Mike Byram, Durham University

Raphaëlle Beecroft’s new book (published by Peter Lang) is at the same time her doctoral dissertation or thesis and is a very thorough academic contribution to the field of intercultural communication studies in foreign language teaching. It is very much based upon my own model of intercultural communicative competence, and this is not a classic review but rather some thoughts arising as I read this very interesting analysis of my own work and how it can be developed further.

The most striking development is the notion of savoir agir which is a link between the linguistic competences and intercultural competence in my model, a link which was always weak, even though I tried sometimes to make it more explicit. Savoir agir has three elements: perform, decide and produce. “Perform” is a matter of willingness to initiate and engage in interaction in real time, and the “decide and produce” component refers to the content dimension, that is it refers to how linguistic and intercultural competences are drawn upon in speaking.

Eventually the book describes an action research project in which this savoir agir is the theoretical basis for work in improvisational tasks, a dimension of drama in education. I was particularly engaged by the chapter on drama in foreign language pedagogy because this has seemed to me a neglected area ever since I had the great pleasure of seeing Dorothy Heathcote working with secondary school students in County Durham to develop their intercultural competence. It was one of the most memorable educational experiences I have had and the chapter on drama in education is worth reading in its own right.

For Raphaëlle however, it is the action research using improvisational tasks which is the centre of her work and, needless to say, since this is a doctoral thesis, the description and analysis of the research is meticulous and detailed to such an extent that it could be easily used as the basis for other teachers work in the classroom.

There is one element of my model which, as Raphaëlle herself says, is not given much attention. It is the question of critical cultural awareness which for me is crucial to the model. It is also the basis for the later development of the concept of intercultural citizenship. I can however see the potential for a drama in education approach to intercultural citizenship in which improvisational tasks would play a part. Indeed, as I remember Dorothy Heathcote's work on that day - is described by Gavin Bolton in a book edited by Mike Fleming and myself [Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective: approaches through drama and ethnography], pupils were encouraged to consider how to act in a complex, fictional situation of conflict and intergroup interaction. Raphaëlle is of course aware of this point and it is evident that she will continue this work into the future, and I will watch, and expect further important writings from her.