Intercultural language teaching and learning in classroom practice
Date
2020
Authors
Kohler, M.
Editors
Jackson, J.
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Book chapter
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Source details - Title: The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication, 2020 / Jackson, J. (ed./s), Ch.25, pp.413-426
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Abstract
Contemporary understandings of multilingualism and second language learning have led to a new paradigm that presents a major challenge to current language teaching practice. The shift in orientation from communicative to intercultural and symbolic competence has reframed and expanded the goals of language teaching and learning. The revised goals include developing learners’ meta-understandings of language and culture, helping them to make sense of the experience of intercultural communication, and nurturing their abilities as bi-(multi-)lingual language learners and communicators. An intercultural orientation invites language teachers to reconsider their conceptual understandings and pedagogical stance towards all aspects of classroom practice. It involves rethinking the role of language teacher to that of mediator, and developing teachers’ self-awareness of how they can mediate possibilities of being by modeling their own identities as multilingual and intercultural actors. This orientation requires engaging with aspects such as subjectivity, affect, values, and ideology, which for many teachers is unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. This chapter traces key developments in classroom focused research and considers the consequent issues and questions. The discussion outlines implications and recommendations for research and practice, concluding that there is mutual benefit in a dialogic and reciprocal approach, itself reflecting an intercultural orientation.
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Copyright 2020 selection and editorial matter, Jane Jackson; individual chapters, the contributors