A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators

Byram (1997)’s definition of intercultural communicative competence clearly moves beyond communicative competence, adding to Hymes’ central idea Van Ek’s (1986) six competences of communicative ability, Argyle’s (1983) eight dimensions of non-verbal communication and Gudykunst's (1994) characteristics of a competent communicator. University undergraduates whose aim is to become English teachers and translators cannot overlook the importance of intercultural communicative competence in their future professional performance. As language professionals in a rapidly-changing, globalized world, they must be fully aware that the difference between native and non-native speakers has become blurred and obsolete, and that learning is now more about skills than about knowledge per se. Building human capacity has become a process, and flexibility and creativity (rather than content) are more desirable to cope with constant change (Graddol, 2006). However, a diagnosis of trainees’ performance in their last year of studies at Universidad del Comahue shows that their command of intercultural competences does not match their linguistic proficiency. This gives rise to questions regarding the effectiveness of the materials chosen and the role of the participants in the teaching-learning process. This article explores the possibilities of introducing intercultural competence training to an advanced English course for future translators and teachers. It looks into the concept of pragmatic ability, understood as “being able to go beyond the literal meaning of what is said or written, in order to interpret the intended meanings, assumptions, purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions that are being performed” (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010) and it includes a few sample activities devised to achieve the stated ability in the target group.


INTRODUCTION
The pedagogic model based on the native speaker-based notion of Canale and Swain's (1980) communicative competence is still highly influential in current curriculum design and classroom practice; and the four competences it entails (grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic) regard the learner from the point of view of the target language (TL), and see the aim of learning as becoming able to participate fully in the TL culture.Learners are expected to acquire the form of the TL accurately and to use it in the target community context to convey meanings appropriately, coherently and in a strategically effective way.Learning a language becomes an enculturation, learners are expected to acquire new cultural frames of reference and a new world view, and teachers are a kind of gatekeepers that equip learners with the tools they need for economic and social success in the target language setting (Alptekin, 2002).
However, the advent of English as the language of international communication underscores the need to redefine communicative competence.Statistics as old as 1996 have positioned English as the main vehicle for storing and transmitting information, enhanced by social and economic globalization and the pervading role of the mass media of communication.Alptekin (2002) considers communicative competence as utopian, unrealistic and constraining.He sees it as utopian as its consideration of the learner as a native speaker is as much an idealized abstraction as Chomsky's construct of linguistic competence (compared to the more realistic idea of performance).Communicative competence is also unrealistic to Alptekin as it fails to recognize the lingua franca status of English and thus its instrumental use for, among others, academic studies and commercial pursuits, which largely involve non-native speaker-non-native speaker interactions.He also believes it is constraining, circumscribing learner and teacher autonomy by limiting the activation of their own experience in the use of language as part of the teaching-learning process.Byram (1997) presents the concept of intercultural communicative competence in an apparent wish to move beyond communicative competence, and sustains it Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72 o knowledge of how to gather information.o knowledge of personal similarities, as well as understanding differences.o knowledge of alternative interpretations of behavior.In the light of these definitions, it can be argued that non-linguistic variables such as content, context, culture, behavior and strategies have become at least as important as linguistic variables.The change is evident in most of the latest approaches to TEFL, one of which is the popular (particularly in English in second language contexts), content and language integrated learning (CLIL), defined Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72.doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.

INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: CONTENT, CULTURE, AND PRAGMATICS
broadly as "educational settings where a language other than the students' mother tongue is used as medium of instruction" (Dalton Puffer, 2007, p. 14).Context and culture are also seen as strongly related to language teaching.Jolly and Bolitho (1998) consider the problem of "appropriate contextual realization", which goes beyond the linguistic exponents chosen or pedagogic realization of materials.They claim that the choice of content outside the cultural experience of students is useless; conversely, more familiar settings are essentially more motivating.Byram and Grundy (2003) claim that, on the one hand, the advances made in defining the content of language teaching, speech acts, 1 functions of language and needs analysis have led to a larger awareness of learners as "social actors" in specific relationships with the language they are learning.On the other hand, methodologies have helped to a more differentiated view of learners as human beings with feelings and identities which should be taken into account by those involved in the learning process.
As for the role of behavior and strategies as non-linguistic variables, Pragmatics, understood as all the linguistic research focusing on the relationships existing between the linguistic sign and the users of the language within a particular context, becomes central.It is also relevant in its link to culture, which is usually defined pragmatically in language teaching as the culture associated with the language being learned (Byram & Grundy, 2003).However, as stated above, as the distinction between native and non-native speakers of English is becoming both blurred and obsolete and English has become the means of international communication as much as the L1 of "native speakers", the definition of cultural identity and security poses new challenges.Thus, the aim of linguists should be to show how pragmatics and culture interface in language interaction and to highlight this in language teaching (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010).As a result, learning 1 Within the realm of pragmatic ability, the ways in which people carry out specific social functions in speaking such as apologizing, complaining, making requests, refusing things/invitations, complimenting, or thanking have been referred to as speech acts.Speech acts have a basic meaning as conceived by the speaker ("Do you have a watch?" = do you own a watch?) and an intended illocutionary meaning (for example, "Can you tell me what time it is?"), as well as the actual illocutionary force on the listener, also referred to as the uptake (that is, a request to know the time, and hence, a reply like "It's 10:30 AM right now.") (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010).Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72. doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.pragmatics nowadays should not be seen only as a cognitive process but also as a social phenomenon: "L2 speakers construct and negotiate their identities as they become socialized into the L2 community", and this is done "by pragmatically competent expert speakers, native or non-native" (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010, p. x).The development of intercultural competence is then essential as students' pragmatic ability (being able to go beyond the literal meaning of what is said or written, in order to interpret the intended meanings, assumptions, purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions that are being performed) is now "contextually constructed in interaction, often in context" (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010, p. x).

INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE AND TRAINEE TEACHERS AND TRANSLATORS
Learner centeredness continues to be a key factor in curricular design, and educators analyzing intercultural competence should not overlook the learners' profile when reviewing and proposing practices to improve their command of such competence.The students targeted for this analysis are the group doing the subject English V, in the last year of studies, at a teacher/translator education program in the South of Argentina.These students are mostly between 22 and 28 years of age, and their academic and educational background is clearly that of professionals-tobe.Interestingly, their linguistic and strategic capabilities are quite mixed, as there is no entry examination requirement at the language college, and students come from the most varied educational backgrounds, from students who have sat an international examination to students from rural areas where there are very few qualified teachers.
As for the subject demands, English V is the last language subject of the courses: it is believed that its successful completion implies that students have acquired the linguistic and non-linguistic competences necessary to perform their roles as language professionals.In English V, students continue to test their hypotheses about language and therefore develop their own interlanguage2 and they also keep enhancing their cognitive and affective capabilities and linguistic, Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72.doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.social and communicative competences which started in English I; and it also aims at further increasing students' accuracy and fluency in real-life oral and written communicative situations.What differentiates English V from the previous English subjects is the greater focus on the development of students' intercultural competence; so that they become capable, adaptable actors and mediators in globalized contexts by developing their sense of themselves and that of the foreign language speakers they interact with, as cultural beings with different identities, social values and behaviors.

THE PROBLEM OF PRAGMATIC DIVERGENCE
Even though Pragmatics, context and culture have gained momentum in the ELT/EFL/EIC (English for Intercultural Communication) fields in the last ten years, there is still a gap between what research in Pragmatics has found and how language is taught (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010).It has been claimed that learners' divergence from pragmatic norms are the result of learners' lack of background knowledge, misleading instruction coming from teachers or textbooks or learners' choice not to learn pragmatic rules (Ishihara & Cohen, 2010, pp. 77-89).Whatever the causes, it is not uncommon to see the target group students fail to signal interruptions and speakers' shifts in a way that is generally considered polite in English, for instance.Another typical example is the students' exertion to answer in full sentence, which is highly unnatural and might project the wrong idea about the speaker's intention or predisposition.The use of the right intonation patterns is usually regarded, especially by teenage students, as a sign of affection, and thus most of them would rather not use them than lose face in front of their classmates.

