ASSESSMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS : CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES
ASSESSMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS : CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES

Summary/Abstract: Preparing future teachers to be successful and competent intercultural communicators cannotbe overemphasized in a time of migrations, cross-cultural misunderstandings, ethnic clashes,and gender politics. It is crucial to provide both instruction and training, so that students can both work ontheir own intercultural competence (IC), and become skilled and equipped to include IC elements in theirteaching. The Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) course for pre-service English language teachersin Serbia has been reshaped several times since its introduction into the curriculum in 2008, primarily in itsassessment formats. As a case study of assessment tools, the paper examines the organisation of assessment,how different assessment strategies were selected and employed over a period of 10 years. Special attentionis placed on the balance between the three ICC domains, the use of summative and formative assessment,and the backwash effect against the specificities of the teaching context and pre-service English languageteacher profile in a monocultural setting. It is shown that further adjustments are needed with particularattention being paid to the student profile and required outcomes for teacher education

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