As many scholars in foreign language education and applied linguistics have noted, culture is one of the most widely-used and least agreed-upon concepts in our field. This course is intended to embrace that complexity but also lead toward some clarity in the principles that can guide our pedagogical decisions and practices in regard to teaching culture and intercultural competence. To that end, the course begins with overviews of the many definitions and facets of culture and provides opportunities to reflect on your own understandings of culture. We will then delve into the theoretical underpinnings of culture and intercultural communication. Following that, we will explore frameworks for teaching not only cultural knowledge but also intercultural competence and discuss current national and international standards for teaching culture. Throughout the semester, we will consider the implications of these issues for teaching and assessing culture and intercultural competence in foreign language courses.
The tasks for this course, which parallel the components of Byram and Zarate’s (1997) intercultural competence framework, include reflective tasks, observation tasks, activity design tasks, and an investigative task in which you will use ethnographic interviews to engage with the themes of this course as they relate to specific individuals and contexts.