Sources of pragmatic divergence
Ishihara and Cohen (2010) suggest that knowing the sources of pragmatic divergence is the first step towards designing effective pragmatic instruction and have described five sub-categories to identify the potential cause or combination of causes of pragmatic divergence in learners.These are: 1. Negative transfer of pragmatic norms.This causes awkwardness, misunderstanding or a temporary communication breakdown.2. Limited L2 grammatical ability.Grammar can have an impact on learners' pragmatic competence; enhanced grammar knowledge will allow them to both comprehend and produce structures better.3. Overgeneralization of perceived L2 pragmatic norms.As with grammatical overgeneralization, L2 speakers develop a hypothesis about L2 and apply it to other situations where it is not appropriate.This may also stem from preconceived cultural stereotypes or linguistic misconceptions.4. Effect of instruction or instructional materials.Examples of misleading textbooks range from insistence in the use of complete sentences in oral speech for the sake of structural practice to cultural overgeneralizations. 5. Resistance to using perceived L2 pragmatic norms.In this case, the learner chooses to intentionally resist the use of the L2 pragmatic norms, influenced by social identity, attitudes, personal beliefs and principles.They might even refuse to learn certain forms or choosing not to use the forms learned.

Suggested course of action to overcome the problem
The negative transfer or pragmatic norms (1) is a very common practice in the target students' culture and age bracket.A frequent example of this can be observed in the classroom in the flouting of the cooperative principle by means of interruptions or opinion statements without any functional language to signal the speech act.Such behavior can be explained because these learners mostly interact with people of their age and status, with whom their degree of intimacy is high.In these cases, awareness-raising tasks are recommended to help students realize that what is appropriate in one culture may not be so in another.For instance, trainee teachers might do two role-plays involving problem-solving tasks, in their L1 (Spanish), one based on a situation common to their everyday reality (weekend plans, for example), and another involving a professional or academic context, such as what research topic to pursue.Translators-to-be could take down notes of the role-plays and then translate these into English.A follow-up discussion should encourage students to identify cultural differences across languages, focusing on both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects, and also across contexts (personal and professional).As for limited grammatical ability (2), grammar-focused activities are recommended, with a focus not only on the form but also on the meaning and the use of the focused expression (when and why they are used).For instance, as one of the units in the English V course is thematically focused on freedom and human rights, students have been asked to work, in a self-access manner, with reference and practice books' units dealing with comparison and contrast from a grammatical, lexical and discursive point of view.Then, they were required to use the linguistic items reviewed in their oral and written performance, namely in team oral presentations of short stories and films dealing with freedom and civil rights and in essays in response to prompts related to definitions of freedom.Subsequently, students' performance was assessed, and it was observed that their command of speech acts/functional language to introduce opposing ideas was significantly better, which resulted in clearer oral and written texts which had a more positive effect on the target audience as they not only conveyed the intended message but also made the processing of the readers and listeners easier.Along the same lines, students were given feedback on aspects of the effectiveness of their use of the language that still needed improvement, for both their oral and written performance, and they were also offered the possibility of redrafting their written assignments.
With regard to the overgeneralization of pragmatic norms (3), the link students make between degree of formality and length of sentences in both oral and written texts is a case in point.This might be solved by presenting a general pragmatic norm with a series of counter-examples.In the case of the target students, they are asked to read and analyze various text samples, be they essays or reviews, before tackling the writing assignment, and issues related to style are discussed: for instance, the length and complexity of sentences in Internet reviews written by viewers compared to more formal Guardian or New York Times reviews by well-known critics.As for speaking, learners' attention is drawn to the fact that even in the less "casual" instances of spoken discourse, such as T.V. interviews or commencement speeches, there is still a great deal of repetition (especially of silence fillers, such as you know, you see, kind of, among others), reformulation, diversion from the topic under discussion and recapitulation.
In the case of students resisting to use the L2 pragmatic norms (5), teachers must be careful not to exact the L2 forms from them, which can be understood as Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72.doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.
cultural imposition or exercise of power.It is the learner who must decide when and to what extent they will accommodate to the L2 set of norms.This is the most controversial recommendation for the target group of learners, since they will be cultural mediators, presenting to learners (in the case of teachers) and to an audience (in the case of translators) culturally diverging behaviors, ideas and attitudes and helping them understand and appreciate these.For instance, a student might refuse to discuss gay marriage due to strong religious beliefs, or might avert eye contact with the audience when speaking in public due to idiosyncratic or behavioral patterns.In these cases, the negotiation and explicitation of what is at stake if failing to adapt to certain sociocultural norms might be the answer, providing learners with the tools to make an informed decision when forging their professional development.
Suggestion (4), the effect of instructional material, deserves separate treatment.

