St Francis Magazine Nr. 1 Vol.

III (June 2007)

Fluent Fools?
Beyond language and basic survival skills
By Martin Lomen1

“Interserve is a network of Christians from all over the world who, using their
professional skills, work together to serve people of Asia and the Arab world - getting
alongside them in tackling material, physical, mental and spiritual needs.”2

“I spent years trying to figure out how to select people to go overseas. This is the
secret. You have to know how to make a friend. And that is it! If you can make friends
and if you have a deep need to make friends, you will be successful.”3

1. Are we competent to help?

In the above statement of Interserve “professional skills” take a central place. Without
such skills a partner cannot help in “tackling material, physical, mental and spiritual
needs”. However, if somebody relied purely on professional skills and nothing else, he
would hardly be employable in any work situation because “academic and intellectual
abilities are not predictors of success in the workplace”4 – neither are professional skills
by themselves as we shall see.
What we need are people who are able to tackle “material, physical, mental and
spiritual needs” at home. These people then have to acquire a similar degree of
competence in the new sociocultural setting where God has called them to. This paper
aims to show that this has to do with much more than just professional skills and
speaking the host language. To realise this vision we have to rethink how we can help
our partners to competently and successfully “serve people of Asia and the Arab world.”
This paper will therefore first focus on what it means to be competent “at home”
prior to asking what it means to be competent in an intercultural setting.

1
A pseudonym.
2
www.interserve.org, 13/11/06.
3
Edward T. Hall, http://cms.interculturalu.com/theedge/v1i3Summer1998/sum98sorrellshall, 14.05.2007,
16:50h.
4
Kolberg, Sharyn & Tracey Weiss, Coaching Competencies and Corporate Leadership. (St. Lucie Press,
Boca Raton FL, 2003), p. 10.

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2. Defining Competence

In order to be a successful nurse or engineer, it takes much more than just professional
knowledge and skills.
In appreciation of the importance of this, OECD5 member states started the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 1997. It compared
students’ knowledge and skills in the areas of reading, mathematics, science and
problem solving. Very soon it was realised that these competencies were not enough
and that “students’ success in life depends on a much wider range of competencies”.6
The first question was quite obvious: What is a competence anyway?
The modern competence movement, which originated in the educational discipline
around 1970, narrowly defined a competency “as an action, behaviour or outcome to be
demonstrated, or a minimum standard, with different levels of mastery defined by
different statements.”7
In the psychological branch of the movement, McClelland and Boyatzis broadened
competencies to mean "a generic body of knowledge, motives, traits, self images and
social roles and skills that are causally related to superior or effective performance in
the job." 8
The last decade witnessed “a world-wide expansion in the use of competency models
as a major underpinning of Human Resources (HR) strategy”9 and, especially in the
business world, experts started looking for so called “key competencies.”10
Although there is no unanimously accepted definition of “competence,” it is
currently accepted that a competency requires more than just knowledge or even skills
and that motivations and attitudes are an equally important part. To enunciate a well
grounded definition the OECD’s Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo)
Project was started. In consultation with a host of experts from many different areas

5
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation of
those developed countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and a free market economy.
It consists of the following founding members (1961) Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey, United Kingdom, United States. The following joined later (listed alphabetically with year of
admission): Australia (1971), Czech Republic (1995), Finland (1969), Hungary (1996), Japan (1964), Mexico
(1994), New Zealand (1973), Poland (1996), Slovakia (2000), and South Korea (1996).
6
DeSeCo, The Definition and Selection of Key Competencies: Executive Summary. (2005), p. 3.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/61/35070367.pdf, 21.02.2007, 2:15h)
7
Markus, Leanne H., Helena D. Cooper-Thomas, and Keith N. Allpress, "Confounded by Competencies? an
Evaluation of the Evolution and Use of Competency Models" in New Zealand Journal of Psychology Vol. 34,
No.2. (2005), p. 117+. (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5012083525). 22/2/2007
8
D.C. McClelland and R.E. Boyatzis, ‘Opportunities for Counsellors from the Competency Assessment
Movement’ in Personnel and Guidance Journal (January, 1980), p. 369.
9
Keith N.Allpress, Helena D. Cooper-Thomas and Leanne H. Markus ‘Confounded by Competencies? an
Evaluation of the Evolution and Use of Competency Models’ p. 117.
10
G.Hamel and C.K Prahalad, ‘Strategic Intent’ in Harvard Business Review (1989).

