Aprendizaje

y Enseanza del Ingls - ICC

Andrea Rubio Goitia

A REVIEW OF THE TERM INTERCULTURAL

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Intercultural communicative competence is a term widely discussed in the field of
foreign language teaching and learning. Intercultural competence refers to the
knowledge of how to interpret and produce spoken or written piece of discourse within
a particular sociocultural context (Us-Juan & Martinez Flor, 2008: 161). Us-Juan &
Martinez Flor definition of Intercultural Competence is not the only existing one, but
there are other definitions available. Nonetheless, ICC is still a hardly understood term.
Despite the difficulty in understanding what intercultural competence means, it seems
clear that the main aim of learning a foreign language is to be able to communicate with
people of other cultures, so language and culture are integrated in language teaching as
a whole. Indeed, learning a second language is understood as a combination of
Communicative competence (language) and Intercultural Competence (culture). For a
successful language learning, it is not enough to build up linguistic knowledge out of
context, but it is essential to contextualize the language. As Meyer (1991) pointed out,
being intercultural competent means to behave effectively in a flexible manner when
confronted with actions, attitudes and expectations of representatives of foreign
cultures.
Therefore, it is clear that culture is a key element in foreign language teaching and it
should be integrated in the class. Nonetheless, in spite of the fact that teachers are well
aware of the importance of teaching culture, it is difficult for them to put it in practice
and the implementation of a communicative methodology is not an easy task. Cultural
competence in foreign language teaching might be neglected due to different reasons:
teachers usually have overcrowded curriculum to cover and lack the time to spend on
teaching culture; many of them have a limited knowledge of the target culture and, are
afraid to teach it and finally, teachers may be confused about what cultural aspects to
cover (Omaggio, 2001). Moreover, teachers who do not update their sociocultural
competence tend to focus on linguistic competence and omit the sociocultural one
(Costa Afonso, 2011). For this reason, it has been demonstrated that foreign language

Aprendizaje y Enseanza del Ingls - ICC

Andrea Rubio Goitia

learners have shortages in the cultural knowledge of the foreign language (Carrillo
Lpez, 2014).
Thereby, teachers should find a way to incorporate in a successful way the teaching of
culture in their lessons. The role of the teacher is to develop skills, attitudes and
awareness of values just as much as to develop a knowledge of a particular culture or
country or of different cultures within ones own country (Byram, 2001). To do so, the
traditional resources (textbooks) should be adapted to this new situation. As Liddicoat
and Scarino (2013) proposed, a resource for intercultural learning needs to enable
access to and insights about the language and culture that is being learned. So for that
reason, textbooks are not the only resource for teaching culture, but it is very common
for teachers to use other materials, which supplement or replace the traditional textbook.
Authentic resources are widely used because they might seem more relevant to the
learners: literature as an authentic resource, communities of target-language speakers
and the language produces by learners themselves (rarely used). Apart from this
materials used, it is important to focus on new technologies and audio-visual means,
mainly films (Costa Afonso, 2011).
Apart from the adaptation of the resources available for the teaching of culture, there is
also a need of educate teachers in what means to be a teacher nowadays. Firstly,
educators must be sure of the teachers understanding of the concept of intercultural
competence in order to make sure that they are able to incorporate interculturally
competent practices into teaching (Deardoff, 2011). Once the concept of intercultural
competence is clear, teachers should be trained to effectuate their profession in the most
fruitful way. Educators may help teachers to confront with languages and cultures they
are unfamiliar with and encourage them to compare different languages and relate
language and culture (Costa Afonso, 2011). Furthermore, it is essential for teachers to
go abroad for lengthy visits, take part in different seminars in the target language, etc. in
order to acquire their intercultural competence and feel better proficient for the teaching
of the culture of the foreign country. From what we have learnt before, it is quite clear
that teachers are the main source of information and they are situated in the middle of
the teaching-learning experience. For that reason, it is teachers responsibility to
establish the basis for intercultural competence by suggesting to their students how they

Aprendizaje y Enseanza del Ingls - ICC

Andrea Rubio Goitia

can develop their learning and stimulating them to know different cultures (Costa
Afonso, 2011).
As

abovementioned,

most

teachers

realize

the

importance

of

intercultural

communication but they find difficult to integrate the teaching of culture in their lessons
due to the (traditional) resources accessible to them and their own (conventional)
education. Nevertheless, the most remarkable difficulty for teachers is the assessment of
this intercultural communicative competence. As Clouet (2013) mentioned, assessing
intercultural competence is a challenging activity due to the fact that it is much more
complicated to assess awareness and attitude than it is to assess knowledge and skills. In
other words, it is impossible for teachers to assess language skills and culture awareness
in the same way. For that reason, assessing intercultural competence requires extra work
from teachers, who must create and develop new forms of assessment.

As a conclusion, it can be said that intercultural communication in foreign language
courses must not be sidestepped, and teachers must attach importance to the
cultural component in their lessons. Despite the difficulties, the implementation
and the assessment of the intercultural competence is essential in the 21st century
since the development of intercultural competence play an important role in
helping us to live together.


REFERENCES

Byram, M., Nichols, A. and Stevens, D. (2001). Developing Intercultural Competence
in Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Carrillo Lopez, M. J. (2014). Opinin del profesorado de Lengua Extranjera en
torno a la integracin del componente cultural en el aula de idiomas. Porta
Linguarum 21: 265-279.

Aprendizaje y Enseanza del Ingls - ICC

Andrea Rubio Goitia

Clouet, R. (2013). Understanding and assessing intercultural competence in an
online environment: A case study of transnational education programme delivery
between college students in ULPGC, Spain, and ICES, France. RESLA, 26: 139-157.
Costa Afonso, C. (2011). Intercultural Competence: A major Issue in Foreign
Language Teacher Training? In Witte & Hardens Intercultural Competence:
Concepts, Challenges, Evaluations, ISFLL Vol. 10 (Peter Lang International Academic
Publishers)

Deardorff, D.K. (2011). Intercultural Competence in Foreign Language
Classrooms: A Framework and Implications for Educators. In Witte &
Hardens Intercultural Competence: Concepts, Challenges, Evaluations, ISFLL Vol.
10 (Peter Lang International Academic Publishers).

Liddicoat, A. J. and and Scarino, A. (2013). Intercultural Language Teaching and
Learning. Oxford: Blackwell.
Meyer, M. (1991). Developing transcultural competence: Case studies in advance
language learners. Mediating Languages and Cultures: Towards an Intercultural
Theory of Foreign Language Education. Eds. D. Buttjes and M. Byram. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters. 136-158.

Omaggio, A. (2001). Teaching Language in context. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Us-Juan & Martinez Flor (2008). Teaching Intercultural Communicative
Competence through the Four Skills. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses. 21:
157-170.