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Language teacher education forintercultural understandingCecilia Garrido a & Inma Álvarez aa The Open University , UKPublished online: 19 Jan 2007.
To cite this article: Cecilia Garrido & Inma Álvarez (2006) Language teacher education forintercultural understanding, European Journal of Teacher Education, 29:2, 163-179, DOI:10.1080/02619760600617342
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Language teacher education for
intercultural understanding
Cecilia Garrido* and Inma AlvarezThe Open University, UK
Over recent decades language teaching and learning has undergone a redefinition of the subject
and a rapid change in its methodology. Language programmes can now be delivered in
technology-based environments and communication at an international level can be a daily
occurrence. This paper on the one hand analyses how these developments have extended and
challenged the traditional roles and responsibilities of language teachers. On the other, it examines
to what extent established models of language teacher education acknowledge and address the
needs of language teachers today, in particular in relation to the integration of the intercultural
dimension into language teaching and learning.
Au cours des recentes decennies l’enseignement–apprentissage des langues s’est vu redefini et a
connu une rapide evolution en matiere de methodologie. On peut aujourd’hui delivrer les cursus
de langue par le moyen d’environnements technologiques, et il est devenu banal de communiquer
internationalement de cette facon. Dans la presente etude nous cherchons d’une part a cerner les
defis que presente cette evolution pour les roles et responsabilites traditionnels des enseignants de
langue. D’autre part nous demandons dans quelle mesure les modeles en vigueur en matiere de
formation des enseignants reconnaissent les nouveaux besoins de ceux-ci, notamment en ce qui
concerne l’integration de la dimension interculturelle dans leur pratique.
Im Bereich Sprachenlehren und lernen haben sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten grundlegende
Veranderungen ergeben, vor allem im Hinblick auf Methodologie. Sprachkurse konnen jetzt per
Computer zu den Adressaten gebracht werden und Kommunikation uber Grenzen hinweg wird
potentiell zum alltaglichen Ereignis. Hier soll untersucht werden inwieweit diese Entwicklungen
die traditionelle Rolle und den Verantwortungsbereich von Sprachenlehrer/innen erweitert und
verandert haben. Daruberhinaus wird uberpruft inwieweit die herkommliche Ausbildung der
Sprachenlehrer/innen den heutigen Anforderungen gerecht wird, vor allem im Hinblick auf die
interkulturelle Dimension des Lehren und Lernens von Fremd- und Zweitsprachen.
En las ultimas decadas la ensenanza y el aprendizaje de las lenguas ha pasado por una
redefinicion de su contenido y un rapido cambio en su metodologıa. Los programas de estudios se
pueden realizar en entornos basados en las nuevas tecnologıas y la comunicacion a nivel
internacional puede darse a diario. Este artıculo de una parte analiza de que manera estos cambios
han ampliado y desafiado los papeles y las responsabilidades que los profesores de lenguas han
tenido tradicionalmente. De otra parte, examina hasta que punto los modelos que se han venido
utilizando para la formacion de profesores de idiomas reconocen y suplen sus necesidades en la
*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education and Language Studies, The Open University,
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Email: [email protected]
European Journal of Teacher Education
Vol. 29, No. 2, May 2006, pp. 163–179
ISSN 0261-9768 (print)/ISSN 1469-5928 (online)/06/020163-17
# 2006 Association for Teacher Education in Europe
DOI: 10.1080/02619760600617342
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actualidad, en particular en lo que se refiere a la integracion de la dimension intercultural en la
ensenanza y el aprendizaje de las lenguas.
Reconceptualising language teaching and learning
In recent years language teaching and learning has experienced not only a
redefinition of its subject content, but also the application of diverse pedagogical
models and new educational contexts. The teaching and learning of foreign
languages has been gradually reconceptualised. The languages domain has gone
fuzzy. It is now conceived ‘as a multifaceted discipline in a state of flux, moving in
and out of new and old epistemological boundaries’ (Di Napoli & Polezzi, 2001,
p. 12). As a result, it seems that ‘we lack consensus on what knowing a language
means’ (Hedgcock, 2002, p. 301), and therefore the expectations of the stakeholders
are not always the same.
Language theory and practice have evolved from behaviouristic approaches to
models based on competence, autonomy and self-determination (Roberts, 1998).
