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原 著

Rationale for a Task-based Approach to

Intercultural Communicative Competence in
Japanese Higher Education

David L. BROOKS

Abstract: An important challenge for language educators in Japan is the difficulty of getting
students to actually produce the language they are learning for purposes of authentic
communication. This paper advocates an approach that is rigorous, long-term, cross-cultural,
and, most definitely, qualitative in nature. A new intercultural framework of teaching
methodologies and student learning for constructing instructional environments conducive to
developing intercultural communicative competence（ICC）is the focus of a task-based
learning approach through collaboration.

Key Words: foreign language education, intercultural communicative competence,

Key Words: metacognitive approach, task-based learning, cross-cultural

Introduction
A critical challenge for foreign language educators is the problem of getting
students to actually produce language ‒ that is, for students to be able and willing to
use the language they have learned for purposes of authentic international
communication, self-expression, and personal development. However, the act of
producing authentic language in real contexts involves much more than a high level of
acquisition of grammatical knowledge and lexical meanings. Authentic and pragmatic
communicative ability in a foreign language involves the interplay of multiple
competence factors: cognitive, interpersonal, social, and cultural（Brown, 1996; Tarone,
1981）. Moreover, Legutke and Thomas（1991, p. 265）expanded Canale s（1983, p.5）
explanation of communicative competence by adding a fifth component, intercultural
competence, to the previously accepted list of linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and

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strategic or communicative competencies. Corbett（2003）made an elegant argument

for the restructuring of emphasis in foreign language teaching to bring cross-cultural
knowledge and intercultural communicative competence（ICC）to the center stage of
the instructional process in foreign language（FL）education.
Achieving this goal appears to be even more difficult when the students are from
a country where the cultural norms for speaking behaviors are quite different ‒ even
radically so ‒ from the native-speaker teacher s own target language culture（Nozaki,
1993; Yamada, 1997）. However, the interaction caused by those very differences may
also serve as a prime catalyst for the real and practical exploration of what intercultural
competency actually means（Brooks, 1999）. This paper addresses an essential but often
ignored aspect of the FL educational environment: the development of intercultural
communicative competence in foreign language classrooms at universities in Japan.
The intercultural gaps that occur in many language classrooms ‒ when the
teacher comes from an English-speaking or European nation to teach in Japan or in
other Asian countries ‒ may be vexing and sometimes challenging to overcome
（Gottlieb, 2007）. However, this instructional environment also provides an important
avenue for exploring the actual ramifications of intercultural communication because of
the divergence between what students expect and what the instructor demands. These
areas of potential conflict come from differences in cognitive and communicative styles
（Brooks, et al, 2000）
, differences in classroom management, and the variances in
expectations for what and how language skills, behaviors, attitudes, and habits are
acquired as opposed to studied. The potential differences may also likely involve new
learning strategies, how students and the teacher actualize new instructional goals,
processes and tasks, and ultimately in the resolution of the conflict and pressures that
can emerge（Cummins, 1994）from the many potential differences just listed.
According to Sola and Wilkinson （2007）, trying to develop intercultural
competence in the classroom can be likened to teaching people to swim lying on the
floor, and the problem is not only to do with the need to demonstrate such competence
in real life. The challenge in attempting to develop intercultural competence also lies in
achieving the necessary synergetic interplay of multiple subcomponents of cognitive,
affective and conative [i.e. purpose, will to do, volition, active effort] competencies
（Bolten, 2007）
. Required language courses at Japanese universities may, however,
provide an important way by which intercultural competency can be taught to the
larger student population. Therefore, taking a cue from the world of competitive
business training, courses with this aim need to be experiential, conceptual, practical,

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prospective and imaginative （Schneider and Barsoux, 2003, p. 258）

.
The paper refers to and draws on observations from the author s own work as a
language educator. It includes his own opinions and conclusions formed from thirty
years experiences of teaching in Japan, but also references the work of other teachers
and researchers, which span the many disparate elements and apparent contradictions
inherent in the many conceptions of intercultural communicative competence（Rathje,
2007）
. It is hoped that the exploration of this complicated issue may provide the
underpinning of a suitable framework to be explicated in a subsequent paper for
bringing together an ICC approach developed for the Japanese university context. By
expanding teacher and learner recognition of the nature of intercultural barriers to
classroom learning of a foreign language（Komisarof, et al, 2000）and by gaining a
deeper understanding of the problem s pertinent issues, a new collaborative framework
for teaching and learning methodologies using this cross-cultural knowledge and
employing intercultural competency for teachers and students alike can become a
reality （Lustig and Koester, 2006）. Engaging educators in constructing such
interculturally-aware instructional environments in Japan and across Asia with the
fruits of this realization will result in school and university programs that are more
conducive to the development of the cross-cultural competencies needed by all
stakeholders in the educational process.
By focusing on task-based EFL learning through intercultural collaboration as a
vehicle for achieving this goal, the author hopes to forge a new plow that can cross
divided, and sometimes scorched, territories. The aim is to cultivate a more responsive
pedagogical system for language education, leading Japanese and other Asian students
to become more competent intercultural communicators, so that they can gain greater
confidence as future leaders in a world that is vastly changed from the days of the Cold
War race of a few superpowers. The Pacific-Asian Region, where Japan has, heretofore,
taken one of the lead roles, has quickly come into its own as a dominant force in the
world s global economy and international political arena. Therefore, Asian countries
must increasingly learn more effectively and competently how to deal with balancing
the adoption of languages, cultures, educational values and processes from abroad,
particularly from the Western nations, with the preservation of their own values,
cultures and languages. It could help to serve as a ground-level bridge of understanding
between people in neighboring Asian countries.
The monumental realization of this purpose can only be scratched at the
surface in a paper of this length, so this exploratory investigation focuses broadly on

