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16PEDAGOGICAL SCIENCES
МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ КАК ЧАСТЬ ОБУЧЕНИЯ ИНОСТРАННОМУ ЯЗЫКУ
Ахметжанова Э.
Университет имени Сулеймана Демиреля
Алматы
INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION AS A PART OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Akhmetzhanova E.
Suleyman Demirel University Almaty
АННОТАЦИЯ
Процесс глобализации сделал мир взаимосвязанным, заставляя представителей различных культур ежедневно контактировать друг с другом. Эта тенденция привела к важности развития межкультурных компетенций и требует специалистов, владеющих несколькими языками и знаниями о различных культурах и их различиях. В связи с этим роль культурной осведомленности и межкультурного образования в настоящее время становится все более и более важной, и развитие межкультурной коммуникативной компетенции рассматривается как новая концепция обучения и неотъемлемая часть изучения языка. В этой статье рассматривается концепция межкультурности и исследуются различные методы и теоретические модели повышения межкультурной осведомленности как преподавателей, так и учащихся.
ABSTRACT
The process of globalization has made the world interconnected by putting representatives from multiple cultures in contact with each other on a daily basis. This tendency has led to the importance of intercultural competences development and requires professionals who are multilingual and aware of different cultures and their differences. Due to this, the role of cultural awareness and intercultural education is now becoming more and more crucial, and the development of Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) has been seen as a new teaching concept and an essential part of learning a language. This article reflects on the concept of interculturality and explores different methods and theoretical models of fostering intercultural awareness of both educators and learners.
Ключевые слова: иностранные языки, межкультурная компетенция, преподаватели иностранных языков, межкультурная интеграция.
Keywords: foreign languages, intercultural communication competence, language teachers, intercultural integration.
Introduction
Current society goes through the process of the development of intercultural contexts and cultures that are extremely diverse and interconnected. Thus, the integration of culture is seen in different fields, especially in education. The integration of culture into foreign language teaching has become an important part of educational process. Learning foreign languages is now not only about learning grammar and knowing how to use it in speaking, but also about being able to communicate with people from different cultures. According to Fantini [6], many educators and researchers in both linguistic and cultural fields are now emphasizing the importance of developing Intercultural Communication Competence. Consequently, teaching of culture has been seen as an important part of intercultural language teaching and has aroused interests among scholars and educators.
Since ICC is now one of the most discussed topics both inside and outside language classrooms, more and more foreign language teachers have realized the importance of developing their own and their learners' communication competences. Since the improvement of students' ICC is directly linked to their teachers'
competences, it is essential to develop and evaluate teachers' intercultural communication knowledge and their ability to implement ICC in foreign language classrooms.
According to Zhang [11], development of ICC in the classrooms where a foreign language is taught consists of three levels of intercultural teaching objectives. The first level includes the knowledge of a language and of a culture of the target country. The next level is related to the ability to use verbal and non-verbal messages in one's speech, different communication strategies and socio-cultural competence. The third level is about the attitude towards other cultures and is linked to empathy in intercultural communication. Thus, these three levels of ICC development show that cognitive, behavioral and emotional factors should be integrated into the teaching of foreign languages.
It is strongly believed that the development of ICC for students through language teaching is closely related to the teacher's intercultural communication competence. Both teacher's perception of ICC and their methods of intercultural education are strongly affected by their intercultural communication experiences, that is why, at first, is it crucial to develop teachers' ICC
and then think of the ways of implementing ICC in classrooms. The more teachers know about communicating with people from different cultural backgrounds, the easier it will be for their students to develop and improve their intercultural communication competence.
This article focuses on the concept of intercultur-ality and highlight the importance of ICC development. It also reflects on different strategies and activities that might be implemented in language learning classrooms in order to enhance learners' acquisition of intercultural competence and develop it to prepare them for the future.
Foreign language teachers and Intercultural Education practices.
When the classroom consists of people from different cultural backgrounds, culture becomes a thread that links them together. Effective communication is the ultimate goal of language teachers and learners, and it might be achieved not only with a help of grammar and vocabulary, but also by means of culture [2]. Culture is a tool that shapes the structure of a language and the ways a language can be used. Therefore, language teachers should draw their students' attention to obtaining cultural knowledge and raise their awareness of different cultures.
According to Zhang [11], in order to improve students' intercultural competences educators are required to take into account three main aspects. First of all, foreign language teachers should have enough intercultural knowledge. They are aware of basic cultural concepts, characteristics and their influence on individuals or a society. They are also constantly mastering their knowledge for not only their learners' target culture, but also for every culture presented in a group. Second, teachers should be able to integrate the culture teaching with the language teaching by using different teaching approaches and methods and using carefully selected learning materials. They are capable of using authentic language materials and inspiring activities that will boost both learners' language proficiency and their ICC. Thirdly, foreign language teachers should be emotionally prepared to face difficulties and challenges which may arise in intercultural classrooms. If misunderstanding takes place among learners, teachers need to be able to solve problems by sharing their intercultural experience with the learners and digging into characteristics of the foreign cultures. Thus, developing teachers and students' intercultural communication competence must be prioritized in intercultural teaching and learning.
Intercultural Communicative Competence.