The focus of the teaching and learning experience has changed. The purely
communicative approach has been left behind. Constructivist methods encourage
the transformation of the traditional teacher-centred classroom into a learner-
centred environment. Collaborative and distributive methodologies encourage the
sharing of responsibilities among students and teachers (Bass, 2003). Learning takes
place in a wide variety of formal and informal contexts that range from the
conventional classroom to virtual environments where time and location have no real
borders. It is clear that responsibilities in the teaching and learning process no longer
have definite boundaries. All this has called for a revision of the elements and means
of delivery of the subject content, a redefinition of the aims and outcomes of the
languages curriculum and of the roles and skills learners and teachers must develop
in different environments.
One of the most significant changes over the past few decades has been the
recognition of the cultural dimension as a key component of language studies. This
has transformed the nature of the experience of teaching and learning languages.
The traditional aim of developing linguistic skills modelled on the so-called standard
linguistic norm of the native speaker has lost ground. Instead, languages are being
related (at least in theory) not so much to specific linguistic models and nations but
to the cultures, communities and societies that use them for communication.
According to this model, language learners aspire to become competent intercultural
speakers. To achieve this, students are guided in the acquisition of a wide range of
generic independent skills that will contribute to the development of their knowledge
and understanding of a target language and culture, but that will also help them
reflect on their own.
The intercultural dimension in foreign languages emphasises effective cross-
cultural communication based on the acquisition of a key set of competences.
Michael Byram’s well-known model of intercultural communicative competence
(ICC) identifies five different factors involved: Knowledge (savoirs), Attitudes (savoir
164 C. Garrido and I. Alvarez
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etre), Skills of interpreting and relating (savoir comprendre), Skills of discovery and
interaction (savoir apprendre/faire), and Political education including critical cultural
awareness (savoir s’engager) (1997, p. 34). Knowledge includes learning about social
groups, products, practices and processes of interaction. Attitudes involve curiosity
and openness towards the other as well as readiness to revise cultural values and
beliefs, and to interact and engage with otherness. Skills of interpreting and relating
mean an ability to identify and explain cultural perspectives and mediate between
them. Skills of discovery and interaction refer to an ability to identify, understand
and function in new cultural contexts. Finally, intercultural competence involves an
ability for critical evaluation against explicit perspectives and criteria. Later, Lies
Sercu (2002a) explained the integrated nature of these savoirs and argued for the
explicit incorporation of a communicative competence (savoir comuniquer) into the
original scheme (cf. Kim (1991) and Wiseman (1989)). Intercultural competence
has been summed up as ‘an ethical orientation in which certain morally right ways of
being, thinking and acting are emphasised’ (Jokikokko, 2005, p. 79). Other
perspectives on the cross-cultural approach to language teaching refer to a ‘multi-
cultural’ or a ‘transcultural’ competence (Risager, 1998), or to ‘languaging’, an
ontological concept which proposes to focus beyond the acquisition of competence and
advocates that ‘languages are a social justice issue […] skilfully embodied and enacted,
are part of the richness of human being’ (Phipps & Gonzalez, 2004, p. xv).
Language teachers have to be familiar not only with these concepts, but also with
what lies behind the new skills and strategies their students are expected to learn. For
this, teachers are asked to teach for intercultural understanding, which means that
they need explicit training in dealing with social and cultural values, the importance
of linguistic and cultural diversity and citizenship (Kelly et al., 2004). It is therefore
important to analyse, on the one hand, how the cultural dimension has modified the
profile of the language teacher. In other words, some questions need to be
considered: What are the implications of these changes in practical terms? To what
extent do language teachers want and are able to follow an intercultural approach in
their teaching? On the other hand, it is equally important to study to what extent
education programmes for language teachers support the development of an
intercultural dimension. To arrive at some answers it may be useful to look at how
this dimension gained its place in language teaching and learning.
The cultural dimension in language policies
The theoretical reconceptualisation of language teaching and learning, as well as the
political and cultural changes that have taken place in the global environment have
influenced the formulation of language policies, and as a result various frameworks
have emerged in different geographical contexts.
