Final Performance Report 1996-2000
Language in Cultural Context

The third year of the grant was a very active and successful one for the Language in a Cultural Context project. The project team was led by Professor R. Michael Paige and included three research assistants, Joan DeJaeghere, Melody Jacobs-Cassuto, and Yelena Yershova. The team's accomplishments toward each program objective during the reporting period are outlined below.

Completion of the research program
The team completed its quantitative and qualitative study of intercultural development among 353 high school and college students enrolled in language classes. A newly released instrument, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), was administered to the students in May 1998, and January 1999. The data were then subjected to a psychometric analysis in order to ascertain the validity and reliability of the IDI. A subset of the respondents representing a wide range of IDI profiles were then interviewed in order to 1) gain further insights into the concept of intercultural development, and 2) triangulate the qualitative data with the quantitative findings. The results suggest that the IDI is a satisfactory measure of intercultural development as conceptualized by Dr. Milton Bennett.

Dissemination of the Research Findings
The research findings were presented at the International Academy for Intercultural Research at its biannual congress in Kent, Ohio on May 30, 1999. During the winter and spring of 1999, presentations were also made to the Twin Cities chapter of the American Society for Training and Development, CARLA colloquium series, and the College of Education's monthly international education seminar. The team members co-authored a journal article, "Assessing intercultural sensitivity: A psychometric analysis of the Hammer and Bennett Intercultural Development Inventory," which is currently being reviewed by the International Journal of Intercultural Relations and will likely be part of a special issue devoted to articles on the IDI to be guest edited by Professor Paige.

Development of a Culture Teaching Materials for Language Instructors
Throughout the third year of the grant (1999-2000), project members met biweekly with a group of experienced language instructors from the Spanish and Portuguese language department to discuss the challenges surrounding culture teaching and ways to effectively integrate culture into the curriculum. The teachers ongoing experience in the classroom was the focal point of the discussions. In turn, they took ideas generated during our meetings back into the classroom. This project culminated in the creation of a culture teaching manual that was implemented for use in fall 1999 as part of the training sessions for teaching assistants at the University of Minnesota. The development of this material and subsequent use and refinement of the material provided the foundation for the development of a manual for language teachers to support them in providing their students with language and culture learning strategies, a key initiative within CARLA's third LRC grant cycle.

National Dissemination of Project Resources
In addition to the workshops for language teaching assistants outlined above, a summer institute on the topic of culture and language learning entitled "Culture as the Core: Integrating Culture in Second Language Classrooms" was held during the third year of the grant (June 21-25, 1999) and again during the grant's extension year (July 24-29, 2000), serving a total of 46 K-16 language teachers from around the country. Both institutes were well received and provide a strong foundation for the fifth annual summer institute scheduled for July 9-13, 2001.

In addition, two highly popular CARLA working papers focused on culture were published during the reporting period as a result of this work of this project including, "Culture as the core: Interdisciplinary perspectives on culture teaching and learning in the second language curriculum," and "Culture as the core: Integrating culture into the language classroom."

Return to the Final Performance Report 1996-2000