Intercultural Communicative Competence and English Language Teaching in Thailand - Essay Example

Intercultural communicative competence and English language teaching in Thailand

Introduction

Among the most important components that ensure the high rate of success during the communication of any language is the application of the necessary and appropriate linguistic items. The other factor that plays a critical role in ensuring this is the ability to incorporate the important socio linguistic elements. This therefore makes it possible to bring about the communicative competence. In order to achieve this, individuals must make use of one of the most integral factors that is the use of their competence in intercultural communication, which is one of the dimensions in the creation of sociocultural awareness. However, the application of this concept still remains a big challenge mainly because of the idea that many of the educators tend to have more knowledge of the language that is targeted as opposed to its important cultural aspects. This means that although the cultural references are mostly prevalent in the textbooks, a lot of discourses that are used by the teachers and in the media, they are generally specified as American or British while the real cultures of those who speak the English language from the other parts of the world that include Thailand are often left out or ignored. The other important consideration that mostly affects the teaching of the English language and its cultural meaning in a positive way includes the fact that it acts as a significant representation of the identity of the individual. In this regard, the implementation of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) during the course of English Language Teaching (ELT) makes it possible for the learners to offer their identities as they take part in meaningful discussions that focus on the different views about the language that is being taught. In this sense, the major aspects that will be discussed in this paper include a general description of the communicative competence based on the ICC model to offer a number of pedagogical applications that emphasize on the validation of the student identity during the classes that offer lessons on the English language with a particular focus but not exclusively in Thailand.

English language teaching in Thailand

Over the past few decades, the area of English Language Teaching started to take into account the diversity that is found in linguistics and culture. This is opposed to the initial aspect that was only based on the need to learn the English language. The inclusions of ELT are the sociocultural factors that acknowledge the way that language and culture are related to the identity of the individual. It is apparent that one of the languages that the Thai people are willing to learn in order to take advantage of the educational, economic and social reasons is English (Brasil 1998, p. 53). This is a reality that is shared by the other many non English speaking countries all over the world and especially the developing countries. The instruction using the English language in most of the grades that range from 5-11 in most of the schools in Thailand is slowly becoming compulsory from the elementary to the secondary schools as indicated by Bastos (2005, p. 176). Nonetheless, although the National Curriculum parameters have rightfully suggested that the Thai cultural plurality must be acknowledged and the diversities of the English language should be included within the English curriculum, there has been a significant failure to recognize the significance to develop the relationship that exists between interculturality and the language and culture towards the efforts to represent the identity of the individuals. This indicates that there is a vital role of culture in the communicative competence through the use of a model of intercultural competence that can be used during the teaching of English language.

Problems facing ELT in Thailand

There is a major significance of English as a language all over the world. It is a world language that has been brought about due to the advancements in technology, and the many reforms in education that have been thought to be new in the Thai constitution. As such, they constitute the primary developments that have led to the creation and establishment of English language teaching in Thailand especially within this decade. There are varied roles of teaching English that will be highlighted in this paper. In addition, they will also be linked to the many problems that surround English teaching in Thailand. The other major part that is associated with the teaching of English language in Thailand encompasses the reforms that are currently taking place in the country. It is because of this that there are numerous plans that have been set upo to help in the improvement of teaching and learning of English in Thailand both in the present and in the future. The function that learning of the English language plays in Thailand is as important as it is in many other of the developing countries. This is mainly as a result of the new developments that include the development of the internet that has brought with it major transitions that can be considered in relation to education, business, science and the technological progress. All of these demand the high proficiency in the English language (Kirk Patrick 2011, p. 140). A few years back, Thailand faced a major economic downturn, which has resulted in the embracement of regional and international cooperation by a number of companies in the region. For this reason, there is an increased frequency in associations, take over and mergers that make it necessary to acquire the English language. In essence, English is used as the key means of communication besides the conduction of negotiations and the execution of various transactions by the participants. In essence, during such associations, it is common to find out that one of the partners is a native speaker of the English language none of the partners could be a native speaker of the English language. Nonetheless, for a long time, Thailand has been one of the countries with one official language which is Thai since it was not colonized and thus, it has been able to main a stable national position for a long time. Considerations have been made to turn Thailand into a country that operates on two languages which are Thai and English. However, due to the two main reasons that create stability in Thailand, this has not been possible. Therefore, English can at most be the first foreign language that is studied in schools by the students. Consequently, the proficiency of the English language in Thailand is relatively low when compared to that of other countries that include those in Asia such as Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysia.