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the relevant educational tenets related to the nature of intercultural learning in general,
and has as its aim eliciting instructional practices for establishing an intercultural
communicative competence approach through task-based collaborative learning. Although
the actual instructional tasks will not be detailed here, the ICC approach, as this author
now conceives it, would have the following steps necessary for its implementation:
１．Selling the intercultural collaborative task-based approach to reluctant
speakers is the essential initial step.
２．Guidelines for selecting, organizing, and managing authentic tasks and
meaningful performances for large classroom groups should be introduced.
３．Preparing students for success in the performances involves effectively
training students unaccustomed to an intercultural task-based approach
to gain the strategies, skills and confidence needed, both meta-
cognitively and through actual instructional tasks.
４．Setting standards, selecting new methods for evaluation, and then
incorporating self, peer and teacher assessment into the performance
tasks are important parts of the process.
５．Appropriate types of performance tasks and guidelines for maximizing
student achievement and teacher efficacy need to be discussed. These
include model conversations, role-plays, simulations, poster talks,
storytelling, action research presentations, pair discussions, group
debate, making video programs, speeches, dramatizations,（Shimaoka &
Yashiro, 1990；Donnery, 2009） and Internet-based collaborations
（Brooks, 2009）
.
６．Technology and classroom infrastructure, which enhance the instructional
environment in achieving a task-based collaborative approach, can later
be showcased.
（Brooks, 1999, 2006）
The target audience is comprised of educational policy-makers, school administrators,
institutional leaders, and practicing foreign language teachers, whose students in
secondary schools and in university are not yet accustomed to being asked to become
actively engaged in the process of learning by doing. It would also be valuable for
language teachers who want to learn more about how intercultural knowledge can be
transformed into intercultural competence, and explore how the cognitive and
metacognitive diminensions of intercultural learning can take form in, and also can be
shaped by, the educational process.

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Barriers to Communication in the Monolingual EFL Classroom

Learning a truly foreign language confronts students in a monolinguistic society
with what is often a formidable challenge in transcending the communication norms they
are used to in everyday life. Japan, perhaps more so than many other Asian countries,
has many of the qualities that could be termed monolinguistic （Coulmas, et al, 2002）.
The culture of the typical classroom at secondary and tertiary levels in Japan does not
readily facilitate the acquisition of communicative competence in the target language
（Mulvey, 1999; Kobayashi, 1998; Ishida, 1993）. Moreover, certain forms of discourse,
which may be paramount to communication efficacy in English, have less and often
even few avenues for development in the native language. In particular, Japanese
culture, as evidenced by its ambiguous linguistic exponents and complex social
conventions for avoiding conflict, does not require the same degree of argumentative
discourse in everyday speech that is clearly integral ‒ even necessary ‒ for effective
communication among speakers of other languages（Brooks, 2000）.
The term monolinguistic, as used in this context, is meant to convey the idea of
language usage and language policy practices that go beyond simple monolingualism.
Japan is a society that absorbs enormous amounts of foreign vocabulary, as well as
foreign products and ideas, although extremely few foreign people are admitted as
immigrants. The adopted words and concepts borrowed from other languages are
ultimately japanized, i.e. the Japanese equivalent of anglicizing the words or concepts.
One effect of this japanization of borrowed language, which might strike the casual
outside observer as somewhat natural and not unlike what many cultures do, is to
appear to de-value cultural diversity and deny the recognition and, in effect, the respect
for otherness that may be derived from true and competent second language
acquisition. Japan s nearly 300 years of prolonged ‒ not quite complete ‒ isolation from
the rest of the world during the Edo Period had profound effects still evident today. It
has often been theorized that the characterization of the generally complicated nature
of the Japanese people s own self-perception and their enigmatic ethnic and social
identity may have important affects on their attitude, and consequently their ability, for
learning a foreign language（Liddicoat, 2007; Sullivan & Schatz, 2009）
. Of course, these
observations are not meant to imply that Japan has not changed and is not changing. The
makeup of its linguistic landscape continues to evolve（Coulmas, et al, 2002）. In fact,
there are many more Japanese who are fluent, even bilingual, speakers of other
languages than is superficially evident. Nevertheless, it is often considered a rare（珍し