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such as sociologists, assessment specialists, philosophers and economists, they agreed

on the following definition:

A competence is defined as the ability to successfully meet complex demands in a particular

context. Competent performance or effective action implies the mobilization of knowledge,
cognitive and practical skills, as well as social and behaviour components such as attitudes,
emotions, and values and motivations.11

The strength of this definition is that it does not reduce competence to its cognitive
dimension and it also shows that competence and skill are not synonymous. Rather, it
even shows that competence has an ethical dimension.

2.1 Categorizing Competencies

With the greater number of different competencies, the need for some sort of
systematisation increased. The Staatsinstitut für Schulqualität und Bildungs-forschung
(State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research, Munich)12 used a very
similar definition to the above and suggested four different categories of competencies:

i) Self competence or personal competence. This describes a person’s ability and

willingness to recognise and develop their own gifts and skills, as well as develop
personal identity, values and personal life plans and to pursue them. Attributes like
self-reliance, critical faculty, power of concentration, self-confidence, reliability,
commitment and sense of responsibility belong here.

ii) Social competence. Such a person is able and willing to build and maintain
meaningful social relationships. Attributes like the ability to work in a team and to
handle conflict, willingness to tolerance and to solidarity, helpfulness and
communication ability belong in this category.

iii) Methodological competence. This is the ability and willingness to be goal-oriented,

structured and to take effective action in handling tasks and problems.

iv) Professional competence. This refers to a person’s ability and willingness to tackle
tasks and problems using their professional knowledge and skills in a goal-oriented,
adequate and self-reliant way. It includes the ability to assess outcomes.

11
Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations (DeSeCo). Summary
of the final report Key Competencies for a Successful Life and a Well-Functioning (2003), p. 2.
http://www.portal-stat.admin.ch/deseco/deseco_finalreport_summary.pdf, 21/02/07, 2:00h.)
12
Staatsinstitut für Schulqualität und Bildungforschung, München (2006). Kompetenz... mehr als nur Wissen.
(Downloaded from http://www.kompas.bayern.de/downloads/infokompetenz.pdf, 21/02/07, 1:40h.)

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From this systematisation it becomes even clearer that professional knowledge and
skills are certainly not enough to be successful in any kind of profession. In every
workplace people will need some of the competencies mentioned under all four
categories.

2.2 Defining Key Competencies

A clear definition and categorisation, as useful as they might be, are not enough to
produce competent people. Similar to a game of chess, one needs to know more than
just the rules – one needs a strategy. Creating and categorising long lists of
competencies is hardly helpful in enabling young people to become competent.
Therefore the OECD went a step further and asked the practical question: “What
competencies do we need for a successful life and a well-functioning society?”
Looking at the demands of the modern world the OECD looked for central key
competencies to describe individuals who could not only cope with but shape the world
they lived in. Three key competencies were suggested:

i) Using tools interactively. Humans do not live in the raw world just as it is, but rather
feel a strong urge to create all kinds of tools. These tools can be a hammer, a house or
words, ideas, concepts. Often times we develop very intimate relationships to some of
these tools – they become in a sense, part of us and our identity.13 A simple example
would be the hammer in our hand which – at least for a little while – becomes an
extension of us as we drive the nail into the wall or like the stick in a blind person’s
hand becoming part of his senses through which he perceives the world. The same
applies to words and their meanings and concepts which we use to name things in our
world and even to create new things in this world. Especially the not so visible tools,
like language and concepts, have become so much a part of us that it seems impossible
to strip them away without affecting our very identity. In this way, the term “tools” is
used by DeSeCo very broadly as “cognitive, social and physical tools” including
language, symbols, texts, knowledge, information, and technology.14
Using these tools requires a familiarity with the tool itself as well as an
understanding of how it changes the way one can interact with the world and how it can
be used to accomplish broader goals. In this sense, a tool is not just a passive mediator,

13
Michael Polanyi, PersonalKnowledge. Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. (Routledge, London, 2002), p.
55.
14
DeSeCo (2002). Definition and Selection of Competencies (DESECO): Theoretical and Conceptual
Foundations. Strategy Paper, p. 13. Downloaded from http://www.portal-stat.admin.Ch/
deseco/deseco_strategy_paper_final.pdf, 21.02.2007, 2:40h.