It is noticeable that in the current times, undoubtedly, English functions as a considerable element that helps in the communication between individuals both as a language that is applied in the wider communication and that which helps people to advance their level of social interaction. This is especially the case in Asia where the language has been taken up as a lingua franca by most of the government officials within the association of the Southern Asian Nations (ASEAN). This has made it possible to enhance towards the improvement of English language teaching. Majorly, this has been done towards the preparation of their members towards the merger that took place between the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. Integration of AEC would help in the fostering of an environment where professional qualifications, English fluency and human resources will be very important to the success of the citizens in each of the member states. Therefore, it has made the demand good approaches in ELT very essential.

The Teaching of speaking skills in English in Thailand has been proven by a number of people to be pretty ineffective. For this reason, a heated debate has been elicited especially over the internet. According to Kongklerd (2013, p. 114) there is an acceptable belief that the current pedagogical approaches that are used for English Teaching in Thailand do not provide the learners with the opportunity to becoming competent English users. The National Survey of the Ministry of Education conducted a test between 1997 and 1998. From the results, it is clear that the learners of English proficiency in Thai did not provide satisfactory feedback in the four major skills that include reading, writing, listening and speaking (Khamkhien 2010, p. 184-190).Another study was conducted by Prappal (2001, p. 102) on the general proficiency of the English language among the ASEAN students. She made use of the scores from the Chulalongkorn University Test of English Proficiency (CU-TEP), which can be equated to TOEFL. Her research found out that the level of English proficiency among the Thai students is relatively higher than that of the Laotians but is still lower when compared to that of the other students from the ASEAN countries,

Presently, it is ten years since this study was conducted, However, it is saddening that the level of English proficiency among Thai learners is still not satisfactory in relation to the placed standards. Khamkhien (2010, p. 188) states that this is particular low when compared to that of the other students in the Southeastern Asian countries. There was another study that was conducted more recently by an international language training company. They made use of the online data that represented the results of the test that were offered to reveal the English proficiency among the Thai students. Bruner, Shimray, & Sinwongsuwat (2014, p. 210) reveal that it is still the lowest when it is compared to that of the other English students in other Asian countries. Noom-ura (2013, p. 142) draws on the data that is derived from the TOEFL results conducted between 2011 and 2012 and states that most of the Thai students who have spent around 12 years learning the English language in both primary and secondary schools appear to have low proficiency levels of the language when compared to their ASEAN counterparts in other countries that include Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. One of the comments provided by Wiyirachitra (2012, p. 6) indicates that the English language teaching in Thailand has not been able to prepare the Thai learners of the English language to become ready for the world, which is fast changing. In particular, it is speculated that Thailand will be left behind in terms of the already existing competition within various dimensions that include education, business, technology and science. Currently, after the pass of a decade Khamkhien (2010, p. 97) found that this is a problem that still highly persists.

Most of these assessments are dismal and tend to show the nature of English Language Teaching in Thailand. In essence, they have led to the increment of doubts about the quality of the strategies that are applied during the teaching of English in Thailand. A lot of attempts have been made to improve on the instruction of the English language. One of these includes the efforts by the Thai government to institute a policy that works towards the replacement of the old and traditional methods that are applied in the translation of grammar as well as most of the audio lingual approaches. They have been linked with those that have been found within the approach of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). CLT was mainly introduced in Thai in the context of EFL during the 1980s (Kustati 2013, 134). Due to the changes in legislation that led to the National Education Act in 1999 and the educational curriculum in 2002, there has been a more communicative approach that is mainly centred on the learners. It has been implemented and thus resulted in a great paradigm shift from the initial approaches that were mainly based on the model of teacher to student (Darasawang 2007, p. 222).