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い）ability reserved for a few educated elite or some celebrities held in awe.
Other explanations of the effects of Japanese society s development on its
educational system are discussed in Brooks（2000）and McVeigh（2002）, among others.
While ascertaining the root causes may be an interesting historical pursuit, the fact
remains there are several observed characteristics that account for the monolinguistic
communication environment found in many foreign language classrooms in Japan:
１）Students expect to only attend a teacher-directed content lecture ‒
little interaction is expected and even sleeping is tolerated as acceptable
quiet behavior.
２）A low level of teacher-student and student-student interaction is the
norm.
３）Classroom learning is viewed as the passive acceptance of knowledge
where students depend on the teacher as the main dispenser of
information.
４）Learning performance is considered to be part of the final examination
only. Instead of the formative sum of learning assessments through
speaking performances, quizzes, written assignments, homework, and
oral interaction during the series of lessons, which would thereby
demonstrate more than just rote memorization, i.e. the acquisition of
new language patterns, cross-cultural behaviors, or communicative
strategies, there is often only one single written final exam.
５）Talking is less the norm than listening in the Japanese classroom.
６）The concept of individual identity and exchange of information about
one s self are very different from the culture of the main target foreign
language, which is International English.
７）Allegiance to one s peers means not saying or doing anything to
distinguish one s self or to appear self-serving.
８）Harmony and congruence with the opinions and will of the group take
precedence over individual opinion or wishes; therefore, variance in
opinion and argument are submerged.
９）Students tend to be reluctant to openly question the teacher s authority
or even ask questions about the content, the process or standards of
evaluation unless they feel some injustice has been committed by the
teacher.
10）For many, earning the credits needed for progressing to the next year s

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academic standing is more important than the grade he or she receives

or the actual mastery of the content.
（abridged from McVeigh, 2002; additions by author）
Though anthropologists and cognitive linguistics researchers have collected data
to support many of these observations（Yoneyama, 1999; Yum, 2000; McDaniel, 2000）,
this list of characteristics above is also partly derived from the author s own experience
as a teacher and member of Japanese educational institutions. Leaving the
sociolinguistic and discursive analysis of Japanese language to other researchers, this
paper focuses on how undergraduate students could be provided with a language
learning environment where the instructional framework can give contextual and
metacognitive classroom training to aid in their acquisition of second language
communication strategies and build intercultural communicative competence.

Rationale for an Approach to Intercultural Communicative Competence

In this age of increasingly greater interdependence between nations, the effects of
the globalization on the world economic, informational, and media infrastructures have
not been fully comprehended. There is no doubt that the modern transformation of
human cultures, their interactions and conflicts, and the effects of the widespread
adoption of English as the lingua franca tool for global communication have certainly
come under scrutiny. The very survival of many societies and their own language
cultures is under a dark cloud of doubt（Crystal, 2003; Pennycook, 2007）
. With the
cross-border political ramifications of almost every decision made or by the policies
introduced by even a single nation, especially those as influential as the major world
economic powers, modern language teaching is being conceived increasingly as a
complex, combination of valuable knowledge and skills. The goal must be recognized
as not simply foreign language mastery which, in effect, is almost an impossibility for
most of our students, but rather as intercultural communicative competence or ICC
（Corbett, 2003, p.31）. While English is used by over two billion people on the planet,
there is great debate about whether and to what degree English as a tool for
communication affects or promotes the dissolution of national cultures or their
amalgamation into a single global culture or civilization（Kirkpatrick, 2007; Rubdy &
Sarceni, 2006）.
How might we as foreign language educators begin to come to grips with this far-
reaching concept? Stephen Ryan（2004）lays out a concise yet comprehensive overview of the

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important effects of intercultural communication ‒ specifically how misunderstandings

between native and non-native speakers can derail intended meanings and purposes.
Further, Michael Byram has attempted to codify what he refers to as savoirs , the five
essential constituents of knowledge and skills necessary to mediate between cultures
（Byram, 1997）. These five saviors incorporate a deeper intercultural curriculum on the
framework of communicative language curricula, transforming its goals. He asserts that
the learner of a foreign language must develop, beyond the ability to imitate native
speaker utterances, an accumulation of useable facts about the target culture and, more
importantly, a sense of how people from the target culture are expected to behave.
How people behave and the expectations for what is acceptable is obviously a complex
notion since English culture represents a multicultural spectrum of highly varied
societies and ethnic communities with differing fundamental values, spanning the globe
from the Alaska to Kenya to Malaysia, wherever English is spoken as a native tongue
or as a second or third language. For that very reason, increased attention to
developing ICC is essential. Byram asserts that to make these goals more readily
attainable, the ICC curriculum should train foreign language students to:
１）gain an ethnographic perspective in learning to discover essential cultural
knowledge, values held and behaviors practiced in the target culture
２）possess a critical stance that prompts comparisons and reflections
rather than automatic imitation or adoption
３）attain and demonstrate the skills of de-centering beyond their own（or
the target culture）
, valuing each for its own merits, and tolerate ‒ if not
come to appreciate ‒ the differences between them.（Byram, et al, 2001）
In such a way might students of a foreign language be able to reach Kramsch s third
place, that vantage point, resulting from a well-planned and thoroughly executed
intercultural communicative approach, from which language learners can understand
and mediate between their home culture and the target culture they seek to become
acculturated into（Kramsch, 1993 p. 235）
.
Promoting a global perspective and building intercultural communicative
competency among foreign language students is not only feasible in our
increasingly globalized world, but is also a central responsibility for all
educators. Understanding and acting upon the knowledge of how culture,
specifically beliefs, values, world view, use of language and nonverbal
behavior, impact one s communicative behavior is a crucial element（Samovar
and Porter, 2001）,which can be taught explicitly and experienced directly in
a course where the teacher's culture is different from that of the students.
（Brooks, 2006）

