Professional paper
INCORPORATING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Milica Bilić Štefan
; I. OŠ Dugave - Zagreb
Abstract
It is now generally recognised that incorporating intercultural communicative competence into foreign language teaching at all levels is imperative in the multilingual and multicultural Europe.
However an analysis of the current situation in foreign language teaching and the textbooks used in primary schools will reveal that intercultural activities are generally not included in the abundant
material with a cultural focus in the foreign language textbooks. The author provides a list of key terms related to intercultural communicative competence and suggests that if foreign language
teachers become aware of the importance of intercultural training during their own education, they will incorporate at least some of the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for intercultural
competence into their lessons. It is widely accepted that foreign language teachers should familiarize their students with foreign cultures as well as teaching lexical and grammatical
competences - therefore intercultural training ought to be a part of their training. In the author's opinion teacher training curricula should comprise the theory and practice of intercultural communicative competence and the methodology of incorporating intercultural competence into language teaching. The author also suggests one of the possible ways foreign language teachers might be educated during their continuing professional development – organizing workshops dedicated to intercultural communicative competence.
Keywords
teaching forigen language; intercultural communication competence
Hrčak ID:
26201
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2006.
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