Keywords
intercultural communicative competence
foreign language teaching
culture teaching
teachers’ practices
teachers’ opinions
How to Cite
Abstract
Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) is defined as“a complex of abilities (including host language proficiency) that are needed to perform effectively and appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself”(Fantini 2020: 5). The development of ICC in learners has been recognised as one of the key elements of foreign language (L2) education by, for instance, the Council of Europe (2022). The article presents the findings of a study conducted among primary school teachers of English which investigated their practices in teaching and assessing ICC, as well as their opinions on coursebook content and on learner motivation regarding ICC development. Quantitative and qualitative data have been gathered by means of a questionnaire administered to 39 teachers of English and interviews conducted with five teachers of English. The findings show that most respondents attempt to prioritise integrating ICC into English courses and aim to develop students’ICC. However, less than half give ICC equal importance to language in their teaching. Moreover, most participants often rely on teaching national attributes to foster ICC.
Funding
The author acknowledges that this work was supported by “Inicjatywa doskonałości – uczelnia badawcza” at Adam Mickiewicz University [grant number 076/34/UAM/0049].
References
Aleksandrowicz-Pędich, L. (2005). Międzykulturowość na lekcjach języków obcych. Białystok: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku.
Ang, S. / Van Dyne, L. / Koh, C. / Ng, K.-Y. / Templer, K.J. / Tay, C. / Chandrasekar, N.A. (2007). Cultural intelligence: Its measurement and effects on cultural judgment a decision making, cultural adaptation and task performance. Management and Organization Review, 3(3), 335–371. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-8784.2007.00082.x
Balcerkiewicz, M. / Kułaczkowska, B. (2010). Spotkania na granicy różnych światów – poznanie siebie i innych. Praca z filmem na zajęciach języka obcego w ramach rozwoju kompetencji interkulturowej. In: M. Mackiewicz (ed.), Kompetencja interkulturowa w teorii i praktyce edukacyjnej (pp. 175–184). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Bankowej.
Bennett, M.J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. Special Issue: Theories and Methods in Cross-Cultural Orientation, 10(2), 179–196. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(86)90005-2
Byram, M. (2021). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence: Revisited (2nd ed.). Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781800410251
Byram, M. / Barrett, M. / Ipgrave, J. / Jackson, R. / del Carmen Méndez García, M. (2009). Autobiography of intercultural encounters. https://rm.coe.int/autobiography-of-interculturalencounters/16806bf02d
Byram, M. / Risager, K. (1999). Language teachers, politics, and cultures. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Chen, G.-M. / Starosta, W. (2000). The development and validation of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale. Human Communication, 3, 1–15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/t61546-000
Council of Europe (2011). European Language Portfolio. Intercultural experience and awareness. https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016804932c1
Council of Europe (2012). Intercultural competence for all: Preparation for living in a heterogeneous world. https://rm.coe.int/intercultural-competence-for-all/16808ce20c
Council of Europe (2022). The importance of plurilingual and intercultural education for democratic culture. https://rm.coe.int/prems-013522-gbr-2508-cmrec-2022-1-et-expose-motifs-couv-a5-batweb/1680a967b4
Czura, A. (2016). Major field of study and student teachers’views on intercultural communicative competence. Language and Intercultural Communication, 16(1), 83–98, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2015.1113753
Deardorff, D.K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241–266, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315306287002
Derenowski, M. (2015). Teaching culture in the FL senior high school classroom. Coursebook evaluation and teachers’and learners’views. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Edwards, R. / Usher, R. (2008). Globalisation and pedagogy: space, place and identity. British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(4), 490–92. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2008.419_6.x
Fantini, A.E. (2021). Intercultural communicative competence: A necessary ability for all. World Learning Publications, 4. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/worldlearning_publications/4
George, D. / Mallery, P. (2016). IBM SPSS Statistics 23 step by step: A simple guide and reference. 14th edition. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315545899
Hughes, G. (1986). An argument for cultural analysis in the second language classroom. In: J.M. Valdes (ed.), Cultural bound: Bridging the culture gap in language teaching (pp. 162–169). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2006). Current perspectives on teaching world Englishes and English as a lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 157–181. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/40264515
Kurtyka, A. (2005). Rozwijanie kompetencji międzykulturowej nauczycieli języków obcych. In: M. Mackiewicz (ed.), Kompetencja interkulturowa w teorii i praktyce edukacyjnej (pp. 83–96). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Bankowej.