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but an instrument in an active dialogue between the individual and his or her
environment.15 This key competence encompasses:

The ability to use language, symbols and text interactively. The term
“communication competence” is especially associated with this competency.

The ability to use knowledge and information interactively.

The ability to use technology interactively.

ii) Interacting in heterogeneous groups. This arises from the need to deal with
diversity in pluralistic societies, the importance of empathy and of social capital. It
materialises in:

The ability to relate well to others.

The ability to co-operate and to work in teams.

The ability to manage and resolve conflicts.

iii) Acting autonomously. A person demonstrating this competency is motivated by the

need to realise one’s identity and to set goals, to exercise rights, to take responsibilities
and to understand one’s environment and its functioning.
It is expressed by a person being able to:

Act within the big picture.

Form and conduct life plans and personal projects.

Defend and assert rights, interests, limits and needs.

For our goal, namely to “serve people of Asia and the Arab world - getting alongside
them in tackling material, physical, mental and spiritual needs,” it would be highly
desirable to find people with these three key competencies. Thus, it is contended that
these three key competencies are indispensable to successful ministry of any kind– be it
at home or abroad. Certainly, from a Christian perspective these core competencies are
not entirely complete because they leave out certain competencies needed for the
spiritual realm.16 Nevertheless, from a secular and professional point of view, these
three key competencies are well chosen from the host of competencies alluded to earlier
and cover a wide and balanced range of subcompetencies. As mentioned before, to
identify such key competencies was a vital part in the process of evaluating and
reshaping the educational systems of the OECD member states. It can also serve us as

15
Ibid.
16
Although it would be a very interesting and rewarding exercise to enunciate such a spiritual key
competency this would be beyond the scope of this short and introductory paper.

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an excellent starting point in evaluating people’s competence and in rethinking the ways
we are trying to help them to become more competent.17
Any mission organisation therefore, is well advised to focus on people with these
key competencies. However, finding and recruiting such people will be only the first
step – which brings us to the next point.

3. Competence for successful ministry abroad

Robert J. Priest describes how people living and striving for a sanctified life from
different cultural contexts can look very different – even to the point that they do not
recognise each other as a person striving for the same goal of sanctification because of
different values and taboos emphasised.18 One could suggest that the same thing
applies to competent people from different cultural backgrounds. To start with the
obvious, a highly competent French person will have no tools to recognize the language
ability of an Arab unless he learns Arabic to a very high degree. The German style to
solve a conflict will differ significantly from the Korean way, so that a German pastor
being very skilled in resolving arguments in Germany might quite easily create a mess
in a Korean church and might be perceived from the Koreans as highly incompetent.
The ability to relate to others and to co-operate within a Chinese team with all the
distinctly Chinese hierarchical structures will be almost diametrically opposite to the
same in US-American settings. A North American with his concept of team life will
most probably be set up for a very difficult time in the Chinese team if he does not learn
to play by the Chinese rules.
From the experience of our consulting office working in Germany and the
Middle East many companies naïvely assume that using a translator is enough to do
business successfully in another country. Fortunately, most mission organisations have
come to another conclusion and insist on learning the language properly before
embarking on any kind of ministry. However, just learning the language does not
resolve the problem because – as Gudykunst puts it so trenchantly – “if we understand
each others languages, but not their cultures, we can make fluent fools of ourselves.”19
Obviously, this is not what we want. Anybody doing business can not afford to be a
“fluent fool” and we have a far greater and more important mission than just to make
money. We want our partners to be effective and competent. This competence is not
only about language or other skills but also about behaviour, attitudes and values! With

17
The great variety of cultural backgrounds of the OECD member states also infers that these definitions go
beyond Western educational theories and meet the most important needs in a diverse and steadily globalising
world.
18
Robert J. Priest, “Cultural Factors in Victorious Living”, in Free and fulfilled: victorious Christians living in
the twenty-first century, compiled by Robertson McQuilkin. (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1997), pp.
138-142.
19
W.B. Gudykunst, Bridging Differences: effective intergroup communication (Sage, Newbury Park, CA,
1991), p. 2.