In the UK back in 1918 the Leathes Report referred to language learning as an
educative objective with no real societal implications, and therefore its cultural
dimension was ignored. It was not until many decades later that the social benefits of
language learning were articulated in a government policy document, if only for
Intercultural understanding 165
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the utilitarian advantages that the command of a second language can bring
(Department of Education and Science, 1983). The importance of the training of
teachers for intercultural understanding was soon officially acknowledged by The
Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (1984) in a document that
recommended that ‘the training given to teachers should equip them to adopt an
intercultural approach and be based on an awareness of the enrichment constituted
by intercultural understanding and of the value and originality of each culture’ (p. 2).
In 2002 the British Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education finally
developed benchmarking statements that acknowledged the intercultural nature of
language learning, although in the 1990s it was already generally accepted that
culture was at the core of the language teaching and learning process (Kramsch,
1993). At the same time, a report on the state of training of primary and secondary
language teachers from a research team at the University of Southampton in the UK
to the European Commission, recommended a more extensive integration of
intercultural or sociocultural pedagogy in teacher education and the development of
a European Benchmark for Language Teacher Training (see Kelly et al., 2002).
In Europe one of the most influential documents currently promoting the
importance of intercultural competence in language learning is the Council of
Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning,
Teaching, Assessment (2001). Language practitioners and institutions across
Europe and beyond are encouraged to interpret it within their own context.
However, it is interesting to note that, although the framework outlines quite a
detailed structure for the development of intercultural competence (based mainly on
Byram’s model of savoirs), it does not offer descriptors for intercultural competence
as it does in relation to linguistic command.
Similar initiatives have taken place in other parts of the world. For instance, in the
United States, cultural education for language teachers was a feature, for example, of
the California Foreign Language Project (1988). In 1992, the American Association
of Teachers of French (AATF) created the Commission of Cultural Competence,
which by 1995 had proposed a framework that promoted the understanding and
knowledge of French-speaking societies. A year later the National Standards in
Foreign Language Education Project (NSFLEP) specified a number of linguistic
and cultural objectives for language teaching and learning in higher education. More
recently cultural issues were reflected in the Program Standards for the Preparation of
Foreign Language Teachers proposed by The American Council on Teaching of
Foreign Languages (2002). Similarly, in Australia the cultural dimension has been
an integral part of the Language Education Policy (LEP) since it came into place in
1987 (Liddicot, 2004).
The practical challenges for teachers
In reality, policy reforms are usually ahead of teacher development, and teachers are
often left to their own devices, when it comes to interpreting the new frameworks
(Field, 2000). Yet this is a process which often implies transforming not only the
content of the curriculum, but also the materials that will support the learning
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process and the forms of assessment that will demonstrate that the new objectives
are being achieved. At the same time, language teachers need to be able to adapt
their roles and responsibilities to the new requirements.
Language teachers need somehow to interpret government and institutional
statements that refer to the importance of cultural values in one way or another.
They also have to embrace the theoretical aspects of the new teaching approaches
and the pedagogical assumptions that underlie particular policies. They have to
adopt strategies that often demand ‘alteration of beliefs’ (Fullan, 1991, p. 37).
Studies have shown that teachers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to
integrate the teaching of culture into the curriculum. However, there seems to be no
assured way of establishing a cohesive relationship between course objectives and
how they are reflected in the syllabus; between syllabus and course materials; and
between classroom practice and the assessment of intercultural skills (Valette, 1986;
Ruane, 1999; Lazar, 2001; Liddicot, 2004). Furthermore, evidence demonstrates
that language students are taught culture but they are not discovering it by
themselves. Lies Sercu’s (2002b) study of Flemish, Danish and British teachers
illustrates this very clearly as it concludes that ‘teachers tend to take little account of
their pupils’ abilities, needs and interests in the area of culture learning and the
acquisition of intercultural competence, and adopt teacher-centred approaches to
culture teaching’ (p. 164)
Language teachers have been urged ‘to go beyond the mechanics of language
and delve, head-on, into the world of cross-cultural literacy’ (Furstenberg
et al., 2001, p. 31). They have been told that language education should not be
separated from intercultural education (Byram, 1997; Nelson, 1998; Sercu,
2002a). The problem is that, often, teachers do not know exactly how to achieve
this.
