Ways To Measure Teaching | #3 Intercultural Competence in Teacher Talk
10 Practical Ways To Measure Teaching
#3 Intercultural Competence in Teacher Talk
1️⃣ What I Analysed
I coded three one‑to‑one lessons for intercultural competence (IC). I expected it to be a minor feature. Instead, it appeared constantly — not as “teaching culture”, but as something happening inside the interaction itself.
2️⃣ What IC Looked Like in My Lessons
Four behaviours kept showing up:
Cultural mediation — explaining things like the the British football tradition of eating meat pies at half‑time, or why although “fewer” is technically correct with countable nouns British native speakers often say “less” instead.
Epistemic shifting — sometimes I’m the expert, sometimes I hand the expertise back (“What’s the system for Russian New Year?”), and sometimes I step back entirely.
Face‑sensitive moves — softening corrections, avoiding judgement, protecting identity. When a learner said “Russian tourists are terrible”, I didn’t challenge or agree — I just asked, “Why do you say that.”
Identity work — positioning learners as cultural informants, not cultural novices.
3️⃣ How Much of My Teaching This Was
Across the three lessons, about a third of my teacher talk was cultural mediation. Another quarter was face‑management. Then epistemic shifts. Then identity work.
I’d expected “a bit of culture here and there”. What I found was that a large part of my teaching wasn’t about English at all — it was about how people from different cultures make meaning together.
4️⃣ How This Differs from Standard IC Checklists
Most IC frameworks focus on cultural facts, avoiding stereotypes, encouraging comparison, being polite, and explaining misunderstandings.
What I saw was different:
👉 I was mediating cultural meaning in real time.
👉 I was managing face through timing and stance.
👉 I was shifting epistemic authority so the learner became the expert.
👉 I was unpacking cultural pragmatics — how something feels, not just what it means.
👉 I was modelling British interactional norms through repair, hedging, humour.
👉 I was embedding culture into grammar, vocabulary, and examples.
5️⃣ The Better Question
Instead of “Do I teach culture?”, the more useful question is:
How does my talk help learners navigate cultural meaning?
6️⃣ Question for You
If you analysed your own lessons, what intercultural moves would you find?
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