hauptschule and the Realschule will be explored to see where and how Intercultural Competence is embedded in today's educational goals.

As already pointed out the function of it as a standard for schools, the CEFR aims at overcoming barriers in Europe and significantly internationalises educational objectives. This allows transparency on the one hand and on the other hand it also makes a reflection and discussion about current education-related topics possible (Council of Europe 1). As in many other occupational areas, especially educators have to ensure that they constantly look into new research findings and methods in pedagogy to permanently improve learning for their students. Due to its significance in didactics, important factors considering competences and interculturality mentioned in the CEFR will be explained here. Aspects of Intercultural Competence are surrounded by general competences, such as the “declarative knowledge (savoir)” (Council of Europe 101), the “skills and know-how (savoir-fare)”, the “'existential' competence (savoir-etre)” and the “ability to learn (savoir-apprendre)” (Council of Europe 104ff.) These general competences can be led back to Byram (Byram: Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence 88 - 103). “Intercultural awareness”, for example, is a partial competence of the “declarative knowledge” and contributes to the “knowledge, awareness and understanding” of one's own and the foreign culture as well as their relation to each other (Council of Europe 103). In addition to this, awareness is also relating to “regional and social diversity in both worlds” and not only e.g. both German and English or American culture, but every other in our world, too, whereupon stereotypes are pointed out as well (Council of Europe 103). By doing so, the CEFR opens up the term “awareness” for diversity in general and requires the school system to teach pupils tolerance and respect for their fellow human beings. Apart from that, another crucial aspect of Interculturality can be found e.g. in the competence “Intercultural skills and know-how” of the general competence “skills and know-how (savoir-faire)” (Council of Europe 104). Firstly, “Intercultural skills and know-how” includes putting one's own and the foreign culture into a context with each other, secondly, it implies “cultural sensitivity” and the activation of certain strategies for the interaction with foreign people, thirdly it involves the skill to mediate between the two cultures and overcome possible conflicts, and, last of all it means coping with stereotypes (Council of Europe 104f.).

In the “existential competence (savoir-etre)”, the intercultural aspect of learning is reflected by how this partial competence is about personality and everything that goes hand in hand with it, like “attitudes”, “values” and “beliefs” (Council of Europe 105). Culture is always linked to people's identity and is at the same time a communicative activity of the language users/learners (Council of Europe 105). Character traits of a student determine how he will communicate with other people, and among them those with a different cultural background. Depending on their upbringing and education he or she may be very open about someone's culture, but also may be isolating him- or herself and be unwilling to communicate with the other person. Even in the classroom, when dealing with a foreign culture by learning its language, students may feel threatened of one's own identity construction (Witte: Reflexionen zu einer (inter)kulturellen Progression bei der Entwicklung interkultureller Kompetenz im Fremdsprachenlernprozess 49), as they learn more about the existence of other cultures and how they differ in comparison to these. Dealing with foreign cultures in class may feel like a threat to some, because it is impossible to prevent students from overthinking one's own culture and develop one's own identity further in the context of this. The change of one's identity through confrontation with other cultures can feel dangerous as new ideas and attitudes alter present ones and stepping out of one's comfort zone to overthink, even unconsciously, deeply internalised attitudes, metaphorically speaking (because identity is constructed dynamically and mostly unintentionally), may feel uneasy. School, therefore, has to take the role of presenting foreign cultures positively and encourage students to come across other cultures with curiosity and openness. School should offer its learners means to develop an open and tolerant relationship to the other, which surely involves and leads to developing one's identity further. Finally, the last one of the general competences, namely the “ability to learn (savoir-apprendre)” (Council of Europe 106) is relatively self-explanatory, whereas especially the aspect of “heuristic skills” (Council of Europe 108) is of importance for Intercultural Competence. In general, these skills have to do with how the language user/learner deals with the new: relating to “new experiences”, “new information” and “new technologies” (Council of Europe 108). Everything new is always foreign and interacting with different people and one's culture is what Intercultural Competence is all about. Intercultural Competence as an educational goal is embedded in the CEFR, however, it is interlaced in the general competences and approached rather indirectly.