Failures in the practical implementation of the intercultural dimension have been
attributed to a number of factors. It has been argued, for instance, that the lack of a
consistent methodology for the teaching of culture has made it difficult for
practitioners to identify cultural objectives and in many cases such objectives have
remained outside core language teaching and learning (Starkey, 1990). Cultural
objectives still range widely from simple awareness of differences between cultures,
to the development of positive attitudes, deeper insight into the other culture(s) and
the ability to mediate between the target culture and one’s own. Even when cultural
objectives have been clearly outlined, further decisions have to be made as to what
cultural aspects should be included to enhance communication and how they can be
introduced to students. There do not seem to be clear criteria that can facilitate such
decisions (Met, 1993), and therefore ‘language teaching is still operating on a
relatively narrow conception of both language and culture’ (Kramsch & Murphy-
Lejeune, 1996, p. 105). Research carried out among European language teachers
also reveals ‘the absence of any systematic presentation of the topic of ICC’
(Aleksandrowicz-Pedich et al., 2003, p. 11).
Coterminous with the definition of objectives is the fact that the concept of culture
is fluid and problematic. It is a multifaceted concept that, as we have already pointed
Intercultural understanding 167
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out, is no longer exclusively associated with national boundaries. Modern societies
are shaped by complex cultural factors that often cut across country borders.
However, the complexity of the concept is rarely acknowledged in the policies or
present in the objectives and textbooks for language learners. As some studies have
revealed, the persistent uncertainties surrounding the cultural dimension in language
teaching has had a negative impact on teachers’ confidence. Foreign language
teachers have to find their own stand in relation to the concept of culture in the new
environment but ‘teachers as a group have no common framework for deciding what
is an appropriate concept of culture for their teaching context’ (Byram & Risager,
1999, p. 83). They often find themselves sponsoring a variety of aims that they feel
unable to fulfil (see e.g. Castro et al., 2004), they feel ill-prepared, nervous and
reluctant to focus beyond their linguistic competence (Kramsch & Murphy-Lejeune,
1996).
In addition, to the intercultural challenges, teachers nowadays are asked to
anticipate and understand their learners’ needs and to cater for them accordingly
(Field, 2000; Willems, 2002). Language teachers have to develop ‘an understanding
of the learners’ investments in the target language and their changing identities’
(Norton, 2000, p. 137). This brings to the fore educational challenges relating to the
students’ cultural diversity, variety of learning styles and wide ranging levels of
competence and learning expectations. It has been argued that ‘in some respects,
conventional methods of university teaching may be insensitive to the complexity,
challenges, richness and potential of multicultural study groups’ (Stier, 2003, p. 88).
The implication here is that teachers need to be trained to be responsive to differing
individual profiles.
It is well recognised that language teachers have to match an increasingly
demanding profile (Ruane, 1999; Stier, 2003); that there is too much content to
know (Met, 1993) and to teach (Sturtridge, 1997). As we have seen, language
teachers face new general teaching demands as well as the specific challenges that the
new intercultural dimension implies. Language teachers’ roles and responsibilities
have become blurred as learning (in groups or individually) happens in a wide variety
of settings and under a wide range of pressures. Teachers feel they are no longer in
control but somewhat in between the learners and the learning environment. Their
domain has been transformed and therefore there is an urgent need to clarify what
their new roles and responsibilities are.
The roles and responsibilities of the language teacher
Trends in educational pedagogy have traditionally contributed to the definition of
the roles and responsibilities of language teachers, and these have usually been
linked to specific learning contexts. To be able to appreciate the profile required by
language teachers in the twenty-first century it is necessary to understand the full
complexity and interrelatedness of their roles and responsibilities. Social and
political changes, the need for cross-cultural cooperation in the global village, the
information and communication explosion and the changing views on language
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teaching and learning, with an emphasis on constructivist and lifelong autonomous
learning, are all factors that contribute to the definition of the language teacher’s role
today (Sturtridge, 1997; Byram & Risager, 1999).
The literature suggests that language teachers need to be equipped with complex
skills in order to competently carry out multiple educational, psychosocial, technical
and ethical roles. Language teachers’ main educational roles include being:
providers of accurate language models, materials developers, evaluators, commu-
nicators, analyzers (Richards, 1990; Stanley, 2004). On the psychosocial front the
language teacher is required to be: carer, motivator, coach, guide, counsellor, friend,
organizer and controller of behaviour, advisor, as well as supporter of students’ work
(Richards, 1990; Sheerin, 1997; Voller, 1997; Lieberman, 2003). From a technical
point of view the language teacher is expected to be resource, resource manager,
consultant, facilitator, monitor, coordinator, among other things (Hammond &
Collins, 1991; Lixl-Purcell, 1996; Sturtbridge, 1997; Voller, 1997; Roberts, 1998).
