Intercultural Competence
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In our ever-diversifying world, developing the skillset to interact with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds is becoming more and more essential. While learning a foreign language is a valuable part of developing this skillset, the qualities of a true intercultural person extend far beyond linguistic proficiency and cultural knowledge.
Before enrolling in the MAFLT program, I mostly taught culture in little snippets of information, hoping that somehow, having more knowledge about other cultures would inherently lead to the development of student Intercultural Competence. However, the teaching of culture must go further than that. Instead of teaching "culture snippets," it is more effective to help students develop the skillset to interpret and interact with cultures on their own; this skillset is known as Intercultural Competence
Foreign language education can have a profound impact on the foundational perspectives on which our students can build their Intercultural Competence. Through the open-minded, empathetic, critical perspectives that characterize a rich Intercultural Competence, students will be enabled to successfully interact with people from all cultural backgrounds.
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Now, teaching Intercultural Competence is one of my favorite parts of my job. I love watching students rise above their preconceived notions of the Other and begin to grapple with their identity as an intercultural person. In fact, my final cumulative project for my masters' degree was based around the concept of intercultural competence development. This project, or my "Experiential Module," was entitled Identity in the World Language Classroom: Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence through Social Justice Education. Find out more about this project by clicking the button below:
Intercultural Competence Activity Design
In addition to my Experiential Module, I have prepared several other lessons that focus on student Intercultural Competence development. The following document is a lesson that I created for my "Teaching Culture in Foreign Language Courses" class in the MAFLT program. Please also see the narrated video presentation in which I describe the lesson.