In contrast to this, Intercultural Competence is addressed more directly in the curriculum of both school forms. In the curriculum of Hauptschule, new social requirements that came up with globalisation call for “intercultural actionability” (translation mine⁴ ), which is the main purpose of English teaching (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 8). Teaching English is skills-centered and promotes e.g. skills in grammar, reading, writing and speaking. The first chapter of the curriculum states, that in Hauptschule, knowledge in geography should be expanded to intercultural actionability, which also involves the awareness raising for different gender perspectives and culturally determined role perceptions (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 8). Intercultural actionability, in this context, can be understood as the skill to interact in intercultural situations, as in communication with people of different linguistic and cultural background or in general, having an open and tolerant approach towards the other. Therefore, it once again becomes clear that intercultural learning not only and simply implicates acquiring knowledge about a foreign country, Intercultural Competence means so much more than this - namely a general sensitivity for the foreign. Intercultural Competence is listed as one of four main fields, which make up the content of English classes (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 11). Intercultural Competence is then defined as a set of skills that allows the students to develop an “understanding for other culture-specific ways of thinking and living, values, norms and living conditions” (translation mine⁵ ) and compare “own perceptions, moral concepts and social contexts with those of anglophone cultures in a tolerant and critical way” (translation mine⁶, cf. Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 13). This can be summed up as an understanding for foreign cultures and the reflection of one's own. Also, according to the curriculum, pupils should be able to interact appropriately with English­speaking foreigners in simple encounter situations (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 24). Linguistic and cultural barriers should be overcome. Applied geography is a big topic in English classes and the curriculum considers the orientational knowledge in relation to “relevant sociocultural subjects and contents of anglophone cultural areas” (translation mine⁷ ) to support an overall openness and understanding (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 13). Dealing with exemplary topics, like a region in Great Britain or the USA, as determined for the seventh/eighth class (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 13), helps the pupils to explore the diversity of lifestyles all over the world, prevents them from discriminating foreign ones and teaches them tolerance. The emphasis is always on the exemplarity of the subjects (e.g. “national and regional identity using the example of a region in Great Britain or the USA” (translation mine⁸ ) or “school in the USA - exemplary insight” (translation mine⁹ ) - cf. Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 24), which shows that firstly, it is not possible to, for instance, cover all the regions in Great Britain as well as the USA or deal with every single aspect of the local school systems, and secondly, it already gives a hint on the possibility of textbooks sometimes giving stereotypical representations of a nation, its culture and people. English classes are limited in time and content has to be compressed to still aim at educational goals. English lessons and, therefore, the development of specific competences should be important for the students' life and one's future: pupils should be able to use the competences for one's “personal way of living, their further education and for their professional life” and experience the “foreign language as a medium for communication in intercultural encounters, in educational and professional contexts as well as for the development and maintenance of personal relationships” (translation mine¹⁰, cf. Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 33f.). Therefore, English teaching takes a responsible and important role in enabling students to develop Intercultural Competence, a skill that is relevant in our modern society and for each and every member of it. It stresses the relevance and influence of school and education on our society.