Language teachers have also been attributed a number of ethical roles often linked to
the intercultural dimension. They have been asked to act as mediators, interpreters,
cultural workers (Byram, 2002; Guilherme, 2002), as agents of political and social
change (McIntyre-Mills, 2000), and as liberatory educators (Diaz-Greenberg &
Nevin, 2003). These ethical roles imply the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.
Teachers have to become familiar with basic insights into ethnography, cultural
anthropology, anthropological linguistics, culture learning theory and intercultural
communication (Dunnett et al., 1986; Sercu, 2002b).
New roles have brought with them new responsibilities for the language teacher. It
is probably in carrying out their ethical roles that language teachers encounter
their major challenges, as their actions in this area have potentially high social and
political consequences. Teachers face here a sensitive and uncomfortable task, one
of transforming learners’ attitudes and beliefs starting with a thorough review of
their own. Essential conditions to a transformative pedagogy are the creation of a
strong sense of trust in the classrooms and a ‘dialogical relationship’ between
teachers and their students (Jokikokko, 2005, p. 76). The cultural dimension
demands that teachers be prepared to fully embrace the belief that they shouldn’t /
can’t be neutral: ‘As cultural workers, foreign language/culture teachers should
commit themselves to the moral and political struggle for improving the quality of
intercultural communication and, therefore, of human life in general’ (Guilherme,
2002, p. 57).
If teachers accept their role as agents of change, then their main responsibility is to
ensure that teaching brings about changes. Language teachers become responsible
for enabling their students to ‘understand the world around them, to communicate
across linguistic and cultural boundaries, and to play an active role at many levels in
the world’ (Kelly et al., 2002, p. 3). Furthermore, language teachers need to facilitate
and challenge the interaction between the target culture and the students’ own.
Ultimately they should aim at transforming students’ consciousness by getting them
to reflect on ‘what they ‘‘are’’ in their own culture and then, […] to relate to ‘‘other
ways of being’’ in the target culture’ (Boylan, 2001, pp. 18–19).
Intercultural understanding 169
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Teachers’ concerns in the ethical sphere are due to the fact that they are not
always sure of the level of their responsibility as educators. Language teachers do not
know to what extent it is their job to confront and alter students’ ethical stances.
Teachers keep asking: ‘how far is it our right or responsibility to politically re-
educate our students? When does awareness-raising become proselytising?’
(Timmis, 2002, p. 249). While some educators are very clear that their ethical roles
and responsibilities are important and cannot be ignored (Guillherme, 2002), others
doubt the role of the language teacher should go that far (Ruane, 1999), and others
leave the ethical challenges to individual choice (Byram, 1997; Byram et al., 2002).
This divergence of opinions has not contributed to the advancement of the
intercultural dimension in language teaching. It seems that the long-standing focus
on linguistic competence continues to dominate teachers’ perceptions of their role.
As a result teachers’ fundamental educational responsibilities in relation to
intercultural development are yet to be fulfilled.
Separately, in their new roles teachers also have to become learners, as aware as
their pupils of social changes in the local and international domains. The concept,
however, is not something new and it was indeed encouraged by the defenders of
experiential learning, the ‘teacher acts as a fellow investigator rather than as an
expert, but encourages students to observe and analyze their experiences’ (Bennett,
1986, p. 273). The teacher becomes a mediator, an ethnographer, a researcher and a
learner (a true life-long learner) side by side with his/her students. It is very clear that
the role of the language teacher has expanded very much beyond its traditional
boundaries and therefore the nature of teachers’ responsibilities has also changed.
Teacher education programmes need to take into account teachers’ extended roles
and responsibilities not only as educators but also as learners. As Lies Sercu remarks,
‘it is crucial to make teachers experience that the innovation at hand requires
changes in their self-concept, in their professional qualifications, in their attitudes
and skills […] teachers need to start seeing themselves not only as trainers but also as
trainees’ (Sercu, 1998, p. 256). How prepared language teachers are to fulfil all these
new roles and to carry out the corresponding responsibilities as teachers and learners
depends greatly on their training and professional development.
