Cross-cultural Awareness

 Learning a foreign language has always been about the culture of that language. Culture expresses itself through language. Language education is the process the learner needs to go through in order to become adapted to a different culture. Using language effectively requires of the learner an intercultural awareness that includes an awareness of how each community appears from the perspective of the other.

Thus language teaching makes the integration of language and culture indispensable. Intercultural competence includes sociocultural experience and knowledge, the ability to carry out effectively routine actions for daily life (interactive skills), and the critical awareness of the home and target culture.

Foreign language teaching aims at the intercultural speaker who is positioned between two languages and cultures. The cultural dimension in language learning focuses on its educational value. The intercultural speaker is an intermediary between his own culture and the foreign culture. His skills include the capacity to deal effectively with intercultural misunderstanding and conflict situations.



 

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