Similarly, regarding the curriculum of Realschule, the English class aims at the “expansion of knowledge in applied geography to intercultural action competence” (translation mine¹¹, cf. Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 11). In teaching English, the students should be provided with learning opportunities, so that they will be able to, with the help of orientational knowledge, develop an “understanding for other cultural determined ways of thinking and living, values, norms and living conditions” (translation mine¹² ) and contrast their “own perceptions, moral conceptions and social contexts with those of anglophone cultures in a tolerant and critical way” (translation mine¹³, cf. Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 11). The teacher in English classrooms has to offer the children the possibility to develop Intercultural Competence, what can be done e.g. throughout fictional dialogues with foreign, English-speaking people looking at visual material such as pictures, caricatures or video clips of England as well as the USA or generally tasks and exercises in textbooks in which the individuals somehow deal with the foreign and/or their own culture. In the chapter “Requirements at the end of the Sekundarstufe I” (translation mine¹⁴ ), three main aspects with several subitems in regard to the students' skills are mentioned. Because Intercultural Competence is an overall skill, all three of the main requirements imply it more or less. It is especially emphasised in e.g. the first main aspect which explains that students should be able to communicate in everyday situations abroad or participate in the cultural life (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 14f.). In the second main aspect, interculturality is included in the approach to help pupils understand simple social and cultural contexts of anglophone countries (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 15). The third and last main aspect of the requirements at the end of the tenth class shows the facets of Intercultural Competence in the expectation that students e.g. should be able to capture and express characteristics of both one's own and the foreign culture (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 17). Intercultural Learning is a central theme in the English Foreign Language Classroom and the Ministry of Education explains in the curriculum, that competences are always acquired in “changing and intertwined contexts” (translation mine¹⁵ ) and are therefore not developed separately (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 19). Intercultural Competences are, therefore, not developed separately, but rather in combination with other important competences and often even indirectly. Foreign culture specific topics, which are dealt with in year eight at the Realschule, are “aspects of the scholar learning mode in the USA” (translation mine¹⁶ ) and “national and regional identity using the example of a region in Great Britain or the USA, migration as a personal fate, insight into current cultural happenings (amongst other things music, TV)” (translation mine¹⁷, cf. Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 21). The topics are very similar to the ones defined in the curriculum of the Hauptschule. The curricula of both school forms have a similar approach to Intercultural Competence and clarify once more that it is a significant skill to be learned.

After looking at official guidelines for the EFL classroom, it has become clear how deep reaching Intercultural Competence is and that it is a central learning content in nearly every imaginable competence or other aspect in English teaching and learning. Even though Intercultural Competence has to be targeted specifically in class, it will already be acquired within the context of learning a foreign language itself as well, since language and culture are closely connected to each other as already explained in 2.1.1.

2.2 Tasks and exercises in the EFL classroom

2.2.1 Definition and function of tasks and exercises

In the following, tasks and exercises will be explained considering their meaning as well as function in textbooks. Despite the digital age we live in, textbooks still represent the most common medium in the classroom, especially in Sekundarstufe I (Hammer 26). On the one hand, they act as a kind of standard, containing topics that need to be addressed in the specific school year, and on the other hand, they are a device for teachers which provides methods on how educational objectives can be realised. Moreover, the pupils are offered tasks and exercises which facilitate the development of predetermined competences. Given the central role of textbooks in schools, it is important to take a critical look at them and examine their quality, so it can be made sure that they are appropriate for the pupils considering their stage of development (regarding competences and knowledge), age and interests and that they have the desired value for the purpose of learning targets. Karen Risager explains that textbooks are always influenced by the publishing company and their perspective is again affected by their knowledge and emotions (Risager 2f.). Everything that makes a textbook, like the design and pictures, the point of view and tone in information texts or narratives and the conveyed ideas as well as attitudes are, therefore, biased to some degree. Textbook authors bring in their own subjective perspective, what teachers have to keep in mind when using these books in class. Werner Kieweg particularizes this for the context of the EFL classroom when he declares that textbooks have a huge impact on which idea pupils get of foreign cultures, what may be an immense risk, because they might convey “false concepts and clichés” (translation mine¹⁸, cf. Kieweg 9). This means that a textbook has the potential to support an open and tolerant perspective on other cultures, which is one main goal of intercultural learning. However, it could also be that a textbook presents false and/or very negative ideas of the other and leads children to internalise the thought of living in a community with the best culture, restricting their awareness and sensitivity for people of different cultural background.

Tasks and exercises are two different types of classroom activities. While exercises have a clearly defined aim, that one should achieve, the focus of tasks rather lays on the process than on the result. In both forms of activities, materials are mostly offered to the learners additionally to perform the assignment (Volkmann 209). Nevertheless, in this work the differentiation will not bear any relevance, since the upcoming analysis of textbook assignments zooms in on their quality of promoting Intercultural Competence. In this context, it should not be important which kind of activity it is exactly, because both tasks and exercises may have good value to facilitate the process of Intercultural Learning. Consequently, in the following the terms task or assignment will be used synonymously to describe activities in the textbooks.