Language teacher education under pressure
Teacher education programmes should strive to develop the ability of language
teachers expertise to fulfil with confidence their changing educational responsi-
bilities. Language teacher education is under constant pressure to fit the evolving
discipline, and to ‘strike a fair balance in weighting its emphases’ (Hedgcock, 2002,
p. 300). Tensions arise continuously as teachers grapple with the theoretical and
practical challenges posed by the new directions in language teaching and learning.
Student teachers fall into two main categories. They have some separate and some
overlapping needs, and share a common context. On the one hand, there are those
who are preparing to get into the teaching profession and need initial teacher
education (ITE). On the other, there are those who require in-service teacher
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training (INSET). In general, in Europe ITE is offered by higher education
institutions. This allows for a level of harmonisation of practices and standards, or at
least it is easy to see what each institution wants to achieve in cultural terms. INSET
development practices vary from country to country. Overall they are ‘unsystema-
tically organised’, ‘often non-compulsory’ and ‘reliant on the contribution of
particular individuals’ (Kelly et al., 2004, p. 105). It seems also that INSET offers
teachers little subject-specific development during their careers (Wolf & Riordan,
1991; Easton, 2001; Glisan, 2001), and that there is little effective support available
to keep teachers’ learning up to date with changing practices in their field (Sercu,
1998; Ruane, 1999; Lieberman, 2003).
Recent research has suggested that, in general, teachers prefer combined methods
where schools, communities and teacher education institutions make a concerted
effort to work together and thus give teacher development a higher level of cohesion
than it has at the moment (Kohonen, 2002; De Mulder & Rigsby, 2003; Lieberman
& Miller, 2003, Schrier, 2003; Urmston, 2003). Yet it seems that coordination
between ITE and INSET providers is inadequate. Greater cohesion would help to
avoid conflicts of teaching cultures between schools and teacher education
institutions. These conflicts seem to prevent teachers from developing their own
conceptual framework of teaching and learning.
Current language teacher education programmes in both ITE and INSET in
general are good at developing what Michael Grenfell (1998) calls ‘craft knowledge’.
In languages, ITE includes the application of knowledge of the subject and the
management of the teaching and learning process (e.g., catering for students’
linguistic needs, class management, assessment and recording of progress). However,
there are a number of gaps in initial and in-service language teacher education.
Training programmes seem to be especially weak in two respects. Firstly, in
establishing a clear connection between theory and practice, and secondly, in
addressing satisfactorily an ethical dimension that incorporates meaningful inter-
cultural development. Indeed, it has been pointed out that teacher education
providers haven’t been able to succeed in the consolidation of what we could identify
as the overarching professional expertise that requires the connection between
‘philosophical and educational theoretical frameworks and practice’ (Guilherme,
2002, p. 5). Being able to establish this link is extremely important in order to fulfil
the educational demands imposed by the ethical dimension in language teaching.
Recent studies in the United States highlight the fact that ‘most practising teachers
are totally unprepared by teacher education for moral complexity […] Moral
language is missing in classrooms: but it is also missing in the seminar rooms and
lecture halls of teacher education’ (Sockett & LePage, 2002, p. 171). Manuela
Guilherme also advances the view that, in order to overcome these deficiencies,
language education should combine theory and practice through a multidisciplinary
approach that allows for an ‘interpretative, reflective, exploratory and pragmatic
mood in order to generate critical cultural awareness’ (Guilherme, 2002, p. 215).
At present there is a recognised need for a consensus about the standards of
teacher education in various countries (Schulz, 2000; Kelly et al., 2002) as well as
Intercultural understanding 171
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the need for a review of the content and methodology of training programmes for
language teachers (Lazar, 2001). It is acknowledged that the redefinition of teachers’
roles is also necessary (Richards, 1990). Language teacher education and
development has not being dealing systematically with issues of intercultural
communication and understanding. Many have lamented the fact that the
development of intercultural communicative competence has been largely absent
from the language teacher education curriculum (Dunnett et al., 1986; Met, 1993;
Ruane, 1999; Lazar, 2001; Guilherme, 2002), and that, when included, it is unclear
what interpretation and emphasis is given to specific issues (Byram & Risager,
1999).
