CEFcult
An innovative web environment for online oral assessment of
intercultural professional contexts
Lut Baten & Lutgart Dusar, Instituut voor Levende Talen, K.U.Leuven, Belgium
Jan Van Maele, Groep T – Internationale Hogeschool Leuven, Belgium
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
What cies do: telepresence
CISCO
Learn. Share. Team up.
appreciation
status
Profile
What students do: Web 2.0 samples
• Moodle: ‘Mahara’ portfolio & EuroPASS• WebCEF: peer, self and expert assessment of online oral
performance• LinkedIn: professional networking• Flashmeeting: online meetings and recording• Wiki: project work documentation • Google communities: integrated document sharing• Blackboard groups: for file exchange within a class
environment• Facebook• YouTube
• Flashmeeting
Challenges
• How to bridge self assessment and peer assessment from a learning environment to a working environment?
– How to gain insight in intercultural patterns?– How to gain expert assessment? – How to promote awareness raising through a digital environment? – How to use assessments for life long learning (portfolio) ?
• How to elicit observable, intercultural behaviour in professional, online language tasks?
• How to design operational and userfriendly assessment scales in a social community for intercultural communicative competence: – Not for the expert end user but for the novice learner?
2-12-2010 www.cefcult.eu
CEFcult as an itinerary
as a tool
CEFcult as an itinerary
as a tool
communicating, learning, and evaluating
in professional context
in intercultural context
what preceeded: WebCEF
Learning by assessment
Assessing in team, in a community
Learning how to assess with the CEFR
WebCEF project (2006 – 2009)
• WebCEF established a social learning community for self, peer and expert assessment in which both productive and interactive performance in a foreign language was video recorded and online displayed to be assessed by means of CEFR
• http://www.webcef.eu/
CEFcult project (2009 – 2011)
• Follow-up of WebCEF project
• CEFcult aims to promote intercultural professional communication with foreign language users bymeans of a Web 2.0 assessment tool
• CEFcult provides the integration of linguistic and intercultural aspects of professional communication in assignments and assessment scales
• Duration: November 2009 until October 2011
• Funding body: European Commission, LifelongLearning Programme under KA2 languages
• http://www.cefcult.eu
Intercultural Communicative Competence
• “Fluent fool” (Bennett, 1993)
• Grammar and vocabulary are not sufficient
• Speakers of a foreign language need to understand the basic beliefs and values of their interlocutors
• How to find ‘common ground’ and speak the same ‘language’, banking on diversity and inclusion
Target users
employees
Language
teachers
those about to (re-)
enter the workplace
in-company trainers
Portfolio
Users -profile
Group
Video sample
ScenarioScenario Database
Social media
Export to portfolio
Self-assess
Peer-assess
Expertassess
Searchscenario
Add to profile
Create sample
Follow the scenario
Feedback evaluation
Add a scenario
Export to Europass
task evaluation
Select Assessment Schema
Is this an Observation Task?
Description scenario
Name Scenario
Instructions for Assessor
Instructions for Assessor
Supportive documents for scenario Name document
Task
Name task
BrowseName supportive document
Description task
Name supportive media Browse
Customize Assessment SchemaSelect Assessment Schema
Is this an Observation Task?
scenario development
2-12-2010 www.cefcult.eu
CEFcult: user profile
Leuven pilot
• Job interview scenario
• 2 tasks:
– Observation of a pre-recorded dialogue
– Guided simulation of monologue interviewee with pre-recorded questions
• Bridging CEFR scale and INCA scale
• Target language: English
2. CEFCULT, THE VISION
CEFcult as an itinerary
as a tool
communicating, learning, and assessment
in professional contexts
in intercultural context
Output
• a modular, customizable web-environment that allows for self-, peer-, and expert- assessment, integrating CEF-scales with other rating scales for language and intercultural competence
• a set of authentic communication tasks (scenarios) through which learners can assess their speaking skills for intercultural professional purposes in different European languages
• training materials for self-, peer- and expert assessment in education and enterprises
• research-supported guidelines for foreign language teaching and educational policy based on observed international inter-rater differences
• viable and tested model(s) for collaborative assessment among higher education institutes, enterprises, and various partnership brokers
3. CEFCULT, THE WEB-BASED ENVIRONMENT
The web-based environment
• Choice of scenarios & tasks
• Recording of samples (using VideoLab or uploading of samples)
• Assessment of samples (self-, peer- or expert assessment)
• Assessment environment will be enhanced by available web 2.0 applications, advancing a number of user-driven functionalities (communities of practice; e-portfolio).
CEFR-scale
Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)
– Linguistic competence (oral production and interaction): range, accuracy, fluency, coherence, interaction.
– Sociolinguistic competence
intercultural competence vs linguistic fluency
intercultural communicative competence
Respect for Otherness (Full)“Is able to cope tactfully with the ethical
problems raised by personally
unacceptable features of otherness”
“Withholds judgment; asks for clarification
before classifying the question as unlawful
or inappropriate”
European framework of key competencies for life long learning
1. Communication in native language
2. Communication in foreign languages
3. Basic competencies science and technology
4. Digital competence
5. Learning how to learn
6. Social and civil competences
7. Developent of initiative and entrepreneurship
8. Cultural awareness and cultural expression
INCA-scale
Intercultural Competence Assessment (INCA)
– Openness: respect for otherness, tolerance of ambiguity.
– Knowledge: knowledge discovery, empathy.
– Adaptability: behavioural flexibility, communicative awareness.
Thank you!
Lut Baten
Jan Van Maele
Lutgart Dusar
Consortium• K.U.Leuven (Belgium) Coordinator• Open Universiteit Nederland (The Netherlands)• Technische Universität Dresden (Germany)• Group T - Internationale Hogeschool Leuven (Belgium)• Université de Savoie (France)• Università di Bologna (Italy)• Uniwersytet Łódzki (Poland)• Helsingin Yliopisto (Finland)• Euneos Oy (Finland)• Jyväskylän Yliopisto (Finland)• The Open University (UK) • Fontys Hogescholen (The Netherlands)
Work packages
• WP1 Project Management
• WP2 Quality and Evaluation
• WP3 Dissemination
• WP4 Preparation of web-based language assessment environment
• WP5 Development of web-based language assessment environment
• WP6 Pilots with language learners
• WP7 Exploitation