According to the CEFR, tasks need to take into account both the learner's competences and the conditions and constraints specific to a particular task [.], and the strategic interplay of learner competences and task parameters in carrying out a task. (158)

This means that pupils bring different qualifications with them when approaching a task, what then has an influence on how they are able to perform it. In order to complete a task, students need to activate their “general competences” as well as task-related and appropriate “general and communicative strategies” (CEFR 158f.). In this context, it is important to know that assignments may vary a lot in their process, goal and subject, they may have a versatile degree of difficulty and pupils may approach them differently, because they are at individual stages of development. Besides this, tasks may require different levels of autonomy, since they can be solved alone, in pairs or groups. What tasks share is that they offer students settings in which they are able to perform activities promoting the development of competences that are legally defined by the current regional educational standard and curriculum. Although these situations may be arranged and somehow artificial, they should be linked to the pupils' environment and interests. Only when seeming relevant to the student, he or she will care about learning and therefore perform an assignment successfully: “If the learner does not want to invest in the learning process, intercultural competence will remain at a low level” (Witte: On the Teachability and Learnability of Intercultural Competence 104). Results therefore depend very much on if and to what extent the individual feels included.

In addition to providing high-quality tasks, it is important to keep in mind as a teacher that an overall supporting environment has to be created, taking the pupils' “particular interests and needs” into account, so that they can work out their “third places” according to Kramsch, apart from the “artificial classroom situation” (Witte: On the Teachability and Learnability of Intercultural Competence 103). Factors of a suitable environment can e.g. be positive teacher­pupil relationships, a classroom with clearly defined rules, and offering resources to let the pupils develop precise competences autonomously. The environment should encourage the learning process and enhance the realisation of educational objectives.

2.2.2 Quality features of tasks and exercises in terms of promoting Intercultural Competence

In order to analyse the textbook tasks in the following, first a definition is needed regarding what assignments of good quality are in terms of promoting Intercultural Competence. For the evaluation of the chosen assignments, four criteria or so-called quality features were chosen, which will be named and explained in this chapter. These, of course, do not cover every aspect of what tasks should contain as precisely as possible, they rather demonstrate a good introduction to how Intercultural Competence can be accessed.

The first criterion that was picked for the following empirical study is “background knowledge”. In Byram's concept of Intercultural Competence as an educational goal, “knowledge” is one factor amongst “skills” and “attitudes” (Byram: Routledge Encyclopedia 49). It implies to which extent pupils learn something about the foreign culture, regarding e.g. history, politics, art, sports, the youth or the school system. It is important, however, that the culture is presented in its diversity and that aspects of both the “big C culture” and “small c culture” are considered. As it also had been made clear before, Intercultural Competence comprises more than only the knowledge of a culture, but it is still a part of it and allows the students to gain insights into how people of other cultures live their lives. Background information may be offered by material like texts or pictures, that is brought in to perform a task, or pupils may be asked to do their own research about a specific culture-related topic and answer a few questions afterwards. Moreover, it is important to remember that certain tasks might even require some background knowledge in the first place. In order to provide information well, textbooks have to offer e.g. detailed texts about certain topics and remember to take a look at those from different angles.

Another quality feature, which is important to include in this thesis, is the “initiation of reflection”. A crucial question is, if the given assignment initiates critical thinking and reflection. Questions which arise are i.e. whether the task leads the students to deal with the German and the American culture, whether it promotes the elaboration of possible similarities and differences between the two and if it encourages self-reflection. This is an important aspect of Intercultural Competence, since it enables the students to be open and not believe that one's own culture is superior to others. Through the confrontation with a foreign culture in textbook assignments, students should get engaged in the process of understanding themselves as well as the other, what is marked by, generally speaking, reflection. In the process of reflection, pupils should become aware of their culturally determined ideas and attitudes. Apart from the fact that culture is not a homogenous system and it implies intracultural differences, too, it is important to understand that individuals with their opinions, values etc. cannot be seen isolated or separate from other members of the society, because one can only position oneself through cultural concepts within the own environment (Witte: On the Teachability and Learnability of Intercultural Competence 91). “Initiation of reflection”, here therefore means that a task encourages students to look into the own cultural concepts as well as those of people with foreign cultures to allow understanding of oneself as well as others and facilitate a critical perspective on own thoughts. This can be linked to Kramsch: in order to find their “third place”, students have to take different perspectives into account, whereupon considering different perspectives allows and also means reflection.

