Noureddine began by describing his teaching context in Morocco. The students he is working with already have a high level of English, but needed to develop their intercultural understanding, and in particular, openness to new ideas. He went on to explain the perspective transformation theoretical framework, as developed by Jack Mezirow.
With increased mobility in the European Higher Education Area, many teachers are now finding that they have students from different cultural backgrounds in their classrooms. Additionally, many English language teachers might be finding that they are now teaching students who are aiming to study a part of their degree, through the medium of English, in a different country.
Cultural awareness seems to be making a re-appearance in the language teaching and learning literature. In this workshop we will focus on the ‘new look’ cultural awareness – intercultural competence (ICC). We will situate its growing importance and discuss what it entails. We will also take a look at a selection of classroom materials and briefly consider assessment of ICC.
