Welcome to the first post in my new weekly series on key ELT concepts! 🌟✨📚 Every week, I’ll be exploring a new topic, sharing insights, and discussing practical applications to enhance your teaching practice. This week, I will be looking into Intercultural Communication (IC) in English Language Teaching (ELT), providing a comprehensive approach to navigating cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom.
What is Intercultural Communication
IC refers to interactions where cultural and linguistic differences play a significant role. It’s about navigating and negotiating between diverse cultural identities, languages, and practices—something increasingly relevant in our globalized world.
Historically, language learning focused on understanding the culture of native speakers. Today, with English serving as a global lingua franca, IC is essential for learners engaging in diverse, multicultural settings.
My Take on IC in ELT
As a CELTA trainer and teacher, I’ve seen the importance of equipping teachers and learners to navigate cultural and linguistic diversity. 🌎📚✨ What stands out about IC is its emphasis on moving away from a "native speaker" ideal toward developing "intercultural speakers." This shift aligns more closely with the global reality of English as a lingua franca. 🌐✨🔄
Classroom Applications
Here are three ways you can integrate IC into your teaching:
📖 Incorporate Intercultural Activities
Sample Task: Ask students to research greeting customs in different cultures and role-play introducing themselves as if meeting people from those cultures. Then, discuss how these customs reflect cultural values.
🗣️ Expand Communicative Competence
Sample Task: Provide students with scenarios where they interpret ambiguous cultural cues (e.g., a gesture or phrase). Students work in pairs to discuss how to respond politely and flexibly.
📚 Tailor Materials to Learners’ Contexts
Sample Task: Provide students with phrases commonly used in workplace or classroom settings (e.g., "Can you send this over by the end of the day?" or "This needs to be done differently."). Ask them to discuss how these phrases might be interpreted in different cultural contexts—whether polite, impolite, or neutral. Then, have them collaboratively rephrase the sentences to make them more universally polite and culturally adaptable.
Dive Deeper
For a more in-depth exploration, check out this insightful webinar on English for Global Communication: Applying Mediation Skills in English for a Culturally Rich World. 🎥✨ This webinar, which is provided by National Geographic Learning ELT , offers valuable insights into enhancing intercultural communication through mediation skills, making it a highly relevant and interesting resource for teachers and learners alike. 🌐☀️✨
Additionally, you can access the original academic article on this topic published in Oxford University Press ELT Journal: Intercultural Communication. 📖✨ This provides a scholarly perspective on the topic for those who want to dive deeper into the theoretical foundations.
Join the Conversation
How do you incorporate intercultural communication into your teaching? I’d love to hear your experiences and ideas in the comments. 💻 Let’s learn and grow together! 🌟
Stay tuned for next week’s post, where I’ll tackle another exciting ELT concept! 📚🌎✨
Comments