Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching
A Practical Introduction for Teachers
List of Contents
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is ‘the intercultural dimension’ in language teaching?
- What knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are involved in intercultural competence and what is the relevant importance of each?
- How do I teach the intercultural dimension if I have never left my country?
- Do I need to be a native speaker?
- How do I use a study visit or exchange?
- How can I promote the intercultural dimension if I have to follow a set curriculum or programme of study and teach grammar?
- What materials do I need to promote the intercultural dimension?
- How does it affect teaching and learning styles?
- How do I deal with learners’ stereotypes and prejudices?
- How do I assess intercultural competence?
- Do I need specific training?
- How do I overcome my own stereotypes and misconceptions?
1. What is ‘the intercultural dimension’ in language teaching?
It involves recognising that the aims are:
- to give learners
- to prepare them for
- to enable them
- to help them to see that such interaction is an
2. What knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are involved in intercultural competence and what is the relevant importance of each?
- Intercultural attitudes (savoir être): curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own. This can be called the ability to ‘decentre’.
- Knowledge (savoirs): of social groups and their products and practices in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction.
- Skills of interpreting and relating (savoir comprendre): ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents or events from one’s own.
- Critical cultural awareness (savoir s’engager): an ability to evaluate, acknowledges respect for human dignity and equality of human rights as the democratic basis for social interaction.
Teacher’s Role
The role of the language teacher is therefore to develop skills, attitudes and awareness of values just as much as to develop a knowledge of a particular culture or country.
3. How do I teach the intercultural dimension if I have never left my country?
- The teacher does not need to have experience or be an expert on the country.
- The teacher’s task is to help learners ask questions, and to interpret answers.
4. Do I need to be a native speaker?
- A non-native speaker inferiority complex is only the result of misunderstanding and prejudice.
- What is more important than native speaker knowledge is an ability to analyse and specific training in systemic cultural analysis is an important aid in becoming a foreign language teacher, regardless of the teacher’s mother-tongue.
- This is not to deny the importance of linguistic competence and it may be important to follow the authority of the native speaker in linguistic competence, but intercultural competence is a quite different matter.
5. How do I use a study visit or exchange?
- It is
- It is a
- Language practice may be limited, especially on a visit rather than
- If teachers create a pedagogical structure in three phases, learners can profit from a visit or exchange in ways which are scarcely possible in the classroom.
- Teachers need clear objectives, methods which take into account the power of experiential learning, and then learners will
6. How can I promote the intercultural dimension if I have to follow a set curriculum or programme of study and teach grammar?
- The set programme of study is likely to be based on
- Themes treated in can lend themselves to development in an intercultural and critical perspective.
- A set curriculum or programme of study can
7. What materials do I need to promote the intercultural dimension?
- It is important to use authentic material but to ensure that learners understand its context and intention.
- Materials from different origins with different perspectives should be used together to enable learners to compare and to analyse the materials critically.
- It is more important that learners acquire skills of analysis than factual information.
8. How does it affect teaching and learning styles?
- An intercultural dimension involves learners in
- There need to be agreed
- Learners thus learn as much from each other as from the teacher,
9. How do I deal with learners’ stereotypes and prejudices?
- Learners can acquire the skills of critical analysis of stereotypes and prejudice in texts and images they read or see.
- Their own prejudices and stereotypes are based on
10. How do I assess intercultural competence?
- The role of assessment is therefore to encourage learners’ awareness of their own abilities in intercultural competence, and
- to help them realise that these abilities are acquired in many different circumstances inside and outside the classroom.
11. Do I need specific training?
- What language teachers need for the intercultural dimension is
- Such skills are best developed in
- They may find
12. How do I overcome my own stereotypes and misconceptions?
- Teachers
- They need therefore to consider
They also need to reflect upon how they respond to and challenge their learners’ prejudices not only as teachers but also as human beings subconsciously influenced by their experience of otherness.