DESIGNING MATERIALS THAT FOSTER INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Whereas sources of pragmatic divergence of types 1, 2, 3 and 5 abound, it is believed that the effect of instruction in general, and of didactic materials in particular, is the most noticeable source of divergence in the target group and, at the same time, the one that can be most easily foreseen and, thus, solved.It is a well-known fact that it is virtually impossible to find the perfect textbook to be blindly adopted, and thus including a clear focus on pragmatics in supplementary materials is an easy, effective solution in terms of time and effort invested.
In the case of the textbook used with the target group (Capel & Sharp, 2002), it can be affirmed that the information is not misleading or oversimplified; nevertheless, some of the activities included have been substituted or supplemented in order to better satisfy learners' needs, as discussed below.
For the speaking skill, it is essential that students are provided with as much context as possible, clearly establishing the participants' role and status and the situational context where the interaction takes place.For this purpose, the roleplays included in the material to supplement the book involve realistic situations students might face in their upcoming professional lives.For instance, one of the course book's weaknesses is that it takes for granted some underlying cultural Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72.doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.
values and assumptions, which should be made explicit, in order both to ensure that the content is not culturally removed from learners and to allow for negotiation of meaning to enhance their awareness and develop their intercultural competence.For such cases, two possible solutions have been implemented: 1. Making the necessary changes in content so that the activity deals with topics students are more familiar with; or: 2. Encouraging discussion about cultural assumptions and preconceptions that lead to a negotiation and explicitation of foreign cultural norms.Examples of the first type of solution include substituting activities with themes which are rather alien to students (making musical instruments and ways of appreciating music, the implications of scientific research today, and the description of an early 20th Century eccentric nobleman and a writer discussing her book on eccentricities) with activities about issues closer to students' tastes and background knowledge, such as composing film scores and the role of music in our society, the role of contemporary scientists and the comparison of these with their XIX Century counterparts, and some of the people ranked as the most eccentric of our times, according to an online publication and eccentric characters in films, respectively.
The sample course book tasks used in the research involve topics that are removed from students' reality-for example, instrument-making courses, though few of our students actually play a musical instrument.The supplementary materials, created and adapted by the researcher on the other hand, introduce topics which are more attractive-and familiar-to learners, such as the world of films, music scores, and other uses of music.
As for the second kind of solution, encouraging discussion of cultural assumptions and preconceptions, the supplementary materials include discussion of cultural norms that might be foreign to students in order to encourage their negotiation and explicitation.For instance, a listening text about growing mangoes in the course book is introduced by supplementary activities involving a discussion of the fruit grown in the region, research and discussion about the different fruits grown in the regions students come from (apples and pears in the upper valley of the Negro River, and berries in the south-west), as well as production and commercialization issues.Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72.doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.
Another example of the overt negotiation of cultural norms is an activity in the textbook (Capel & Sharp, 2002, p. 70) where students are asked to discuss country life versus city life considering job, transport and accommodation.This activity has been adapted in the supplementary worksheets for students to take one of the following roles: When these materials were put to use 3, the resulting interaction revealed how the clearer delineation of roles was an aid to the development of their pragmatic ability, as illustrated below in Table 1.
3 In this case, students agreed that role E was "a student from Buenos Aires, who is studying languages for travelling".As for writing skills, the fact that the course book is exam-geared restrains the assignment rubrics to a limited range of text-types and topics.The choice of subject matter for the writing tasks assigned to students is thus purposefully made taking into account issues that may be of interest to them and relevant to their local, regional or national realities.Students may be prompted to read articles from online British or American publications and asked to contribute their own articles discussing the focused topic (such as domestic violence, gay marriage, freedom of speech, the pursuit of happiness, sustainable agriculture) from their perspective as Argentinian undergraduates living in the High Valley of the Negro River, regarding their sociocultural, educational and political context.As with the speaking skill, both the role and status of the writer and the target reader are clearly defined, and students are encouraged to respect the rules of politeness and cooperation through an appropriate choice of lexis, grammar, and discursive and rhetorical devices.

