Seven billion people speak seven thousand languages. The world is a noisy place and so we struggle to overcome a persistent obstacle: understanding each other. Around the world, more people are interacting, sharing, cooperating, and trading than ever before. Thanks to the surge in developing countries’ growth relative to the developed world, this interchange is accelerating. Companies and institutions hoping to compete across borders need staff who can do more than ace a language exam. They need intrepid employees armed with both cultural and linguistic skills to navigate a new territory.
Urgency and opportunity have spurred the growth of the language education sector and prompted reform within many a ministry of education. Fluency is an elusive goal, and it means many things to many people. What is clear, though, is that language skills on their own aren’t enough. Cultural competence is key to effective communication, whatever the language or location.
Rules versus relevance
More often than not, what people are studying doesn't model what they need to do in the real world. They master rules, but they don’t know the people they are dealing with and how things work on their turf. Language is social; it operates within and across cultures and depends on an understanding of the context and the expectations of the community. Students need to investigate. How do people behave, handle conflict, manage projects, negotiate, recognise achievement, celebrate, and commiserate in the language? How do politics, religion, corruption, and power influence communication and behaviour in the workplace? A well-informed speaker of another language should be ready for the unknown, be able to improvise.
Unfortunately, traditional language teaching remains lodged in many national curricula and mind-sets. It rewards the learning of isolated building blocks: vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening, and sometimes speaking. Situations can be unrealistic and irrelevant. At some level these are useful pursuits, but quite often, the end game is a good exam result. Confidence, communication, and cultural aptitude barely get a look in. There is a knock-on effect: in the global workplace, institutions with international ambitions are held back by the lack of real-world linguistic and cultural skills coming into their workforce.
A rethink is needed to prioritize the teaching of culture and language skills in parallel. Students should learn to think on their feet and complete tasks that model the challenges they’ll need the language for. The lesson will become a more social, creative, and collaborative experience. Testing must necessarily evolve to capture this. The emphasis of training should be on what you can do both in the language and on the ground. Curious, open minds will go far.
Christopher McCormick is Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at EF Education First.