The third criterion chosen for the following analysis is “awareness raising”. A task can raise awareness by presenting diversity, e.g. in narratives or pictures. Diversity is a far-reaching term and has many aspects, such as gender, sexuality, skin colour, age or social class. In the context of this work, the focus lays on intercultural diversity, that means the existence of different cultures, but it also includes the awareness for intracultural differences, whereas the latter is important to develop in order to prevent stereotypical thinking. As already explained, culture is dynamically constructed and heterogenous, for which reason generalised ideas about the e.g. American culture should not be enhanced by students. Like the last criterion “initiation of reflection”, “awareness raising” through presenting diversity is meant to promote tolerance and an open, respectful way of dealing with people of different cultures. Tasks that have a high quality regarding this criterion, encourage pupils to become aware of cultural diversity and appreciate it.

The last major quality feature to be considered for this study is “authenticity”. This one is significant and should not be forgotten, since the classroom situation itself is artificial and it is one of the main requirements for teaching in general to provide students the best possible and authentic learning circumstances and situations possible. Tasks should have a connection to the pupils' real life and their interests, because one will more likely be able to identify with imagining e.g. talking to an English-speaking stranger when the situation and topic are somehow realistic and have something in common with the own environment. Assignments should also have a relevance for students: the content has to seem important in order to motivate the children to complete it. Another point that is crucial in the context of this quality feature are stereotypes. Despite the ongoing process of globalisation, we still have stereotypes, unlike one would perhaps assume, because globalisation also led to overcoming barriers between countries and cultures and societies became more open-minded and tolerant towards others. Textbooks, therefore, have to aim at preventing stereotypes in order to facilitate Intercultural Competence. Although textbooks need to reduce content due to the fact that there is no possibility of showing students e.g. every culture in our world in every single detail and variation, schoolbook editors have to select examples wisely. Tasks and extra materials should show the, in this case, American culture by the example of New York, but also emphasise that the presentations are exemplary and not representative for everyone in the USA. Stereotypes probably cannot be avoided completely, but textbook authors should at least aim at addressing and reducing them when presenting a culture and they should illustrate a culture as realistic as possible. Considering the possibilities and limits of EFL, Witte finds out that not only is the institutionally maintained foreign language learning process very artificial but the materials offered in the cognitively orientated foreign language classroom are reductive to an extent that they cannot adequately reflect the richness, variety and dynamism of the target culture. (On the Teachability and Learnability of Intercultural Competence 97)

English teaching within its frame can therefore not represent the diversity that cultures have. But for all that, he summarises that “experimental learning which includes the provision of rich learning experiences beyond the cognitive level [...] can facilitate holistic and meaningful access to certain configurations of the other language and culture” (Witte: On the Teachability and Learnability of Intercultural Competence 97). It follows that the function of English classes is to allow the students to develop cultural understanding and contribute to Intercultural Competence despite its constraints. This function is, amongst other factors such as the connection to the students' real-life and interests, embedded in the fourth quality feature chosen for the following empirical study, namely “authenticity”.

