Language as a social phenomenon in a global context: Implications for teaching practice (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
The pacific coexistence of the European nations, as well as their economic development, depends upon the mutual understanding and cooperation of the European states, based on the equality of rights and duties. Contact areas, where cultures and languages have interwoven and nations have coexisted for ages, represent the European laboratory for mutual coexistence and understanding, born of political and historical challenges well before the implementation of EU strategies. Communication and information exchange are cornerstones that help to improve an understanding of the economic, social and cultural situations of the nations that have decided to follow a common path. Yet, acquiring a satisfactory level of proficiency in a foreign language for communication is no longer sufficient. Participants in conversations bring into their interpersonal communication individual aspects and cultural elements of the environment in which they live. Content transmission depends not only on the langu...
Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 2002
It has been widely recognised in the language teaching profession that learners need not just knowledge and skill in the grammar of a language but also the ability to use the language in socially and culturally appropriate ways. This was the major innovation of 'communicative language teaching'. At the same time, the 'communicative approach' introduced changes in methods of teaching, the materials used, the description of what is to be learnt and assessment of learning. The Council of Europe's 'Common European Framework of Reference' embodies these innovations and also emphasises the importance of 'intercultural awareness', 'intercultural skills', and 'existential competence' (see Appendix 1). The 'Common European Framework', like other recent publications, thus introduces the 'Intercultural Dimension' into the aims of language teaching. Its essence of is to help language learners to interact with speakers of other languages on equal terms, and to be aware of their own identities and those of their interlocutors. It is the hope that language learners who thus become 'intercultural speakers' will be successful not only in communicating information but also in developing a human relationship with people of other languages and cultures.
The Langscape Journal, 2021
This paper investigates the legal framework governing the possibilities for implementation of plurilingual and intercultural education in foreign language teaching in the Republic of Croatia, the contents of initial and lifelong education programmes for students and foreign language teachers which enable them to implement plurilingual and intercultural teaching approaches, and the selfperception of 270 research participants, i.e. 180 foreign language teachers, 51 students of Philology (teacher training), 23 language instructors and 16 key education professionals about these approaches and their ability to implement them in future teaching situations. The analyses were conducted using an analytical matrix designed according to the Framework of reference for pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures (Candelier et al., 2012). The results showed that legal presumptions for plurilingual and intercultural education exist in the Republic of Croatia, both in the Act on Education in Primary and Secondary Schools and related regulations, and in the four analysed foreign language curricula, and that knowledge, attitudes and skills, which reflect plurilingual and intercultural education, are represented to varying degrees within all analysed study programmes. Key terms: foreign language teaching; initial education; intercultural communication competence; language policy; plurilingual and intercultural teaching approaches
GLOBAL AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCES IN LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES TEACHING
Conference Proceedings / Contemporary Challenges in LSP Teaching, 2022
In the present-day globalized and multicultural world, an individual cannot exist without relevant communicative competence. When teaching a language for specific purposes, it is necessary to take into account the existing conditions of language usage and its purpose. Management and economics students will work in a business world that requires language knowledge not only limited to grammar and vocabulary, but also the knowledge of the cultural background of communication in the targeted language. Therefore, it is necessary to develop both, global and intercultural competences as relevant soft skills. In general, the knowledge of cultural specifics of the selected language community is necessary to understand which way of communication is preferred (a part of communicative competence), which non-verbal and extra-linguistic aspects enter the conversation (a part of global competence), and also justifies and explains the existence of intercultural differences (a part of intercultural competence). The teaching material for management and economics students has to be designed concerning all these competences. LSP teaching can make use of the understanding of the processes of globalization and cultural learning in various ways: lectures, role-plays, field trips, discourse analysis, etc. In the paper, the course design at the Faculty of Management and Business at the University of Prešov in Prešov (Slovakia) is presented to illustrate and justify the importance of global and intercultural competences improvement activities as a part of LSP teaching of management students.
European Researcher. Series A, 2018
As human beings, we are aware of the constant changes that world is experiencing rather rapidly. Technology has an important impact on our present and very likely on our future as well. The population flow is increasing, caused by different reasons such as jobs, family, better future outlook etc. As a person moves, so their culture changes, willingly or not. In majority of cases, moving to another place forces a person to adapt to new cultures and that also includes learning the target culture's language. It is argued by many experts that through the learning of a new language a person can become very familiar with the culture itself. In that process, a certain filter is needed that will keep balance and minimize conflicts between the "old" and the "new" culture of an individual. That filter is intercultural education. The aim of this research was to determine the extent to which intercultural education has been established in tertiary education in Bosnia and Herzegovina through Foreign Language Learning. The instrument used for this research consists of 50 questions comprising four subscales: intellectual flexibility, interaction engagement, interaction confidence, and attitudes. The research sample consists of 160 students from three universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina two of which are private universities and one state university. The results show that the type of the university, students' educational level, and gender significantly affect their intercultural development. The significance of the findings of this study lies in the fact that they might be employed during the process of planning and execution of foreign language teaching and learning steps.
Intercultural Competence in Textbooks of Croatian as a Mother Tongue
Studies in Educational Management
The development of language competences is the fundamental goal of educational documents at the world (Eight Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning, 2008; 2020), European (CEFRL, 2015) and national level Curriculum for the subject Croatian language for elementary schools and high schools (2019). This implies the development of language communication and linguistic competence. In the process of primary school language learning, it is important to develop linguistic and communicative competence, which includes sociolinguistic, strategic and pragmatic competence, but also intercultural competence. Intercultural competence is most often defined as competence in which knowledge of elements of different cultures that are in contact with the dominant culture is developed or the child gets to know them through different contents in order to understand the world in which he lives. In Croatian language classes, the child most often encounters this competence through various texts that are wri...
Teaching Intercultural Competence to Croatian Learners Of Italian Language
Jezik, književnost i obrazovanje - suvremeni koncepti, 2020
Over the last few decades, the teaching of culture in foreign language courses has become an increasingly relevant part of the education process, since it is widely known that language and culture go hand in hand. There is no linguistic competence without a cultural competence; this also entails that language learners should be prepared from an intercultural perspective (Moeller, Nugent 2014). Having in mind the aforementioned facts, the present contribution aims at examining the modalities and strategies in which intercultural competence can be developed, as well as looking at the relevance of such knowledge within a given didactic framework. Not only is the intercultural perspective necessary to improve linguistic competences; it also leads to a better understanding of oneself and one’s cultural identity (Borghetti, 2017). For the purpose of examining different points of view, we conducted the research observing specific didactic scenarios involving Croatian teachers and Croatian students of Italian language, a situation in which the learners’ culture, though not drastically different from the one being taught, requires to develop intercultural activities in order to actually achieve an exhaustive language learning process. Some teachers feel the lack of ready-made materials that could help them act as a bridge between the two cultures, but they are aware of the importance of digital environment in teaching cultural aspects. From the students’ point of view it is impossible to learn Italian language without learning about the Italian culture. The classroom activities stimulate them to explore it further on their own. The results confirm the need for a more elaborated approach to the development of intercultural competence in the courses.