“I wouldn't want to impose!” Intercultural mediation in French immersion

Abstract

This article examines four French immersion (FI) teachers’ perspectives on the relationship between language and culture and on their roles as intercultural mediators in New Brunswick (NB), Canada's only officially bilingual province. Data were drawn from semi‐structured interviews with the teachers. Couched in the broader framework of Canada's multicultural policy, the cultural outcomes for NB's FI program underscore the importance of learning French in a multicultural and multilingual society. Understanding the relationship between language and culture is part of this; however, the department explicitly states that it does not intend for immersion students to “adopt” Francophone culture. This analysis shows that these teachers employ a variety of language ideologies, all of which culminate in a “language‐as‐code” approach, devoid of culture and removed from its social contexts of use. They do not consider deep cultural discussions to have a place in their classrooms, although each teacher demonstrates some level of intercultural awareness regarding the language/culture dialectic in their private lives. The works by Kohler (), Di Stefano (), and Kearney () are employed to consider possible ways forward for teacher training on intercultural mediation in immersion classrooms and on curriculum development to target students’ intercultural competence.

Intercultural communication in second-language (L2) learning via social media within the Inuit context: a scoping literature review

“…Jin (2015) cautions that language programs must keep sight of the vital function of the teacher as a facilitator, one who must prepare well-structured lessons and employ the right tools when utilizing social media for language learning purposes. Keating et al (2018) also argue for the need to ensure that teachers are empowered with clear frameworks to encompass culture and language. Introducing such a program in Nunavik would require curriculum development on incorporating the aspect of ICC through social media to best support the educators, particularly those with lower comfort levels with using technology in the classroom.…”

Intercultural Mediation in Language Learning

“…This idea that mediators re-language others' meanings is not restricted to resolving problems of meaning but has also been taken up in understanding the work of translators and interpreters, who are seen as intermediaries who allow meanings created in one language to be communicated to recipients in another (Katan, 1999(Katan, , 2004Liddicoat, 2016;Pöchhacker, 2008). This understanding of the mediator as an intermediary positioned between participants in communication is also relevant to the classroom, where teachers can be seen as mediating between the linguistic and cultural worlds of their learners and the societies about which they are learning (Kearney, 2015;Keating Marshall & Bokhorst-Heng, 2018). This idea of the teacher as mediator involves the understanding that the teacher actively develops connections between languages and cultures so that learning can occur (Kohler, 2010(Kohler, , 2015.…”

Navigating Cultural Divides: The Learning, Practices, and Beliefs of Novice Indonesian Teachers of English

“…Research on L2 teacher beliefs has shown that beliefs can vary among individuals in the same setting (Peiser & Jones, 2014) and individual teachers' beliefs can also change over time (Kohler, 2015). Many L2 teachers prioritize linguistic objectives over cultural objectives (Byram & Risager, 1999, Stapleton, 2004 and may even question the inclusion of cultural objectives (Duff & Uchida, 1997;Keating-Marshall & Bokhorst, 2018;Luk, 2012). Nevertheless, the majority of L2 teachers are favorably disposed toward teaching about culture (Byram & Risager, 1999;Sercu et al, 2005), many find it interesting to teach about culture (Byrd et al, 2011), and many believe that teaching about culture can act as a motivating factor for students (Castro, Sercu & Mendéz García, 2004;Luk, 2012).…”