3. Empirical Study 3.1Methodology

Before starting the empirical work, the methodology which builds the basis for the process of the following analysis needs to be explained. As already captioned in the chapters above, this work examines the tasks of two textbooks published by Klett: the Blue Line 4 for class eight of the German Hauptschule and the Red Line 4 for class eight of the German Realschule. At the time of writing this thesis, these schoolbooks were the newest publications (from the year 2017). Both are approved learning material according to the Ministerium für Bildung und Schule des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Schulministerium NRW n.pag.). The focus of the study lays on the first unit of each book which has the title “Gateway NYC”. Both units consist of 20 pages and not every single assignment will be analysed. Instead, to ensure significant results, only tasks which have a clear reference to interculturality were selected. In the following, the 24 tasks from each book that are included in this study are listed to help overview the thesis. For the purpose of clarity, the tasks are apparently given a new numbering as shown in the chart below. The quantity of the assignments to be analysed is the same for both books, since many tasks are composed likewise. In the case of assignments having subtasks like “a, b, c, ...” or “1, 2, 3, .the subtasks will be rated separately according to the quality features explained in the previous chapter, whereupon these points will be added up and an average rating for the complete task will be calculated. In addition to the tasks, on some pages “culture”-boxes were added that pay particular attention to aspects of culture and especially the comparison of the foreign with the own culture. I considered these in the evaluation of the tasks next to them. For Blue Line 4, the “culture”-box was included in the rating of task number 4, 6 (subtask b), 9, 15, 18 and 20, for Red Line 4, these were taken into account in the evaluation of task number 4 (subtask 3), 14, 18 and 20. The assignments used for this analysis can be looked up in the appendix at the end of this thesis.

Table 1: Selected textbook tasks

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

As already explained, the four criteria “background knowledge”, “initiation of reflection”, “awareness raising” and “authenticity” will be used to evaluate the quality of the chosen tasks in terms of promoting Intercultural Competence. The established rating method is a points- based system. The evaluation of the assignments can range from 0 to 3 points. The allocation is taken in 0.5 steps (e.g. when a criterion can neither be rated 1 nor 2 points, it will be given 1.5 points). To begin with, the rating of the individual quality features needs to be explained. When evaluating a task in relation to the first criterion “background knowledge”, 0 points will be given when the assignment does not expand the students' knowledge about the foreign culture at all. It means that no new information is provided to the pupils. A task achieves 1 point, when already acquired background knowledge is demanded and pupils have to activate it in order to perform the given instructions, but generally no new information is given. 2 points are reached, when students are offered material like texts or pictures that allows them some insights into the foreign culture and enables them to gain new knowledge about it. The provided information does not have to be the only and central issue of the task or be explicitly detailed. An assignment will be found to be worth 3 points regarding “background knowledge”, when knowledge of the different culture is the main subject of it. The students may be asked to do an own in-depth research about a chosen topic or may be tasked to pick out important information about the other culture with the help of comprehensive material. The difference between the rating of 2 and 3 points is that 2 points are given, when students are provided new background information, 3 points however can only be achieved, when the material given is elaborate and perhaps deals with the topic from different perspectives.

The second quality feature for tasks promoting Intercultural Competence, namely the “initiation of reflection”, is rated as follows. When an assignment is not supporting critical thinking and/or reflection by any means, it will be given 0 points. Tasks with this rating usually provide students e.g. with a question or material that is already predetermined or biased and critical thinking is not encouraged. 1 point can be achieved, when a task is not asking learners to e.g. compare the own culture with the foreign one or likewise directly, but the given circumstances may possibly lead students to think about the presented as well as the own culture on a meta-level. If a task is constructed in a way that invites children to deal with both the own and the different culture, what may be mirrored by the assignment asking to e.g. elaborate on topic-related questions, it will be given 2 points considering the second criterion. 3 points are achieved, when the main issue of a task is reflecting on the personal and/or the other culture. This may be e.g. by comparing both cultures or dealing with them on another meta-level . The students' critical thinking is activated and promoted significantly in assignments which are given the maximum outcome that is 3 points.

Furthermore, 0 points are given in regard to “awareness raising”, thus the third criterion for the evaluation of the chosen textbook tasks, when cultural diversity is not presented in a task or its material at all. Considering the fact that the choice of assignments to be analysed was under the terms of being related to interculturality, it is impossible for a task in this thesis to get no points whatsoever. 1 point will be given to a task, when diversity is shown in some indirect, rather irrelevant way but might be sensed by students who already possess an advanced sensitivity for other cultures. Also, 1 point is achieved in all the following tasks, because, as already explained previously, Intercultural Competence and the awareness for cultural diversity as a part of it, is already embedded in the fact itself that students deal with a foreign culture which happens to be the one of New York in the units analysed in this work. A task can reach 2 points, when the other culture and diversity are clearly portrayed through for instance pictures, stories or non-fictional texts, so material provided for the performance of the task, but may not be the central topic of it. 3 points will be given to assignments that may not only depict the existence of other cultures such as the American culture in this case mainly, but also require an open and tolerant way of dealing with foreign people when e.g. answering task-related questions to a full degree. Tasks that are given 3 points in regard to “awareness raising” have to deal with cultural diversity in detail, e.g. by having their main focus on conveying the richness and variety of cultures or presenting intracultural diversity.