Intercultural competence is defined by Spitzberg and Chagnon [10] as "the appropriate and effective management of interaction between people who, to some degree or another, represent different or divergent affective, cognitive, and behavioral orientations to the world". This definition demonstrates that intercultural competence is vital for both small multicultural local communities and global contexts. This need requires foreign language teachers to adopt innovative approaches and methods to the curriculum and to recognize and regard the cultural insights of students as an important aspect of educational process [8].
Intercultural communicative competence has been studied by different scholars. As a result, there is a great number of published articles and research papers, that focus on the role of ICC in the language classrooms. One such example is the work of Deardorff [3] that provides the following model of intercultural competence:
• Attitudes: showing respect, openness, and curiosity towards other cultures, as well as the importance of valuing other people.
• Knowledge: social, cultural and linguistic awareness of how different cultures and people can be; the importance to understand that people see the world from different perspectives.
• Skills: knowledge acquisition through the practical abilities of interpreting, analysing, relating, observing and reflecting.
• Internal outcomes: the aspects that are developed within the person as a consequence of the acquired knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for intercultural communication. Internal outcomes consist of empathy towards others and adaptability [7].
• External outcomes: the acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes and the internal outcomes is demonstrated within society through person's behavior and communication, which are the two visible outer outcomes of intercultural competence [7].
Deardorff [3] strongly highlights the importance of students' ability to analyse and reflect on their attitudes, knowledge and skills so that they could form their internal outcomes. If every aspect is successfully completed, individuals will deal with multicultural environment efficiently and will develop a high level of tolerance and empathy towards different cultures [9].
Activities used in class to raise cross-cultural awareness of students.
Deardorff [3] is also known for his seven sets of activities that are designed with the purpose of raising awareness of the culture of the self and the culture of the other. The first set of activities focuses on the reflection on one's own culture. Students are given a task to prepare a presentation, a poster or a guidebook that will be used by visitors and tourists of their country or region. This activity is aimed at both describing and showing the sights and giving advice on some cultural differences and features that might be encountered by the visitors. The second activity from the Deardorff's [3] model is showing students how their culture is seen by people from other cultures. During this activity the students are given different articles of texts from magazines, books or websites written in their target language by people who visited their country or region. Students work with the reviews and talk about the changes in culture or in society that have happened in their country or region. The third set of activities in based on the concept of attitudes that Deardorff [4] built in order to develop students' thirst for curiosity and discovery. This set is aimed to make students familiar with different information sources about the target culture by exposing them to news, TV shows, movies, books, magazines and podcasts. All the information should be provided in a target language and lead to further discussions of the content they have read, heard or seen. Set four is based on the development of skills of evaluation, observation and comparison of cultural clues and meanings. Students might be asked to prepare a presentation or pictures of places or things they find culturally
relevant and to provide some background information. The next set of activities is about exposing students to foreign language native speakers. According to Deardorff [3], the presence of native speakers will lead to the development of listening skills as native speakers do not usually slow down for pedagogical purposes. Also, students will benefit from this activity because they will develop their skills of discovery and curiosity by listening to native speakers' speeches and asking questions related to culture and lifestyle. The last two sets are based on students' and teachers' reflections and observations on their internal and external outcomes. Students are encouraged to share their experience of learning a foreign language and their teachers observe what the external outcomes are by doing surveys and classroom discussion. By doing these seven sets of activities, students will become aware of the target culture and be encouraged to continue exploring it further.
Cross-cultural training for foreign language teachers.
Deardorff [4] claims that intercultural competences development is challenging but it can be trained through various methods and techniques. Intercultural trainings are mostly experience-oriented and rely on interactions. During those trainings, the participants take part in real-life role plays and stimulations that allow them to face different problems caused by cultural misunderstanding and come up with their own solutions. In addition, the participants are asked to find out why possible misunderstandings took place [5]. Such role plays are usually played by two groups representing different cultures and their goal is to communicate effectively and to find a solution if misunderstanding takes place. The participants should understand the features of the opposed cultures and shift their personal cultural frames.
According to Bhawuk [1], the development of intercultural communication through culture-specific trainings cannot be fully enhanced due to the fact that these trainings usually focus on the knowledge of a target culture by ignoring the skills of comparison and reflection of other cultures. Therefore, to achieve better understanding of intercultural communication, it is crucial to focus on both individuals' culture and the culture of a target language.
Conclusion
This paper was aimed to explore and reflect on the concept of intercultural competence and different methods of fostering intercultural awareness in the classroom. The information presented in this article shows how important it is to integrate culture into foreign language teaching and suggests different activities that will encourage students to explore target culture and to behave efficiently in multicultural situations.
The promotion of intercultural communication is highlighted a lot in education due to the fact that there are many new teaching concepts that enhance the relationship between the language and intercultural communication. Foreign language teachers are called upon to master their intercultural knowledge and to create an environment where learners with different cultural
backgrounds will interact with each other efficiently. Even though the process of cross-cultural development is challenging, it can be facilitated by training foreign language teachers through various techniques such as reading the literature, participating in conferences and undertaking different training programs. All these efforts will positively impact the development of Intercultural Communication Competence of both educators and learners.
References
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