Dr. Michelle Kohler is senior lecturer in languages education and Indonesian at Flinders University and adjunct senior lecturer at the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia. She is the head of research for Language, Culture and Communication, and coordinator of Indonesian. Michelle is an experienced language teacher and researcher focusing on languages policy and planning, and intercultural language pedagogy—particularly mediation, curriculum and assessment design, and program evaluation. She has had major involvement in various national projects in languages education in Australia, including recently as the coordinating writer of the Australian Curriculum: Indonesian. She is secretary of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia.

Dr. Kohler will be giving a TESOL virtual seminar on Wednesday, 28 February 2018 (3:30 pm–5 pm ET). The registration deadline is 25 February 2018. The seminar is free for TESOL and TESOL global members! Please see details here.

ICIS’s Natalia Balyasnikova asked Dr. Kohler a few questions.

Natalia Balyasnikova (NB): Tell us about yourself and your work.

Michelle Kohler (MK): The main focus of my work is language teacher education (preservice and in-service). I am privileged to work with teachers of various languages, across the spectrum of early childhood to tertiary education. I specialize in mediation, pedagogy, and curriculum design but also have a keen interest in language planning as there is an inextricable nexus between ideology, program provision, and teaching and learning.

NB: How did you get interested in intercultural perspectives on language teaching and learning?

MK: Looking back I think it was the intercultural that sparked my initial curiosity with language learning. As a novice learner in junior high school I was fascinated by new ways of seeing the world and enjoyed the challenge of making sense of another “code.” I also grew up in a rather monocultural area that was transforming as new migrant groups settled. I witnessed generosity but also struggles with accepting “others” and that led to my interest in finding ways to break down barriers.

NB: Recently, what issues around intercultural perspectives on language teaching and learning have been receiving attention in the Australian context?

MK: The most recent development in Australia related to intercultural perspectives in language teaching and learning has been the “implementation” of our first national curriculum. The Languages curriculum has a contemporary design with an intercultural and multilingual framing and this has created some issues for professional learning. Teachers are working through understanding aspects such as reflecting and translating/mediating. A major issue is how to evidence and judge intercultural language learning. My colleagues, Angela Scarino and Tony Liddicoat and I, have been experimenting with alternative assessment, and our findings show that students are learning a whole lot more than current assessment enables them to show.

NB: Looking forward, what changes would you like to see in our field?

MK: Possibly the biggest challenge for our field is going to be relevance—while on the one hand, communication practices are more pervasive and complex than ever, on the other hand, languages education is often not seen as integral to this. Changing the monolingual and traditional mindset of what language learning is and reframing perceptions of the field are vital if we are to transform along with our environment. This will require all of us to rethink the goals of languages education, and to work towards a more integrated curriculum, where languages learning is not only important but central to all learning.

NB: You have extensive experience working with teachers. Based on this experience, what would you say is the main benefit of implementing an intercultural approach to language teaching in one's practice?

MK: Let me start by saying that an “intercultural approach” is fundamentally a mindset, not a methodology. “Implementing” is really more “enacting” as an intercultural perspective becomes “the way you see things,” and it pervades every aspect of teachers’ work and of course evolves over time.

My experience with teachers, and my own teaching, tells me that developing an intercultural stance helps us focus on the humanity of what we do—putting people, their thoughts, meanings, relationships, emotions, and so on at the heart of language learning. Teachers often report feeling reinvigorated by an intercultural orientation.

NB: Your book Teachers as Mediators in the Foreign Language Classroom is based on a research project that you conducted with three language teachers working in different Australian schools. Can you tell us briefly about this project? What inspired you to undertake this research? What was the most memorable outcome of this research project for you?

MK: The original project came about because I had been involved in theorizing intercultural language teaching however wanted to explore the enactment aspect. At the time, the theory was relatively unfamiliar to many teachers, so I designed an intervention study, where I worked closely with three colleagues to develop a year’s program, with cycles of teaching and reflecting. For me, the most significant outcome was using both intercultural and learning theory perspectives to show the richness of teachers’ mediation practices and to see how they too are part of what is mediated.

NB: In your opinion, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that the digital age poses to our field?

MK: As with any technological development there is potential for both good and harm, depending on what we value. Real-time translation, for example, will be a great advance but could threaten jobs if the instrumental view of language learning persists. There are great research opportunities, such as exploring how interculturality affects digital communication (e.g., collaborative online games). Language teaching does need to evolve and focus on developing young people as consummate mediators—this will remain relevant for a long time to come.

NB: Tell us about your most recent projects. Why did you decide to undertake them?

MK: In the past 3 years I have been a member of the AILA Research Network on Intercultural Mediation. This is an amazing group of scholars from across the world who are exploring aspects of intercultural mediation—in teaching, in-country programs, curriculum and assessment, and son on. The joy and challenge of this group is that we are all interested in intercultural mediation and we work multilingually. We will meet again this year and plan to publish later in 2018.

I am also working on a small-scale longitudinal study exploring how intercultural language learning develops over time as captured through assessment and learning evidence.

NB: What advice would you give to colleagues just starting in our field?

MK: Listen, observe, read, discuss—and be humble! I often say to my students that it’s their role to create a “curiosity gap,” a puzzle that students want to crack. For me, language learning (and teaching) is the ultimate puzzle, it takes effort, commitment, and an acceptance that it is never fully solved but that we strive to learn more each time.

NB: Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us and we look forward to your webinar!

Recent research and publications of Dr. Kohler

Kohler, M. (2015). Teachers as mediators in the foreign language classroom. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Liddicoat, A. J., Scarino, A., & Kohler, M. (2017). The impact of school structures and cultures on change in teaching and learning: The case of languages. Curriculum Perspectives. doi:10.1007/s41297-017-0021-y

Scarino, A., Liddicoat, A. J., & Kohler, M. (2016). Maximising intensivity in language learning: Designing, implementing and evaluating models of provision. Adelaide, South Australia: Department of Education and Child Development.

Scarino, A., & Kohler, M., & Benedetti, A. (2016). Investigating pedagogies for language learning. Adelaide, South Australia: Department of Education and Child Development. Retrieved from https://www.decd.sa.gov.au/doc/investigating-pedagogies-language-and-culture-learning-project-
commissioned-decd

Kohler, M. (2015). Interpreting as intercultural mediation: A critical moment in an overseas midwife training programme. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 24(3), 431–443. doi:10.1080/0907676X.2015.1071859

Liddicoat, A. J., & Kohler, M. (2012). Teaching Asian languages from an intercultural perspective: Building bridges for and with students of Indonesian. In X. Song & K Cadman (Eds.), Bridging transcultural divides: Asian languages and cultures in global higher education (pp. 73–100). Adelaide, South Australia: University of Adelaide Press.

Natalia Balyasnikova is a PhD Candidate and sessional instructor at the University of British Columbia.