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language being perceived as the key issue and focused upon, it is no wonder that a
leader from a missions organisation complained that the local language school gives
people language but leaves them culturally illiterate.20
We want our partners to be effective and competent in intercultural contexts – in
other words, we want them to have intercultural competence.

3.1 What is ‘intercultural’ competence?

Commenting on the ongoing German-speaking academic discussion on intercultural

competence Bolten observed that it was “marked clearly by heterogeneity and
confrontation.”21 Referring to the same situation Rathje also observed that the writers
on intercultural competence disagreed on even the most basic questions:

1. What is the goal of intercultural competence?

2. Is intercultural competence a universal or culture specific, key competence?
3. In what situations is intercultural competence relevant?
4. What concept of culture is the basis for intercultural competence?22

A brief look at the host of material written in the English speaking world on
intercultural competence reveals that this “heterogeneity and confrontation” is not just a
“German” phenomenon.
Stier attempts to solve the problem of intercultural competence by suggesting a
division of the related competencies into content-competencies and processual
competencies as he calls them. The former “refer to the knowing that aspects of both
the ‘other’ and the ‘home’ culture,” while the latter considers the “dynamic character of
intercultural competence and its interactional context.”23
It seems Stier’s and similar approaches view intercultural competence as an
additional competency or a whole set of competencies which have to be added to the
already existent competencies of a person who is working or living in an intercultural
situation. Such approaches reveal a shallow understanding of the effect which the
sociocultural context has on the formation and effectiveness of all the competencies
mentioned above. Communicative competency acquired in a German context will have
a distinctly German taste and feel to it. Also all the other competencies of a person
acquiring his competencies in a German context will mirror his environment. Just

20
Details are known to the author but withheld for reasons of anonymity.
21
Cited in Stefanie Rathje (2006). “Interkulturelle Kompetenz – Zustand und Zukunft eines umstrittenen
Konzepts”, in Zeitschrift für interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, http://www.spz.tu-
darmstadt.de/projekt_ejournal/jg-11-3/beitrag/Rathje1.htm, 22/02/07, 12:40h.
22
Ibid.
23
Jonas Stier “Internationalisation, intercultural communication and intercultural competence” in Journal of
Intercultural Communication (2006).

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adding another “intercultural competency” can not possibly change the whole set of
“German” competencies to be suddenly appropriate in the new context.
Therefore, it seems most advisable for our whole life focus as missionaries to agree
with Bolten’s view that intercultural competence is not a single competency or even a
whole set of competencies, but rather refers to the question as to whether a person has
adjusted (or in some way ‘translated’) his competencies to the new sociocultural
context. This is not to say there might not be some special competencies such as
ambiguity tolerance or bargaining skills which have to be acquired for the first time for
this specific context. Most of the competencies, however – even ambiguity tolerance –
might be present in the home context, although not as highly developed as they are
required in the new context. Bolten even questions if there are any genuine intercultural
competencies at all.24