CONCLUSION
In the twenty-first century reality of ELT/EFL/EIC, teachers (rather than textbook writers, or any other member of the academic community) possess the extremely valuable information about students' interests and needs which is essential to cater for individual, cultural and contextual differences.Teachers are also the ones who can manage to make of language-learning a process which is simultaneously highly individual (through the activation of schemata for the integration of new knowledge) and openly social (involving collaboration, cooperation, negotiation and teamwork).This article has tried to raise readers' awareness of the importance of developing students' intercultural competence with practical ideas to achieve that aim.The sample activities for course book supplementation included focus primarily on students' development of their pragmatic ability as a key strategy in effective intercultural communication, particularly for the target group, who will soon work as language professionals.However, it is not claimed by any means that the needs identified have been thoroughly addressed.One of the most important variables of the materials design process has not been included and might be an interesting topic for further research work: evaluation.Materials are designed for the purpose of classroom use, and the cycle is not complete until they have been tried and tested.
In any case, the importance of the role of the teacher in the development of students' intercultural competence should be highlighted.It is mainly the classroom teacher who can encourage learners to "co-construct" their pragmatic ability in context and through interaction, by detecting the challenges students may face in the development of their pragmatic competence, analyzing the course materials and making decisions about the subsequent design of supplementary activities.If all actors taking part in the teaching-learning process are prepared to face the challenge of a globalized, rapidly-changing world in which the new concept of English for Intercultural Communication implies going far beyond Liendo, P. J. (2012).A pragmatic approach to teaching intercultural competence to trainee teachers and translators.Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 5(2), 57-72.doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.linguistic knowledge, they will become responsive team players, prepared to work in a more collaborative, less prescriptive, and more sensitive human beings.
. doi:10.5294/laclil.2012.5.2.8 ISSN 2011-6721.should be the aim of language teaching.Though retaining Hymes' central idea, Byram's concept of intercultural communicative competence involves a number of elements.These include:  van Ek's (1986) six competences of communicative ability: o linguistic competence: the ability to produce and interpret meaningful utterances.o sociolinguistic competence: an awareness of the ways in which choice of language forms is determined by setting and relationship.o discourse competence: the ability to use appropriate strategies in the production and interpretation of texts.o strategic competence: the ability to get meaning across when communication is difficult.o socio-cultural competence: familiarity with the cultural context.o social competence: self-confidence, empathy, and the ability to relate socially. Argyle's (1983) eight dimensions of non-verbal communication: o facial expression.o gaze.o gestures and other bodily movements.o bodily posture.o bodily contact.o spatial behavior.o clothes and appearance.o non-verbal aspects of speech. Gudykunst's (1994) characteristics of a competent communicator:

Table 1 . Students responses to the substitution task.
But, well, during, duringthe rest of the year I come back to Paraguay and erm, I'm unemployed there, unfortunately, yeah.C [Oh] 4 I've never been there.I also agree with you in the sense that, er, the countryside is the best part of Argentina.I'm from here, from Argentina, I love my country, and I think that the best places of the world are in my country.And, well, but you need to live in the town because, uh, you have many possibilities to work, uh, to learn languages, for example, in my case, I'm learning English and I want to improve my English because I want to travel to another (other) 5 parts of the world and to (get to) know new people and to be with native English (native speakers of English).… A Well, maybe the city has some benefits, like the means of transport, [and] B [Yes] A … you can get jobs easily, but [well] C [I] A …living in the countryside has its benefits, too.C Yes, for example, in Milan I live in a farm but I work in the city because the salaries are… D Better?C Better, yes, and… you have more possibilities.… C In Italy, in the place where I live, you can get jobs very easily.However, here I've heard people that say that nowadays it is not very easy to get a job.So I can see the contrast. A