Abstract
This contribution shows a study on the intercultural competence of students of the degree in primary education at the University of Murcia, Spain. The importance of the culture associated with the learning of a language will be stated as the main idea, while the training process of future educators will be analysed so as to find out whether it is adequate. By means of an exploratory-descriptive research design, the authors worked with students from different courses (a decade apart) in order to compare their behaviour in terms of communicative and intercultural competence. Using a measuring instrument based on responses to seven case studies, data were extracted which led to conclusions that show that, although there are some differences between the two groups studied, there are still some gaps in the cultural knowledge of a foreign language and grammatical problems arising from a classroom approach that is far removed from the communicative-functional one.
TopBackground
Both the teaching of foreign languages and the conditions for the learning to take place have constituted major and recurring aspects of research studies for a very long time. Nevertheless, we might dare say that most of the interventions resulting from such research have not lived up to the expectations and demands of the majority of the educational and social communities. The linguistic relativity pointed out by Whorf (1971), where reality is reflected according to the linguistic structures and the changing semantic attribution that its speakers generate, has a significant influence on the cultural construction that is attached to the language, constantly feeding back into it. The implementation of an intercultural education that fosters linguistically and culturally responsible citizens becomes a challenge of important dimensions (Barili and Byram, 2021; Tajeddin and Ghaffaryan, 2020) especially at a time when everything tends towards globalization and, identities and nationalisms are extolled at times. Becoming culturally aware then constitutes an effective method of prevention or awareness of cultural differences and otherness. Therefore, educators' beliefs (Tran and Dang, 2014) together with the assumption that teaching a foreign language is also showing its associated culture (Baleghizadeh and Saneie, 2013; Sun, 2013) are key aspects for the didactics concerning this non-native language to be adequately developed.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Communicative Atmospheres: A design of teaching and learning processes that promote the functional communicative approach so that language acquisition can be developed in a contextual way.
Joint Language and Culture Materials: Materials developed taking into account the link between language and culture, allowing both to be acquired and developed simultaneously.
Contextualised or Situated Teaching: A model of socio-educational intervention which takes account of social developments and cultural conditioning factors which have an impact on concepts or content.
Intercultural Competence: The ability to understand and take on board cultural concepts and behaviours which are linked to a language and show signs of identity of a particular society.
Communicative Competence: The ability to produce and understand utterances adjusted to socio-cultural contexts that are meaningful to the individual.
Visible and Invisible Language Learning: A set of teaching strategies which include some explicit aspects (visible content) and others which are part of the hidden curriculum. The latter may come from formal, non-formal and informal contexts.
Integrated Language and Culture Curriculum: A set of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours which take into account the fact that language is linked to culture and, therefore, approaches language teaching by valuing both elements equally.