THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE TEACHER

THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE TEACHER

One of the most significant changes in language learning and teaching over the past few decades has been the recognition of the cultural dimension as a key component. This change has transformed the nature of the experience of teaching and learning languages to a great extent.

It has now become commonplace to state that foreign language learning should be viewed in an intercultural perspective. The main objective of foreign language education is no longer defined strictly in terms of the acquisition of communicative competence. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural communicative competence. The aim of the study reported on here was to investigate to what extent and in what way teachers' current professional profiles meet the specifications formulated in the theoretical literature regarding the `foreign language and intercultural competence teacher'. To answer this question, an international research design was developed, involving teachers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Our findings suggest that teachers' current foreign language-and-culture teaching profiles do not yet meet those of the envisaged `foreign language and intercultural competence teacher', and that patterns in teacher thinking and teaching practice appear to exist within and across the participating countries.

To conclude, we can say that teachers are moving towards becoming FL&IC teachers, but that at present their profile does not meet all expectations of the ‘foreign language and intercultural competence teacher’ regarding knowledge, skills and attitudes. Individual teachers may already possess the envisaged FL&IC teacher profile. The majority of teachers in all countries participating in this research, however, either have what could be labeled ‘a foreign language teacher profile’, focusing primarily and almost exclusively on the acquisition of communicative competence in the foreign language, or a ‘foreign language and culture teaching profile’, focusing primarily on the acquisition of communicative competence in the foreign language, but also teaching culture so as to enhance pupils’ familiarity with the foreign culture as well as their motivation to learn the foreign language. In the final chapter, we discuss these findings and speculate about their implications for teacher education, educational policy and future research.

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