The evaluation of tasks in consideration of the last quality feature for the promotion of Intercultural Competence, “authenticity”, will be explained in the following. Authenticity, as already explained in 2.2.2, can be presented in how closely related a task and additional material is to the students' real life, to which extent it may be interesting and seem important for the pupils regarding their age-based interests and if e.g. texts or pictures which are involved in an assignment refuse stereotypical representations of a culture. It is crucial to notice that it may not be possible to recognise authenticity in tasks very clearly and that it is important to keep in mind that culture is always described in some subjective and therefore maybe stereotypical way since it is not realisable to present a culture in detail and in its intracultural versatility, so that textbook authors need to fall back on exemplary representations of cultures. A task will be given 0 points, if it is not adequate for students considering their real life and/or leads students to believe extremely generalised assumptions about the American culture. 1 point can be achieved, when assignments and their content is poorly authentic, which means that it may cover at most some aspects of the students real-life but presents aspects of culture rather inauthentically and insufficiently. Also, some information given in order to perform the task may have the potential to provoke a rather stereotypical image of the other culture or at least do not attempt to break down stereotypes. In order to reach 2 points, a task has to be related to the pupils considering their age, interests and life in general, and be (as much as possible) free of stereotypes. Containing no stereotypical factors at all is basically not realisable, as already mentioned, but there should be visible attempts on the part of the textbook authors to keep those low. Lastly, a task will be given 3 points according to the criterion of “authenticity”, when stereotypes are presented as these and are addressed explicitly. Students are able to learn from tasks with this level of authenticity that stereotypes exist and may be asked to observe them in the future and be critical about how cultures are presented in e.g. textbooks or other parts of the environment. This will facilitate an important aspect of Intercultural Learning for students since they will neglect stereotypes about cultures and stay open for e.g. diversity within a culture. To achieve 3 points, a task also has to lean on the pupils' environment and interests appropriately, too, so that authenticity can be assured on the highest possible level.

Considering the illustration of the research results, bar charts will summarise the evaluation of each assignment. The horizontal axis will list the four evaluation criteria, whereas the vertical axis will divide into the rating, namely 0, 1, 2 and 3 points. The complete evaluation of each task will be described in a chart next to the mentioned one. The overall number of points indicating the quality of a task in terms of promoting Intercultural Competence is calculated by the addition of the points for each criterion and by the division pf this result by 4, which is the quantity of criteria that is used for the evaluation of the assignments. The total result will be the average point score regarding the quality of a task for the promotion of Intercultural Competence in general. In addition to this and regarding the general procedure of the empirical work, the rating of the assignments will not be explained in detail for each one, instead the analysis of only a few tasks and their quality will be presented more thoroughly either by random sampling or because these may demand an accurate declaration or stood out in their importance.

The method of the schoolbook analysis used here was established with the help of Daniela Anton's summary of former and current analytical methods in the EFL textbook research field and her suggestions for it, published in Inter- und transkulturelles Lernen im Englischunterricht - Eine didaktische Analyse einschlägiger Lehrbücher. The following empirical analysis is a combination of a quantitative and qualitative study, as Anton recommends for studies on intercultural aspects of textbooks (Anton 35). As I will evaluate textbook tasks considering four separate criteria, the quality of the textbook content is investigated and it is therefore a qualitative analysis, but because I will do so for an exemplary set of 24 tasks of two books to see how frequent the focus is laid on which quality feature, it is a quantitative analysis, too. Although I try to assess the topic Intercultural Competence and the study as differentiated and critical as possible, my empirical work still has to be understood as a subjective approach. Anton comes to the conclusion that objectiveness can never be fully achieved after taking a look at different works (Anton 36). Therefore, e.g. my established quality features as well as the evaluation of the tasks itself are subjective.