Kusiak-Pisowacka, M. (2018). Developing intercultural competence in an academic foreign language classroom. Beyond Philology, 15(1), 133–154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26881/bp.2018.1.07
Little, D. / Goullier, F. / Hughes, G. (2011). The European language portfolio: The story so far (1991–2011). https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicComonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016804595a7
Mihułka, K. (2014). Nie lubię Niemców, bo nie – o autorefleksji w postrzeganiu innych. Neofilolog, 42(1), 63–77. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/n.2014.42.1.6
Ministry of Education in Poland (2017). Rozporządzenie Ministra Edukacji Narodowej z dnia 14 lutego 2017. Dz.U. 2017 poz. 359. https://dziennikustaw.gov.pl/du/2017/356
O’Dowd, R. (2012). Intercultural communicative competence through telecollaboration. In: J. Jackson (ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and intercultural communication (pp. 342− 358). Abingdon: Routledge.
Oranje, J. / Smith, L.F. (2017). Language teacher cognitions and intercultural language teaching: the New Zealand perspective. Language Teaching Research, 22(3), 310–329. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168817691319
Paprocka-Piotrowska, U. (2007). Stereotyp w dialogu interkulturowym – wprowadzenie do warsztatu. In: M. Jodłowiec / A. Niżegorodcew (eds.), Dydaktyka języków obcych na początku XXI wieku (pp. 287–292). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Reid, E. (2010). Culture – an inevitable part of a foreign language teaching. In: S. Pokrivčáková (ed.), Modernization of teaching foreign languages: CLIL, inclusive and intercultural education (pp. 199–215). Brno: Masaryk University.
Reid, E. (2014). Techniques developing Intercultural communicative competences in English language lessons. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 939–943. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.011
Romanowski, P. (2017). Intercultural communicative competence in English language teaching in Polish state colleges. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Róg, T. (2014). Intercultural training in contemporary education. In: M. Krawiec (ed.), Cross-curricular dimensions of language learning and teaching (pp. 201–218). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Róg, T. (2016). Glottodydaktyczne obszary badań nad kompetencją międzykulturową, Neofilolog, 47(2), 133–152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/n.2016.47.2.01
Sercu, L. / Bandura, E. / Castro, P. / Davcheva, L. / Laskaridou, C. / Lundgren, U. / del Mendez, M. / Garcia, C. / Ryan, P. (2005). Foreign language teachers and intercultural competence: An international investigation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781853598456
Siek-Piskozub, T. (2013). Enhancing autonomy in the context of an ICC development seminar. In: M. Jodłowiec / E. Mańczak-Wohlfeld (eds.), Exploring the microcosm and macrocosm of language teaching and learning (pp. 217–228). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. UNESCO (2013). Intercultural competences. Conceptual and operational framework. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000219768
Vo, Q.P. (2017). Rethinking intercultural communication competence in English language teaching: A gap between lecturers’perspectives and practices in a Southeast Asian tertiary context. Journal on English Language Teaching, 7(1), 20–29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.7.1.11404
Wach, A. (2015). Advanced learners’ intercultural experience through computer-enhanced technology: A study of Polish and Romanian students. In: L. Piasecka / M. Adams-Tukiendorf / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07686-7_2
P. Wilk (eds.), New media and perennial problems in, foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 21–38). New York, NY: Springer.
Xu, Q. (2011). Role play – an effective approach to developing overall communicative competence. Cross-Cultural Communication, 7(4), 36–39.
Zoni Upton, J. (2021). Critical incidents in the language classroom. Bulletin of Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, 2, 303–312.
Żydek-Bednarczuk, U. (2012). Kompetencja międzykulturowa w nauczaniu języka polskiego jako obcego. Postscriptum Polonistyczne, 2, 19–30.
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Wiktoria Cholewa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors
Authors of texts accepted for publication in Glottodidactica are required to complete, sign and return to the Editorial team’s office the Agreement for granting a royalty-free license to works with a commitment to grant a CC sub-license.
Under the agreement, the authors of the texts published in Glottodidactica grant Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań a non-exclusive, royalty-free license and authorize the use of Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) Creative Commons sub-license.
The authors retain the right to the free disposal of the work.
Users
Interested Internet users are entitled to use works that have been published in Glottodidactica since 2016, under the following conditions:
▪ attribution – obligation to provide, together with the distributed work, information about the authorship, title, source (link to the original work, DOI) and the license itself.
▪ no derivatives – the work must be preserved in its original form. Without the author's consent, it is not possible to distribute the modified work in the form of translations, publications, etc.
Copyrights are reserved for all texts published before 2016.
Miscellaneous
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań retains the property right as a whole (layout, graphic form, title, cover design, logo etc.).
Privacy statement
The names and email addresses published on this journal site will be used exclusively for the purposes declared by this journal and cannot be used for any other purpose or by any other party.