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Learning a truly foreign language, as culturally opposite in as many ways from

Japanese as most multicultural English-speaking societies are, confronts students --
those from a monolinguistic society with little direct contact with people outside their
own culture （Tsuchida & Lewis, 1998）
, comprising the majority of students at
institutions of higher education in Japan, -- with a formidable challenge in transcending
communication norms（Ryan, 2004）. The educational culture（Donnery, 2009）of the
typical classroom in secondary and tertiary levels in Japan does not readily facilitate
even a modest acquisition of low-level communicative competence in the target culture
language（Matsuura, et al, 2001; Riley, 2008; Yoshida, 2003）
. This fact alone does not
preclude the possibility that students could acquire some measure of intercultural
competency. Even when people are not fully confident or competent, as speakers of a
foreign language, it is this author s opinion that they are capable of demonstrating
cross-cultural understanding along with the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors that
reflect an important level of intercultural competence, provided that they have had the
opportunity to learn and reflect on the intercultural learning experience.
It is also this author s personal observation that suggests that the opposite effect
is sometimes the result. Owing to the unvoiced cross-cultural conflict and unresolved
misunderstandings that sometimes permeate compulsory English language classrooms
throughout the nation, Japanese students may actually be dissuaded from pursuing real
communicative competence（McVeigh, 2002, p.99）, and may also be exposed to
situations where intolerance for cultural diversity or downright rejection of the foreign
native speaker s culture may take place（Yamada, 1997）. Certainly, this is not the case
universally. But all too often, while bespeaking a love of foreign culture and a desire to
be able to speak a second language in order to make friends with people of another
culture, students actual behaviors and attitudes demonstrate that the converse may
sometimes be the result.
This situation is often blamed on poor motivation（Scott, 1996; Anderson, 1993）,
but there is likely to exist an ingrained set of culturally-normed behaviors and negative
beliefs on the part of the students about their own efficacy to achieve successful
international communication that may also partly explain it. To briefly summarize
Curtis Kelly（date not recorded）
, a long-time English language educator in Japan, who
has pointed out in his many public appearances: Motivation is a complicated factor, the
accounting for which requires a lengthy understanding of its genesis and complexity.
Yet, we should not ignore that it is, in part, due to the differences in cross-cultural
perceptions between the students themselves and the foreign language teacher, whose

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respective values about student motivation, about what constitutes dedication to

achieve success, or what high quality learning is, may be quite different（Volet, 1999;
Collier & Thomas, 1988）
. The intercultural perception gap may also derive from
differences in the standards for judging the quality of language performance ‒
particularly in terms of communicative behaviors involved in spoken language. The
expectations of what Japanese university students, who represent the dominant culture,
have the potential to accomplish and what they will achieve as learners, may sometimes
be not fully perceived or may even be misconstrued by the foreign language teacher
（Ishii & Bruneau, 1994）, especially one who comes from the foreign culture of the
target language. McVeigh（2002, p. 113）points out that school teachers in Japan who
are native Japanese often have a hierarchical relationship with students, but one that is
nevertheless, built on emotional ties of trust and loyalty that can become the basis for
a lifelong relationship. When a similar relationship fails to develop because of language,
social, personal, or intercultural barriers, students may come to feel that the instructor,
especially a foreign one, does not understand their own commitment or position, nor
can he or she fully recognize and make use of the students full potential. In part, this
may happen because the instructor may have difficulty in transcending his American
or British origins, particularly if his or her culturally-biased view of what the role of a
teacher should be predominates, and so too may the Japanese students in large
monolingual classrooms（Kitano, 1993; Dias & Brooks, 1999）. Thus, factors on both sides
of the teacher-student equation are likely to be involved in this intercultural
communication gap（Asai, 2006）since it is strongly tied to difficult-to-perceive or
hidden values.
In some cases, the classroom environment becomes a type of no man s land , a
wasteland, barren of learning, with teacher and students just killing time, where the
native-speaker instructor feels he or she must talk down to the local students, who tend
to freeze up or act passive-aggressively if their native-speaking teacher cannot respond
with the same support and in the expected manner as their previous secondary school
teachers have done（Komisarof, 2002; McVeigh, pp. 196-7）. Admittedly, this situation
may also occur even when the instructor is from the same culture. Japanese university
teachers may also have different expectations and perceptions about classroom learning
behavior than their newly admitted freshmen university students, based on differences
in age, provincial origin, professional expertise, and educational background, and status
（Nozaki, 1993）. It is, nonetheless, a complex situation, exacerbated by Ministry of
Education s（MEXT）insistence, particularly in years passed, that all first-year students