3.2 How is intercultural competence acquired?

There is by now a huge number of organisations, institutes and companies advertising
themselves as offering training for “cross-cultural communication” or other related
areas like “cross-cultural management”, “cross-cultural leadership development” etc.
The trainings can be divided into off-the-job and on-the-job trainings. Off-the-job
trainings usually consist of special events outside the working situation such as
workshops, seminars, and lectures, while on-the-job training takes place in the form of
coaching or mentoring. Further, off-the-job trainings can be either trainer centred or
experiential. A trainer centred approach relies primarily on presentations and lectures
and focuses strongly on cognitive elements. Experiential training methods use various
forms of role plays, games and activities which create an opportunity to learn new
behaviours.
If intercultural competence consisted of a set of competencies (as suggested by
Stier), one could collect them in a list, determine their nature – be it cognitive,
behavioural or attitudinal – and proceed to write a special training curriculum. As
shown before, this would not suffice for our purposes. Firstly, we would have to create
endless lists of different competencies which would result in an impossible training task
and secondly, by the very nature of our assumption that intercultural competence could
be simply added to other competencies, we would leave the already present
competencies untouched in their cultural conditioning and rely solely on diffusion to
affect them.
Thirdly, learning and the acquisition of competencies does not happen only, or even
primarily, in formal settings. Most of our cultural knowledge is implicit knowledge, as
are for example most of the grammar rules that we have acquired in our mother tongue.

24
Bolten, Jürgen Grenzen der Ganzheitlichkeit - Konzeptionelle und bildungsorganisatorische Überlegungen
zum Thema "Interkulturelle Kompetenz". Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik 14: 1 (2003), pp. 156-158.

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Generally that knowledge was obtained in a highly informal setting without organised
classes and curricula.
Therefore, coaching or mentoring people in their everyday life and relationships
where they can catch important lessons on intercultural competence has to be an
essential part of the training process.

4. Enhancing intercultural competence of missionaries

Missionaries, more than maybe any other profession, have to acquire intercultural
competence in almost all aspects of life and not just in a certain working situation.
Their whole life needs to communicate Christ’s character and love. They can not afford
to be perceived as lacking social or personal competencies which are emphasised by the
host culture because it would reflect negatively on their whole ministry and overall
goals.
We therefore need more than anybody else a deep understanding of how culture
affects our way of life and all competencies involved. This requires missionaries to
develop their cultural adaptation not only to the degree of ‘cognitive frame-shifting’ but
even to the degree of ‘behavioural code-shifting’.25 As one of the essential building
blocks the recently developed Growing Participator Approach by Greg Thomson is
recommended.

5. Concrete suggestions for discussion

In order to enhance the intercultural competence of our partners as effectively as

possible the following combination of training elements are proposed.

In the pre-departure phase candidates would:

25
The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), developed by Dr. Mitchell Hammer and Dr. Milton
Bennett, recognizes seven phases or stages in the development from an ethnocentric towards an ethnorelative
worldview. The seven stages are denial, defence, reversal, acceptance, adaptation: cognitive frame-shifting,
adaptation: behavioural code-shifting, encapsulated marginality.
Cognitive frame-shifting means that you recognize the added value of having more than one cultural
perspective available to you. Further, you are able to “take the perspective” of another culture for the
purpose of understanding or evaluating situations in either your own or another culture. The following
stage “behavioural code-shifting” refers to the fact that you are able to intentionally change your
culturally based behaviour. You have a broad repertoire of behaviour that allows you to act in culturally
appropriate ways outside your own culture. The last stage “encapsulated marginality” is not the highest
or most desirable stage, rather a stage where one struggles how to integrate one’s intercultural abilities
with your identity. (Interpreting Your Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Profile.
http://henry.sandi.net/staff/cpauchni/idi.pdf, 20/02/07,23:55h.

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1. Attend culture unspecific seminars / workshops in their orientation weeks – both

trainer centred and experiential. Ideally, the best option would be for people
preparing for missions to attend schools where “cross-cultural communication” is
taught in a missional context such as CIU (Columbia / SC, USA) or the All-Nations
College. Additional benefit would be gained by candidates if they were able to
spend a considerable amount of time in another culture before they started as career
missionaries.

2. Conduct an area study or participate in culture specific seminars / workshops

once their placement and target group were clear.

3. Attend prior training in a language learning approach emphasising the

sociocultural dimension before settling into their host culture e.g. the Growing
Participator Approach (GPA) by Greg Thomson. Since adaptation to a new
environment is stressful and difficult enough it would be best if partners could learn
this know-how in their pre-departure phase.

