Comparing and Contrasting Teachers’ and Teacher Trainees’ Attitudes Towards Learning and Teaching Intercultural Competence

Abstract

For many decades research, approaches and methods of foreign language teaching have focused on the importance of teacher language awareness, the role of a teacher in a classroom as well as the use of appropriate teaching techniques. In other words, a great value has been placed on those aspects of teaching that allow teachers to develop in their students linguistic skills in the target language. However, one of the roles of a foreign language teacher is to build learners’ intercultural competence, that is, to prepare them to communicate in a multicultural and multilingual world, where they are encouraged to think more deeply and critically about their own and the target language culture in order to be able to mediate between not only two languages, but above all, cultures. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to explore teachers’ and teacher trainees’ attitudes towards learning and teaching intercultural competence with reference to a study carried out at the Department of English of Nicolaus Copernicus University among 138 students of English philology, 78 and 60 of whom were teachers and teacher trainees respectively. The study was based on a questionnaire which investigated the subjects’ attitudes to learning and teaching intercultural competence. The data obtained from the questionnaire are discussed with reference to four areas of intercultural competence, that is, exploring cultures, comparing cultures, exploring self (developing cultural awareness), and finding one’s third place between one’s own and the target language culture (Kramsch 1993). The results of the study have revealed that both the teachers and the teacher trainees understand fostering cultural awareness as primarily teaching cultural facts about the target language culture. The two groups of the respondents do not recognize the importance of developing in learners the ability to bridge their own and the target language culture.

Appendix 1

The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect your opinion regarding foreign language learners’ cultural awareness and teaching cultural competence. The questionnaire is anonymous so please do not put your name.

• 1. Circle the correct answer.

  • (a) I’m a teacher trainee.

  • (b) I’m a teacher.

• 2. Below you will find statements about learners’ cultural awareness and teaching cultural competence. Please read each statement and indicate your opinion by putting in the right column of the chart a number between 0 and 4 as follows:

0—I strongly agree.

1—I agree.

2—I neither agree nor disagree.

3—I disagree.

4—I strongly disagree.

It is important that students are familiar with some facts about the target language culture (e.g. people’s everyday living, their values, beliefs, attitudes, and living conditions, history, geography, cuisine, literature of a country where the language is spoken, etc.)

Students should be able to find similarities and differences between their own and the target language culture

It is crucial to develop in students a positive attitude towards the people of the target language culture

A foreign language teacher should promote among students a positive attitude towards people of other cultures

The role of a foreign language teacher is to make students aware about the aspects of life of social minority groups existing within the target language culture

Foreign language teaching involves teaching the differences in the behaviour typical of both students’ culture and the people of the target language culture

It is important to teach students how to interact (e.g. how to start, maintain and terminate a conversation) with people of the target language culture

It is important to teach students how to interact (e.g. how to start, maintain and terminate a conversation) with people of other cultures

A teacher should shape students’ perception of people of the target language culture and other cultures

It is important that students are in contact with the target language culture and its people through watching TV, listening to the radio, reading newspapers and magazines in the target language, using the Internet and travelling to the target language countries

A foreign language teacher should make students aware of the stereotypes regarding the target language culture

A foreign language teacher should make students aware of the stereotypes regarding cultures other than the target language culture

A teacher should encourage students’ interest in those aspects of the life of people from the target language countries which are not usually presented in the media

A teacher needs to make students look at the target language culture through the perspective of their own culture and at their own culture through the perspective of the target language culture

Students should be taught how to adopt appropriate behaviour, conventions and customs when talking to people of the target language culture

Students should be taught how to adopt appropriate behaviour, conventions and customs when talking to people of cultures other than the target language culture

Foreign language teaching should involve teaching on how to find solutions to problems arising from lack of understanding of the target language and its culture

Foreign language teaching should involve teaching on how to find solutions to problems arising from lack of understanding of aspects of cultures other than the target language culture

Students should be taught the ability to evaluate both their beliefs about the target language culture and the beliefs the people of the target language culture have on students’ culture

Students should be taught the ability to evaluate both their beliefs about cultures other than the target language culture and the beliefs other people have on students’ culture