Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally (original) (raw)

The holistic perspective offered by ethnography has implications for developing cultural literacy in language classrooms. Within intercultural pedagogy (Byram & Fleming 2002), a distinction is made between uses of ethnographic methods as sources of descriptive insights, on the one hand, and uses of ethnography that directly affect the learning and teaching process and transform language students, on the other. The focus of this chapter is on the second of these aspects as I argue for the pedagogic value of an ethnographic process approach (Agar 2006) to intercultural understanding within the context of second languages and cultures (LC2). This approach emphasises the need to develop critical reflection (reflexivity) about one’s own cultural values and knowledge rather than relying on anecdotes, stereotypical knowledge and biased assumptions to account for cultural representations. It explores the ambiguity inherent in intercultural life (Abdallah-Pretceille 2006) and gives access to...