Following the facts that have been mentioned in this paper, the CLT continuously appears not to be able to equip the Thai learners with the required and adequate competence towards interaction. In addition, the application of this strategy in the country should be subject to review. Islam and Bari (2012, p. 324) claim that although this approach is popular it is important to conduct thorough investigations on the CLT approach in order to help in the discovery of whether there is a key mismatch between the theory and the practice. As a matter of fact Aliakbari and Jamalvani (2010, p. 19) also suggested that the failure of CLT to achieve any level of success in practice may be the reason why another approach has been introduced in the form of task-based-language Teaching (TBLT). It is in the same sense that the education system in Thai aims at improving the application of CLT, the ELT in Thai has made a proposition on the need to make use of a sociological approach that makes it possible to study the conversations on a daily basis in conjunction with the use of other CLT aspects. This is the Conversation Analysis (CA) approach. It is thought that with this combination, both the learners and the teachers will be in a position to achieve greater competency through the production of better and competent English speakers in the country. In particular, it is argued that the employment of CA can be applied in both the conversational abilities of the learners while at the same time, it serves as a diagnostic tool that can be used to identify the various challenges that are encountered by the students and the teachers during their interaction in the EFL classroom in Thai (Martin 2000, p. 90).

Communicative competence and culture

The linguistics field is relatively new in a number of areas that include Thailand. As such, several efforts have been made to understand what effective communication is in relation to a particular language. During the earlier years of generative linguistics, a lot of theory was attached to the concept of competence by describing it as the knowledge of the items that are included in a language such as the grammar, morphology and phonology among other components. Basically, it refers to what is known by the individual about the native speaker who is regarded as one of the members of the monolingual community since he or she is the ideal speaker or hearer of the language as explained by Chomsky (1965, p. 211). Reactions to this idea were made by Hymes who drew from the anthropology to provide a refined concept of competence. He argued that social factors are among the factors that play a key role in communication. According to him, the ability to know how to use language shows the understanding of its appropriate use within the different social contexts. Currently, any ideas on communicative competence lead to the vital use of language within the different social contexts. This is also referred to as pragmatics, which is used as an overarching term which includes competence within the sociolinguistic form as well as the other related elements. They include the ability of individuals to be sensitive to the different dialects or varieties, naturalness, in register, the use of figurative languages and cultural references. According to Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000, p. 19) these pragmatics go beyond the references to linguistics and include the intentions of the people, their assumptions, goals and beliefs that are not appropriate in the sociocultural way. Thus, ELT practitioners are warned that “if the goal of language instruction is communicative competence, language instruction must be integrated with cultural and cross-cultural instruction” (Celce-Murcia 2007, p. 51). Therefore competence involves the ability of a language to be culturally appropriate as well as sensitive to the underlying culture of the people in order for it to enable effective communication.

What is intercultural communicative competence (ICC)

All over the world, Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) has been approved by most of the exemplary educational institutions. This is mainly because English is used as a mode of communication by many people with other people who are from totally different cultural backgrounds (UNESCO 2009, p. 8). This is for it to be included in language teaching and especially in ELT. In particular, it has been recommended that the integration of integration of the cultural dimensions within language teaching should be done with the main purpose of interculturality. This helps in enabling the learners of the language to interact more with the speakers of the other languages on equal levels in addition to making them aware of their own identities and the identity of the interlocutors (Byram, Gribkova, & Starkey, 2002, p. 7). In essence, the ability by language learners to understand and develop awareness towards various cultures they are able to relay the messages in an effective way. In addition, it also makes it possible for them to develop the necessary human relationships with the other people that speak a different language and come from other diverse culture. This means that any speaker who makes use of the English language and wishes to communicate with other people from diverse cultural backgrounds must develop intercultural awareness in order for them to attain an effective level of communication. The spread of the cultural concepts in the English classrooms is important since all over the world, the spread of the English language means that the non native speakers of English apply the language during their communication with other non native speakers of English. In Thailand, it is common for those who use the Thai official language to use English while communicating with non native speakers of English like the Chinese speakers. In this case, they both use the English language as a lingua franca.

