TEFL BASICS

PREPARATION TOPIC 5: Intercultural Learning, Transcultural Learning, and Global Education (key)

Before you read: How would you define “intercultural communicative competence”?

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TASK: Read the texts and fill in the preparation sheet.  Literature Risager, Karen. (²2013). Introduction: Intercultural Learning. In Maria Eisenmann & Theresa Summer (Eds.), Basic Issues in EFL Teaching and Learning (pp. 143-155). Winter. Freitag-Hild, Britta. (2018). Teaching Culture – Intercultural Competence, Transcultural Learning, Global Education. In Carola Surkamp & Britta Viebrock (Eds), Teaching English as a Foreign Language (pp. 159-177). J.B. Metzler.

Part 1: Historical background

Multilingual Europe  before the latter half of the 19th century until

 th th  the Establishment of Nations ( 19 and 20 centuries) nationally structured view of the world 1880s ← Discussions About Content and Aims of Foreign Language Teaching  most profound discussions of culture teaching in Germany: Realienkunde  simple knowledge of realia or facts about a country  Landeskunde insight into a country’s geography, history, and society 1970s Kulturkunde  knowledge of national culture (literature, arts, etc.) 1880s to the ←  1950s especially in the USA: focus on teaching everyday culture Development of Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Teaching

 traditional term Landeskunde was abandoned by some  interdisciplinary and critical movement Cultural Studies in the teaching of English (e.g. Kramer) ← 1970s  ‘The expanded text concept’ (authentic, non-fiction) Cultural Turn in the Context of Postmodernism

 the anthropological concept of culture (e.g. Geertz, Byram, Zarate)  psychological orientation of culture (e.g. Baumgratz-Gangl) ← 1980s  visual aspect of cultural teaching due to the development of video technology

Intercultural Learning as an Integral Part of Language Learning  model of intercultural communicative competence (Byram)

 internationalisation  great access to transnational personal contacts (e.g. school trips, e-mail) ← 1990s Focus on Diversity – Raising Cultural Awareness  postmodernist tendency  playing with language, with different perspectives and voices, with imagined worlds (Kramsch)  culture pedagogy  knowledge of culture and society (Doyé; Sercu)

 cultural approaches to literature pedagogy  Fremdverstehen (Bredella/Christ)

  ← ethnographic approaches field work (at home and abroad) (Roberts, Byram) today  critical citizenship  human rights education in foreign languages (Guilherme)  culture in language  languaculture (Risager, Crozet/Liddicoat)  transnational perspectives  all languages are spoken all over the world, multilingual and multi- /transcultural societies (Risager)

TOPIC 5: Intercultural Learning, Transcultural Learning, and Global Education 1

TEFL BASICS

Part 2: The term culture

• A controversial term: many meanings, common distinction: high vs. low culture, but avoided today; focus: describing and understanding culture and processes of cultural change • A set of shared meanings: members of a group share certain meanings, but: culture is heterogeneous, always in a flux • Three dimensions: 1) material culture (artefacts), 2) mental culture (ideas, norms, values, perceptions, worldviews, ideologies), 3) social culture (educational, administrative, political judicial) and cultural agents (individuals, groups) (Posner 2003)

Part 3: Intercultural communicative competence (ICC)

• Michael Byram’s (1997) concept of ICC consists of five components:

Skills of interpreting and relating: interpret foreign culture, relate it to one’s own) (savoir comprendre) Knowledge: Critical cultural awareness: Attitudes: of self and other, of evaluate own/foreign culture Relativise self, value interaction (savoir) (savoir s’engager) others (savoir etre) Skills of discovery and interacting: discover facts about foreign culture, apply in interaction (savoir apprendre/faire)

• Intercultural learning in German ELT research: Didaktik des Fremdverstehens (Bredella/Christ 1995) = aimed at developing learners’ ability to understand people who speak a different language and have a different cultural background; importance of entering into a dialogue between “self” and “other”.

Part 4: Transcultural perspectives

• Transculturality: refers to a number of characteristics shared by modern cultures (inner differentiation,

polyphony, cultural complexity, hybridity, external networking, entanglements with other cultures)

• Transcultural identities: questioning and transgressing traditional categories (national, cultural etc.) • Principles for intercultural and transcultural learning 1) Multiperspectivity (multiple perspectives, making sure that diverse voices are represented and heard in the classroom) 2) Dialogue (between learner & literary text, different cultural views, important in task design) 3) Reflection (learners should be able to reflect critically upon their own perspective, break up ethnocentric views or essentialist concepts of culture and identity)

Part 5: Global education

• = an approach to education which aims to enable young people to become responsible global citizens,

actively taking part in shaping a better world (Cates, 2000)

• In the classroom: focus on international themes, global issues (Lütge, 2015)

TOPIC 5: Intercultural Learning, Transcultural Learning, and Global Education 2