This wide-ranging survey of issues in intercultural language teaching and learning covers everything from core concepts to program evaluation, and advocates a fluid, responsive approach to teaching language that reflects its central role in fostering intercultural understanding. Includes coverage of theoretical issues defining language, culture, and communication, as well as practice-driven issues such as classroom interactions, technologies, programs, and language assessment Examines systematically the components of language teaching: language itself, meaning, culture, learning, communicating, and assessments, and puts them in social and cultural context Features numerous examples throughout, drawn from various languages, international contexts, and frameworks Incorporates a decade of in-depth research and detailed documentation from the authors’ collaborative work with practicing teachers Provides a much-needed addition to the sparse literature on intercultural aspects of language education

While research into intercultural teaching has grown exponentially during the past two decades, the research has primarily resorted to the use of quantitative data collection instruments and the interpretation of scores calculated through them. As such, studies in the field can seem somewhat decontextualized, ignoring in some cases setting-specific parameters. Therefore, further study is needed to bring together theory, research, and practice demonstrating how this teaching is reflected in research design and how it is undertaken in different settings. Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Contexts is an essential reference source that provides a series of rich insights into the way intercultural education is practiced in numerous international contexts and showcases practical examples of teaching situations and classroom activities that demonstrate its impact within the classroom. Featuring research on topics such as higher education, multilingualism, and professionalism, this book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, administrators, professionals, academicians, and students seeking pedagogical guidance on intercultural teaching.

This book provides a contemporary and critical examination of the theoretical and pedagogical impact of Michael Byram’s pioneering work on intercultural communicative competence and intercultural citizenship within the field of language education and beyond. The chapters address important theoretical and empirical work on the teaching, learning, and assessment of intercultural learning, and highlight how individual language educators and communities of practice enact intercultural learning in locally appropriate ways. The book offers comprehensive, up-to-date and accessible knowledge for researchers, teachers, teacher-trainers and students.

Many educators aim to engage students in deeply meaningful learning in the language classroom, often facing challenges to connect the students with the culture of the language they are learning. This book aims to demonstrate that substantial intercultural learning can and does occur in the modern language classroom, and explores the features of the classroom that support meaningful culture-in-language-learning. The author argues that transformative modern language education is intimately tied to a view of language learning as an engagement in meaning-making activity, or semiotic practice. The empirical evidence presented is analyzed and then linked to both the theorizing of culture-in-language-teaching and to practical concerns of teaching.

The contributors to this volume have collaborated to present their work on introducing competences in intercultural communication and citizenship into foreign language education. The book examines how learners and teachers think about citizenship and interculturality, and shows how teachers and researchers from primary to university education can work together across continents to develop new curricula and pedagogy. This involves the creation of a new theory of intercultural citizenship and a procedure for implementation. The book is written by teacher researchers who aim to help other teachers, and concludes with reflections on the lessons they have learnt which will help others to implement these ideas in their own practice. The book is essential reading for foreign language educators and researchers, students in pre-service teacher training and teachers in in-service training.

This ground-breaking book is the first to describe in detail how teachers, supported by university educators and education advisers, might plan and implement innovative ideas based on sound theoretical foundations. Focusing on the teaching and learning of intercultural communicative competence in foreign language classrooms in the USA, the authors describe a collaborative project in which graduate students and teachers planned, implemented and reported on units which integrated intercultural competence in a systematic way in classrooms ranging from elementary to university level. The authors are clear and honest about what worked and what didn’t, both in their classrooms and during the process of collaboration. This book will be required reading for both scholars and teachers interested in applying academic theory in the classroom, and in the teaching of intercultural competence.

Intercultural language education has redefined the modern languages agenda in Europe and North America. Now intercultural learning is also beginning to impact on English Language Teaching. This accessible book introduces teachers of EFL to intercultural language education by describing its history and theoretical principles, and by giving examples of classroom tasks.