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must complete a required numbers of English credits, sometimes taught by a newly

arrived to Japan native English speaker. Because English is the default language used
as an important part of the majority of university admissions examinations（McVeigh,
2002）
, English has been a staple compulsory subject for freshmen and sophomore
undergraduates. The same course is even required for returnee students who have
lived abroad and whose communicative proficiency is far greater than their classmates.
Educational systems, classroom instruction and the learning that takes place in
schools, including learning a foreign language, is influenced by a variety of factors
（Canale & Swain, 1980）that include attitude, motivation（of both the students and the
teacher）
, age, personality, gender, learning styles, national origin, cultural values, aptitude,
cognitive skills, background knowledge and experiences, proficiency in the first
language, perceived value, skills emphasis, and actual skill level in the second language,
and the task requirements（Littlewood, 1981; Kramsch, 1993; Pennycook, 1994; Nunan,
1989）
. It is also almost universally recognized that other cognitive factors, such as learning
strategies and metacognition, play an important role（O Malley & Chamot, 1990）.
As equally important but not always as apparent are the social and psychological
factors such as socio-economic group, communicative norms of behavior, communicative
styles, and the general social environment, including issues of power and autonomy,
which also greatly influence the way people learn to communicate in a second language
（Volet, 1999）. Finally, it seems absolutely certain that culture ‒ especially the degree
to which the target culture is different from the native one ‒ plays a significant role in
determining and shaping all of the above factors（Kramsch, 1998）. Therefore, when the
foreign language classroom is comprised of a group of monolingual students from a
single, dominant culture whose teacher comes from the target language s culture, the
possibility for cross-cultural conflict of values, differences in styles of education,
classroom behavior, and learning modes and behaviors, including the divergence in
communication behavioral norms between the two cultures, will be greatly increased
（Ryan, 2004; Gallois, et al, 2005; McCroskey, et al, 1985）.
When an American teacher, for instance, since North Americans are heavily
represented among immigrant and visiting instructors in Japan, takes on the responsibility
for organizing language instruction for a large, homogenous group of Japanese students,
often occurring during their first few weeks at the university, the teacher brings into
the classroom a set of cultural values that may be quite different, even oppositional, to
those of the Japanese（or other native Asian culture）students.（Brooks, et al, 2000;
Komisarof, et al, 2000, Ryan, 2004）
. These typical American values can be characterized

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by sixteen core beliefs（Kohls, 1993; Cortazzi, 1990）. Obviously, not all foreign English
teachers are American, but the attempt here is stress how different the values may be
from the Japanese majority. The list compiled below also includes this author s own
additions from having lived as a participant-observer in Japanese society for thirty
years. In addition, he has delineated parenthetically the parallel, and often contrasting,
traditional value of the students native culture（Japanese, in this case）.

A Comparison of 16 Core Values American and corresponding Japanese value（in parentheses）

１）People have control.（Fate in inevitable.）

２）Change is healthy.（Keeping tradition and preservation of the status quo
are respected foremost.）
３）Time flies, i.e. people are constrained by time and should stick to time
schedules.（Life is long; things move or change slowly.）
４）All people are created equal.（Hierarchy, rank, status are important.）
５）Individual needs are of highest importance.（Group needs come before
the individual s.）
６）Initiative/Self-help（Birth determines status, which can t be changed.）
７）Future-orientation（People must live for today or for their ancestors.）
８）Action-orientation, i.e. Our personal identity comes from what we do.
（Being-orientation: Who we are is the most important thing in life; we
don t define our identities by our actions, work, or accomplishments.）
９）Informality in dress, forms of address, social rituals and communicative
styles.（Formality, outward form and appearance matter most.）
10）Directness and openness（Indirectness, ambiguity; avoid personal
disclosure）
11）Honesty ‒ We need to be honest no matter how much it hurts.
（Considering another s feelings and each person s loss of face（status /
stature / reputation）are more important than being honest in deciding
what to say about the truth , which is only relative anyway.）
12）Materialism（Spiritualism）
13）Friendliness: making people feel liked（Serious-minded respect and
loyalty are the most admirable qualities in a person.）
14）Interactive Participation（Reflective Listening）
15）Personal Achievement（Self-serving immodesty is not good; not saying

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or doing anything to distinguish one s self above peers is how we should

behave.）
16）Discussion and debate produce new ideas and critical thinkers.（Avoid
confrontation to protect social harmony; accept group consensus.）
（Kohls, 1993; Cortazzi, 1990 with additions by the author）
Obviously, these values can be over generalized and should not be construed to
be stereotypes. There is no doubt that traditional cultural values are on the wane,
which in some cases, causes increased opportunities for conflict because values among
generations and sub-groups within the society are substantially different. We must also
surely recognize and remain cognizant of the fact that ‒ even when the logic of it may
evade description ‒ cultural norms, beliefs, practices and language of any culture group,
most assuredly in post-economic bubble Japan, are not at all static, but are undergoing
dynamic renegotiation and reformation by the various groups memberships.
Therefore, the core beliefs ‒ and the language that articulates them ‒ will necessarily
change over time （Corbett, p.20）.