Reflections on the integration of ICC in ELT

The discussion of culture and integration of ICC in English teaching needs to be incorporated with language relativism. As stated by Nieto (2010, p. 134) the interpretation of different cultures can be done depending on various aspects. These include additional values and traditions. For instance, the ELT in Thai should take into account the teaching of the dominant cultures that are related to the English language. They include the North Americans from the United States and Canada as well as the British in order to establish the dominance of these cultures within the classroom. This ensures that those that are less dominant are validated or explored. He provides the reason for this as the address culture as “dynamic; multifaceted; embedded in context; influenced by social, economic, and political factors; created and socially constructed; learned; and dialectical” (Nieto, 2010, p. 137).

Identity in language learning

Identity acts as one of the important factors during the development and learning of a new language (Gass 1998, p. 109). It is for this reason that the identity of the learners cannot be ignored in the class (Cummins 2001, p. 60). In this relation, Norton describes identity as the way that an individual is able to understand the relationship within which they are in the world. In addition, it relates to the way that this relationship is developed in the course of time and space and the way that this relationship creates an understanding in relation to the future in the mind of the person. One of the important components in the language classrooms is the ability to negotiate the various identities. This creates an environment where the learners are able to air their values, issues and beliefs from their cultural viewpoint. The main key agency is the need to identify the expression of value within the language classroom. It is important for the teachers to encourage the students on the need to develop the ability to question the varied meanings from the dominant discourse that already exists in a critical manner (Norton 2013, p. 45). They are those that are mainly presented in the textbooks, the media and the discourse associated with the teacher or the school. It is vital that the Thai learners of the English language should be made of the meanings that are present in the texts as well as other pedagogical materials. This helps to learn how the cultural concepts are obtained through images and words.

Exploring ICC and identity in ELT

One of the perfect places to explore ICC is within the English language learning classrooms in Thailand. This is especially because of the fact that the Thai English speakers are likely to use the language to communicate with others who come from English speaking and non English speaking countries. Thus, it is important for them to be made aware of the cultural differences that tend to occur in the communication styles as well as the diverse ideologies, beliefs and values. Nieto (2010, p. 123) notes that there is a tight link between language and culture. Thus, this makes cultural awareness an important dimension of English language teaching (Beacco 2011, p. 34). However, it is highly discouraged to engage the learners in intercultural dialogue in the language classrooms mainly because of the high chances of lack of preparation by the teachers (Celce-Murcia 2007, p. 56). This is not a surprising element when the idea that most of the courses that deal with the preparation of the language teacher are not equipped with sufficient exploration that relates to the cultural dimensions of language learning. Among the ways through which intercultural dialogues can be promoted is by watching projects and carrying them out in a way that they make it possible to invite the learners to think about their different beliefs, values and most of the other issues that are concerned with the diverse contexts of linguistics and culture. For instance, some of these include videos which have been used over time to help the learners cross the geographical barriers as they get into contact with people from different cultures and explore the cultural identities of different people.

Conclusion

The most appropriate method that is currently preferred in the teaching of English speaking in Thailand is the CLT. However, this approach has not been found to be sufficiently efficient in ensuring that there is a high level of competency among the learners. Thus, it is highly argued that the approach can be increased in efficacy through the integration with other approaches that include CA. In essence, CA can serve as an essential tool for instruction to raise the awareness of the learners in a genuine kind of interactions and play the role of enhancing the nature of learning that is based on interactions. Numerous studies have been done in this relation. They have revealed that a pedagogical approach that is oriented on CA has exhibited a higher level of success in both its ability to equip the learners with an improved rate of interactive competence but also in its ability to identify and address the numerous problems that are presented in the area of teaching English within the classroom. The ASEAN Economic Community merger and everything that was at stake are the basic elements that fuelled the need to have an effective approach towards the teaching of English to the Thai learners. In essence, it became critical that the many weaknesses of CLT as the major and dominant pedagogical approach should be complemented. Therefore, it is possible that CA can be the right option to compliment CLT in the effort for it to provide the learners of English with a higher level of competence in communication to the extent that it allows them to be more effective in their operations as provided by the high stakes of the AEC community.