3.2 Blue Line 4 (Hauptschule)

In this chapter, tasks from the first unit “Gateway NYC” of the Blue Line 4 textbook for the German Hauptschule will be evaluated. The tasks are numbered accordingly to the chart above.

Task 1

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

This task is divided into a) and b). In a), students collect from their own memory what they already know about New York at first and in b) are encouraged to broaden the present knowledge by the help of new information given through short texts and pictures. In a), no new background information is given and the task gets 1 point for asking the students to collect information or assumptions about the city they already have. Considering the second criterion for the evaluation of the tasks, “initiation of reflection”, this assignment achieves 2 points. The pupils are asked to deal with their own personal guess about New York's places, events, sports and so on, but they are not challenged to think about it critically. Due to the fact that it is not possible in the framework of this empirical study to check if teachers discuss the students' gathered assumptions in classroom after performing the task, the initiation of reflection here cannot be fully guaranteed. Similarly, “awareness raising” can only reach 1 point by the reason of the students zooming in solely on their own idea of New York and not being instructed to e.g. exchange the own assumptions with a partner or checking if these are correct, as they may have internalised false information. The quality feature “authenticity” gets 2 points, because the individuality of students is taken into account, when asking for the very personal image of the city. As already touched upon above, however, it is not made clear in this task that the own ideas of New York should be considered as these and it is not suggested to reconsider them, which is dangerous, because they may be false or contain a highly stereotypical level of thinking. This subtask, therefore, has an overall result of 1.5 points.

[...]

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¹ „komplexe, meist situativ eingebettete und lebensweltlich orientierte Handlungsfertigkeit“ (Thaler 19).

² „isolierte Einzelfertigkeiten“ (Thaler 19).

³ „Fähigkeit zur Dezentrierung egozentrischer bzw. ethnozentrischer Perspektiven“ (Volkmann 163).

⁴ „interkulturelle Handlungsfähigkeit“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 8).

⁵ „Verständnis für andere kulturspezifische Denk- und Lebensweisen, Werte, Normen und Lebensbedingungen“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 13).

⁶ „eigene Sichtweisen, Wertvorstellungen und gesellschaftliche Zusammenhänge mit denen anglophoner Kulturen tolerant und kritisch“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 13).

⁷ relevante und soziokulturelle Themen und Inhalte englischsprachiger Kulturräume“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 13).

⁸ „nationale und regionale Identität am Beispiel einer Region in Großbritannien oder den USA“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 24).

⁹ „Schule in den USA - exemplarische Einblicke“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 24).

¹⁰ „Fremdsprache als ein Mittel zur Verständigung in interkulturellen Begegnungen, in ausbildungstechnischen und beruflichen Zusammenhängen sowie zum Aufbau und zur Pflege persönlicher Kontakte“ (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes NRW 33f.)

¹¹ „Erweiterung von landeskundlichen Kenntnissen zu interkultureller Handlungskompetenz“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 11).

¹² „Verständnis für andere kulturspezifische Denk- und Lebensweisen, Werte, Normen und Lebensbedingungen“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 11).

¹³ „eigene Sichtweisen, Wertvorstellungen und gesellschaftliche Zusammenhänge mit denen anglophoner Kulturen tolerant und kritisch“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 11).

¹⁴ „Anforderungen am Ende der Sekundarstufe I“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 14).

¹⁵ „wechselnden und miteinander verknüpften Kontexten“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 19).

¹⁶ „Aspekte des schulischen Lernbetriebs in den USA“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 21).

¹⁷ „nationale und regionale Identität am Beispiel einer Region in Großbritannien oder den USA, Migration als persönliches Schicksal, Einblicke in aktuelle kulturelle Ereignisse (u.a. Musik, Fernsehen)“ (Ministerium für Schule, Jugend und Kinder des Landes NRW 21).

¹⁸ „falsche Leitbilder und Klischees“ (Kieweg 9).