Why Metacognitive ICC Training is a Viable Instructional Approach

Studies by Van Rossum and Vismans（2006）have investigated the role that the
language teacher plays in the acquisition of intercultural skills, particularly at the
beginning level of instruction. Their study, based on teachers of Dutch as a foreign
language（FL）, showed that FL teachers attitudes towards culture were not always
clearly conceptualized. It revealed that FL teachers were not always aware of the
different concepts of culture and often focused their teaching on the learning of typical
facts of culture , without giving much attention to skills, attitudes and critical reflection,
which are a large part of what constitutes intercultural competence. Their general
conclusion was that FL teachers of beginning students expressed an awareness of the
need to move beyond stereotypes in their teaching, but were often not clear as to how
to do so without explicit training for incorporating ICC into the curriculum（Hiller &
Wo㶈niak, 2009）. It is this author s opinion that the case is much the same for many
foreign language instructors in Japan.
While there is little doubt that it might benefit our students, ICC is not likely to
be transmitted to them without some attention being given to intercultural
communication and cross-cultural awareness during the teacher pre-service education
and training of foreign language teachers. At the very least, it should be a part of

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teachers professional development and institutional in-service training in order to

combat the cross-cultural gaps that can occur between the learners and the teacher.
Therefore, a contextual and metacognitive intercultural training program incorporated
into foreign language teaching and learning curricula for the purpose of developing
intercultural communicative competence is proposed. The program should be a
comprehensive instructional approach to language teaching which focuses on learning
real language in a meaningful context, as well as on helping the students understand
the nature of intercultural communication, and to guide them to make appropriate
adjustments in their language learning experience through the acquisition of desirable
ICC traits or saviors as Byram（1997）has named them. The diverse set of perspectives
on intercultural competence has produced a myriad of definitions for the concept
（Bennett, 1998）. Many definitions of ICC overlap, but some are quite divergent in
nature, even at the most basic level of meaning（Collier, 2000）, leading to controversy
and debate in academic camps（Rathje, 2007）
. Such theoretical wrangling often
overshadows the intrinsic merits of attempting to implement ICC in curricula. One
popularly received definition of intercultural competence can be found in Deardorff s（2006）
work: Intercultural competence is the ability to interact effectively and appropriately
in intercultural situations, based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, skills and
reflection. Another particularly crystallizing definition of intercultural competency that
was recently used by Milton Bennett is:
acquiring increased awareness of subjective cultural context（world view）,
including one s own, and developing greater ability to interact sensitively
and competently across cultural contexts are both an immediate and long-
term effect of [international]exchange. The primary aspect of this
definition is the idea of context.
（Bennett, 2009）

It will be efficacious here to look at the two ideas of context and metacognition in
the broadest possible views. As Bennett has noted in the quote above, context is of
primary importance in dealing with the concept of culture. At first glance, the principle
of context is not new to language teachers; however, in actual classroom practice,
effective ways of dealing with the complexity of context are not universally recognized
or adopted. Alice O. Hadley（1993）purports that the majority of language educators
would agree that students must know eventually how to use language forms they have
learned in authentic communication situations. Most would accept also that this goal is
more likely to be achieved when the forms of language are presented and practiced in
communicative contexts, where the main focus in on making meaning and exchanging

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content（Hadley, p.125）. Authentic language always occurs in a real situated context

since any given utterance is embedded in ongoing discourse, as well as in some
particular circumstance or social situation. As pointed out by Widdowson（1978 p. 22）
,
Normal linguistic behavior does not consist of the production of separate sentences but
in the use of sentences for the creation of discourse. This author, as researcher-
practitioner, then concludes that in order to reach authentic communicative language
ability, therefore, it is essential to understand the personal, social, and cultural nature of
each situation.
According to Milton Bennett, culture may be thought of as context in both the
objective and subjective senses of the term. Objective culture（Berger & Luckmann,
1967）is the set of institutional, political, and historical circumstances that have
emerged from and are maintained by a group of interacting people. Much more related
to the concept of ICC is the hidden, less tangible aspect of the cultural context known
as subjective culture（Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Triandis 1994）
. The latter largely
comprises what is termed the world view of people who interact in a particular context.
Bennett describes this world view as their unique perspective on how to discriminate
phenomena in the world, how to organize and coordinate communication, and how to
assign goodness and badness to ways of being （Bennett & Bennett, 2002）.
From these perspectives on the concept of the context in language teaching
comes the realization that most language students undertake the study of a foreign
language for reasons which arise directly or indirectly out the perceived needs of the
community to which they belong （Tudor, 1996, p. 128）
. Tudor explained further that
language study takes place in an educational framework that is shaped by the
socioeconomic conditions of the existing culture and which reflects its attitudes, beliefs,
and traditions ‒ all of which stem from deeper cultural values. For the great majority of
secondary and university students in Japan, English has been a required subject since
junior high school. For most, the real purpose for studying English has very little to do
with authentic communication, but everything to do with increasing potential for
passing the rigorous high school and university entrance examinations（Shimuzu, 1995;
Ryan & Markarova, 1998）
. That university admission is key to their future economic
status is well established ‒ at least, it has been so until the advent of the new economic
realities of today. As a result, the experience of learning English for many of them has
been one that is rather grueling, often leaving students with a strong sense of
inadequacy as foreign language learners（Kobayashi, 2007）
. The examination-oriented
curriculum in pre-university English education, which very often continues during the