Once on the field and especially for the first several years it is suggested that:

4. Coaching / mentoring by a senior member of the team or other experienced

missionary should take place. This would include a coaching contract where the
coachee would agree to certain goals in relevant parts of his life and ministry.
Taking these goals into account the coachee, together with his coach and if
necessary in consultation with others, could then decide which resources are needed
to ensure the development and adjustment of the coachees competencies.

5. Partners would use a language learning approach emphasising the sociocultural

dimension (e.g. GPA) to acquire intercultural competence including language to
enable them to become a full member of the society. Ideally the language helpers
for the first phase would be found and trained by somebody already present on the
field. Language helpers for the later phases could be found naturally by the
language learner himself.
6. Participation in culture specific workshops / seminars (trainer centred and
experiential) to accompany the acculturation process would be required. Our first
socialisation has deeply and irreversibly engrained certain patterns into our thinking
and feeling. These patterns will always interfere with any other language and
culture we might try to learn at a later stage. A newborn child does not have any
culture or language which would affect or maybe distort the learning of its first
culture, but the adult missionary certainly does. Therefore, it is believed that
culture specific workshops providing concepts and tools from cultural
anthropology, linguistics and cross-cultural communications would help the learner

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to discover things in the other culture which would otherwise be overlooked by

him.

Appendix: Growing Participator Approach

Although Greg Thomson is a linguist, the aim of his approach is much more than just to
help people to learn a language. Language learning has a strong sociocultural
dimension:

“Language is not separate from the way of life (culture) that it supports and that it depends
on, nor is it separable from the concrete activities of the people, nor from their specific
interpersonal relationships. To learn a language is to be nurtured or apprenticed into the life-
world of individual host people and groups.”26

He contends that in order to “become a full participant in a new speech community you
must become involved deeply, extensively, with native speakers, in normal life
activities”.27 Communicating in a certain culture is therefore very much like
swimming; it is learned best by being immersed.
Thomson therefore urges language learners not just to learn a language but rather to
“relearn the world through the eyes of the people who speak this language”.28 His
strong emphasis on learning within relationships and on ethnographic interviewing –
which by itself makes up some 500 hours – makes this approach highly useful for
acquiring intercultural competence. The benefits of this approach include opportunities
to learn how to deal with people from the host culture and secondly, the gaining of an
immense insight into the host people’s symbolic world – including relationships,
conflicts and their resolution, and all other aspects of life. The resultant effect is that
cultural understandings are not investigated from an etic perspective but, because of
using the local language, the learner does not impose his concepts and understandings
on the culture but has the opportunity to acquire a truly emic29 understanding and
interpathy.30

26
Greg Thomson, The Growing Participator Approach to “Language Learning” and the Six-Phase
Programme (Unpublished paper. 2007), p. 1. For this reason, language teachers are referred to as nurturers in
the Growing Participator Approach.
27
Greg Thomson, Becoming full participants in the speech community (version 2.0) or Marooning yourself in
a sea of sound, (Unpublished paper), p.1.
28
Ibid., p. 8.
29
Emic and etic refer to the inside and oustide perspectives of evaluating cultures. The emic perspective refers
to any evaluation that is done on the basis of an understanding of the culture from the inside. Kenneth Pike, a
linguist for many years associated with Wycliffe Bile Translators, developed this term to highlight the
contrast between a cultural insider’s view and that of an informed outsider. The latter he called the etic
perspective.” [Italics in the original.] For a fuller discussion see Charles Kraft, Anthropology for Christian
Witness (New York, Orbis Books, 1996), p. 76.
30
While empathy is “sharing another’s feelings, not through projection but through compassionate active

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The third benefit is that the learner has more control over the source of information
than in most schools and he can choose people from his specific target community. In
this way he learns from segments of the society which are relevant to him instead of
learning more generic things in a classroom setting from a teacher who might not even
belong to the specific target group.

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Augsburger, David W. (1986). Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures. (Philadelphia: The

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Bourke, J. B., Hansen J. H., Houston, W. R., & Johnson C. (1975). Criteria for Describing and
Assessing Competency programmes, Syracuse University, N.Y. National Consortium of
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