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university years, has focused their study on memorizing long lists of difficult
vocabulary, a focus on the mastery of complex rules of grammar and usage, and an
emphasis on word-by-word translation of English to Japanese（Shimahara, 1978;
Shibuya, 1998）. It appears that little time is left for much of authentic communication,
particularly in communicating orally（Brown, 1998）. With such a public and private
junior high and high school educational context as the background of shared experience,
it is not surprising that most students are not prepared to undertake the learning of
English as a vehicle for international communication and cross-cultural understanding
（Matsuura, et al, 2001; Riley, 2008; Yoshida, 2003）.
The second aspect of the intercultural competency training useful in understanding
how the barriers to learning communication in the EFL monolingual classroom can be
overcome is metacognition. Metacognition is a conscious, although not necessarily
deliberately thought out, mental process that generally involves at least two related
concepts: first, a knowledge about learning, and second, an ability to employ cognitive
strategies intelligently. O Malley and Chamot（1990, p.8）argue that language students
without metacognitive approaches are basically learners without direction or the skills
to plan their learning or evaluate their progress. They cannot set new directions toward
communicative competence because they do not monitor their learning. However, to be
perceived in its largest sense, metacognition must also encompass not only the cognitive
aspects, but also the affective aspects of learning. It should include the conscious
knowledge of the feelings and attitudes that the learning situation evokes（Oxford,
1990）. It must, consequently, comprise knowledge of the self（Williams and Burden,
1997, p.155）. Therein lies some level of difficulty since the Japanese notion of and
identification of self tends to defy easy explanation（Asai, 1998）
.
Milton（2009）asserts that the aspect of subjective culture that has received the
most attention in many educational circles is cultural self-awareness. He notes that one
of the most common effects of study abroad mentioned by students who participated,
particularly at the secondary level, is learning about myself . Milton has recognized that
cultural self-awareness is a necessary precursor of intercultural learning, which
involves recognizing cultural differences. He further states if students do not have a
baseline of understanding of their own culture（s）and how their identities emerge from
their culture, then they find it difficult to recognize and manage intercultural
differences. Milton（2009）affirms that, in typical language courses and international
exchanges, students may learn something about the target culture, but that kind of
culture learning is different from intercultural learning , asserting that cultural self-

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awareness is a necessary important stage before achieving intercultural sensitivity.

To go one step further, beyond the awareness of one s personality, feelings,
motivation, attitudes, learning style and cognitive strategies, the conscious awareness of
the social environment and cultural context at any particular moment for the learner
must be included within the concept of metacognitive awareness. Williams and Burden
（1997, p.188）stress the presence of the appropriate environmental conditions for
learning a foreign or second language to take place cannot be underestimated. Teaching
a learner how to understand the demands and nuances of different social and cultural
contexts is tantamount to helping that learner to act intelligently（Sternberg, 1984）. At
the same time, by providing language learners with the kind of learning environment
which enables them to learn how to learn , to behave in linguistically productive ways
in the foreign language classroom culture, and to develop as culturally effective learners
in the target language, the reflective instructor can foster a metacognitive process of
inculturization1 that can have a profound influence upon the development of second
language acquisition and the way in which it is used.

One of the primary functions of a language is to describe our environment

so that we can form an image of ourselves in relation to it. The better we
can come to understand the cultural context which gives rise to the
language we are trying to learn, the more likely we are to come to
understand the essential differences between the way in which that
language is used and our own.（Williams and Burden, 1997, p.188）

The classroom forms an essential habitat in the learner s ecosystem. It encompasses

the domains of the learning environment: physical, social, cognitive, psychological and in
some cases, intercultural. The foreign language classroom is a culture milieu that is
affected by the perceptions and realities of classroom structure, group processes,
classroom climate and teacher-mediated activities. When a group of monolingual students
forms a classroom for learning to communicate in a foreign language, especially when
the teacher is from the target culture, there is the unusual situation in which the
classroom culture is foreign to both the students and the teacher. It is an unknown
interculture to which both can and should learn to adapt in order to derive the benefits
of learning the foreign language（Sakamoto, 2003）. Not simply the natural absorption of
a new culture, normally referred to as acculturation, but rather the contextual and

１term coined by author, to be explained later

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metacognitive cross-cultural training approach advocated here is an explicit, mutually-

actualized, teacher-mediated process for intuitively enculturating the students and the
teacher into this new classroom culture. According to Shi （2006）, a form of
acculturation called language socialization takes places in any expert-novice interaction ,
and not only during second language acquisition.
Schieffelin & Ochs（1986, p.172）have offered that language socialization or
acculturation involves a dual functionality, that of socialization through the use of
language and socialization to use language. Thus, as a result of the acquisition of the
target language, the learner should to be able to both tacitly and consciously
understand the subtleties, rules and meanings behind that language . Consequently, the
culturization process described in this paper has been conceptualized as something
different, and therefore, has been defined by this author with new terminology:
metacognitive inculturization （Brooks, 1999）to distinguish it from the previously
mentioned processes that substantively differ in concept and context.

How Metacognitive Inculturization Works to Foster ICC

The subsequent follow-up parts of this research will provide a detailed explanation
of how metacognitive inculturization is carried out to foster intercultural communicative
competence. A comprehensive contextual and metacognitive cross-cultural training
program with a pedagogical framework that includes specific instructional guidelines for
implementing the task-based learning approach is the ultimate goal. In order to provide a
simple initial overview, an attempt to briefly define metacognitve inculturization is now
made in summary form.
First of all, it is an instructional process that actively seeks to initially introduce a
new context for language learning, and then attempts to immerse the learners in a new
classroom culture in order to overcome the problem of social, cultural and metacognitive
barriers to learning to communicate in a foreign language encountered in many
monolingual classrooms. Metacognitive inculturization, while theoretical in concept, in
actuality, is a practical approach to cross-cultural training that assists language learners
in consciously and unconsciously adapting their own culture to enhance the
communicative environment of the interculturally-aware language classroom. Its goals
are congruent with those for achieving intercultural communicative competence
（Byram, 1998）. Initially, students must be gently acculturated into the new classroom
environment; however, there is the inevitable culture shock, which if used effectively,

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can nurture both their understanding of the process and their willingness to embark on
a new journey of cross-cultural discovery and communicative language acquisition.
Later, they are given the training to equip them with a specific repertoire of individual,
pair, small group, and whole class behaviors for formalizing new patterns of learning,
cognitive strategies（Oxford, 1990; Dadour & Robbins, 1996）
, and, most importantly,
interaction between themselves, with the teacher, and with others in the target
language community（Jin & Cortazzi, 1998）
.

Conclusion
The primary intent of this paper has been to establish a rationale for and an overall
framework for constructing the methodology behind a new approach, which is
conceptualized by the author for fostering intercultural communicative competence（ICC）,
that he calls metacognitive inculturization. This instructional approach is an explicit,
mutually-actualized, teacher-mediated, practical instructional approach to intercultural
training that assists language learners in both consciously adopting the new culture of
the communicative classroom and in unconsciously adapting their own cultural
behaviors to overcome barriers to communication in the monolingual EFL classroom. It
is the attempt to amalgamate various eclectic approaches to foreign language education
into an integrated intercultural communicative competence（ICC）framework. The
recognition of the importance of ICC in the field of language learning has grown
tremendously during the first decade of the 21st century（Deardorff, 2006, Corbett,
2003, Bennett, 2009）.
The paper began by describing the infrastructural and cross-cultural barriers to
communication that haunt many English-as-a-Foreign-Language（EFL）classrooms in
Japan and probably elsewhere in Asia. Subsequently, this paper has presented a
rationale for devising a contextual and metacognitive approach to intercultural
competency training within the foreign language classroom which employs a multitude
of teaching methodologies and instructional strategies, centered on a performance task-
based approach as a viable solution for overcoming some of the cross-cultural gaps
between foreign native-speaker teachers and the students in the local country. The
ultimate purpose is to formulate a comprehensive approach to developing intercultural
communicative competence as a widely accepted goal of foreign language education.
Finally, it defined the meaning of metacognitive inculturization and explained briefly
how it can be accomplished. Because of the limitations of purpose and the length

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needed describe it fully, the significant details about the five stages of implementation
of multicultural inculturization are only mentioned at this time. The five stages,
conceived by the author as key components of an integrated approach（Brooks, 1999）
,
have particular relevance in fostering ICC in Japanese classrooms: 1）contextual
reframing, 2）incorporating old and establishing new patterns of social interaction, 3）
building trust, and areas of comfort and challenge, 4）teaching both communicative
instructional tasks, and the communication and learning strategies that enhance their
mastery, and 5）evaluating reflectively the learning of both the communicative and
metacognitive content.
In future research efforts and subsequent publications, the author hopes to
produce a more complete explanation of how the intercultural communicative
competence approach can be realized, and also hopes to actualize and confirm
observations, validate hypotheses, and find supporting research data for this proposed
approach with the assistance of other researchers and teacher-practitioners in Japanese
and Asian educational institutions. It is the aim to further develop this framework in
order to achieve a more clearly applicable body of knowledge for formulating a
Japanese intercultural competence, task-based approach through collaboration with
language educators in Japan and from abroad. In addition, the advent of increasingly
sophisticated telecommunication infrastructure and enhancements in the Internet now
available in Web 2.0 and beyond hold promise for making more realistic, frequent and
authentic intercultural experiences for language students（Brooks, 2009）. Classroom
and institutional research relating to the effective use of computer-assisted language
learning（CALL）technology and ICT tools for fostering ICC are also a potential
outcome of further work on this important issue.

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Rationale for a Task-based Approach to Intercultural Communicative Competence in Japanese Higher Education

要旨

タスクを中心とする教授法を通した異文化間の
コミュニケーション能力開発の原理的根拠

ディビット・L・ブルックス

アジア圏の語学教員にとって、学生たちが学んでいる言語を実際のコミュニケーションをするた
めの目的として産出させることは一つの重要な課題である。本稿が推奨する教授法は長期的な学習
をめざすと同時に、厳密でもあるという特徴を持つ。さらに異文化間への対応を取り入れ、定性的
な性質を持ったものである。Intercultural communicative competence（ICC：異文化間のコミュ
ニケーション能力）の開発を促す学習環境を整えるために必要な学習方法や教授法を確立するため
の新たな異文化フレームワークを活用することが協調を介する task-based learning approach の焦
点である。

キーワード：外国語教育、異文化間コミュニケーション能力、メタ認知的アプローチ、
タスクに基づく学習、異文化間の

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