Ways forward in intercultural education
The lack of a standard up-to-date framework of reference for the development of
language teachers has had a clear impact on their intercultural skills. On the one
hand, it has accentuated the difficulties teachers perceive in the teaching of language
and culture as parts of an integral whole and in performing their roles as mediators
(Davcheva, 2002). On the other, it has prevented them from being well equipped to
engage with the intercultural debate and consequently prepare their students to fully
embrace the intercultural dimension.
Recommendations for approaches that need to be considered in teacher education
programmes highlight the fact that teachers need to be able to have the opportunity:
(a) to develop their own sound teaching and learning theories based on critical and
reflective approaches (Guilherme, 2002).
(b) to have an active involvement in curriculum change and development
(Dragonas et al., 1996).
(c) to experience periods of residence in the countries where the language is spoken
(Dunnett et al., 1986; Sercu, 1998; Ruane, 1999; Glisan, 2001; Kelly et al.,
2004), and when this is not possible, ‘other ways have to be sought to
approximate as much as possible to the realisation of the intercultural aims’
(Willems, 2002, p. 16).
(d) to learn about human rights, moral education and democratic citizenship
principles (Kelly et al., 2002).
(e) to have insights into the multicultural make-up of their classrooms and the
societies they live in, in order to be able to ‘recognise and respond to the
diversity of social and linguistic contexts in which their teaching will occur’
(Kelly et al., 2002, p. 78).
(f) to carry out team-building and project work since intercultural understanding
objectives ‘involve processes rather than facts’ (Byram et al., 2002, p. 34).
Language teachers frequently lack the opportunities outlined above. As Guilherme
suggests, the ‘fact that the teacher’s role as a conceptual agent of educational change
has been neglected in favour of being considered as its executor may well be
considered as a major cause for the frequent failure of educational reforms’
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(Guilherme, 2002, p. 3). Teachers will be empowered when they can genuinely
contribute to the development of teaching and learning theories instead of simply
applying whatever comes into fashion. Teachers need to experience first-hand
dynamic intercultural interaction, and periods abroad could be crucial in this
respect. In turn, these experiences could foster teachers’ contributions to emerging
theories. Intercultural exchanges bring considerable academic, cultural, intellectual
and emotional benefits (Stier, 2003). However, such advantages are only realised
when teachers critically reflect on their experience, either on their own or with the
help of their peers. Multicultural classrooms also provide fertile ground for
reflection, and indeed it has been suggested that ‘trainee teacher placements in
multicultural classrooms help develop an intercultural mindset’ (Kelly et al., 2004,
p. 30). Language teachers, as learners, need to have ample opportunity to learn
about and interact with a wide range of cultural perspectives on both an
analytical and an experiential plane if they are to become intercultural. Their
training should strive ‘to create an awareness of the importance of under-
standing between different cultures and a consciousness that each culture is
unique and valuable in its own right’ (Rolandi-Ricci, 1996, p. 61). It has been
pointed out that intercultural teacher education should not simply aim at changing
teachers’ attitudes, but at helping them to ‘understand how and why discriminatory
beliefs and practices arise and are sustained’ (Dragonas et al., 1996, p. 28). This aim
has been introduced, for example in the training provided at the University of
Athens, using social identity theory since it appropriately helps to expose negative
stereotypes and discriminatory practices (Dragonas et al., 1996). In a number of
European countries a basic strategy has been to teach teachers their native language
as a foreign language (Dragonas et al., 1996), and this same idea has been suggested
as a helpful classroom practice to increase awareness of students’ linguistic
repertoires, value all languages and contest linguistic prejudices (Beacco & Byram,
2003).
There are already some initiatives whose objective is to address systematically the
intercultural issues in language teacher education. Gerard Willems’ study (2002)
aims precisely at ‘presenting how the intercultural dimension of language learning
can be integrated into the language teacher education curriculum’ (p. 7). He defines
intercultural training as one that develops in student teachers a number of aspects:
knowledge (of cultural factors), insight (into what constitutes cultural identity),
readiness (towards opening up to cultural differences) and skills (in negotiating
‘common territory’ and identifying and bridging gaps, p. 10). The approach
proposed by Kelly and others (2004) promotes the development of a European
profile for language teacher education. Such a profile is not intended to be a
‘mandatory set of rules and regulations’, but a toolkit that promotes ‘an integrated
approach to language teacher education’ (p. 19). It is built around four different but
interrelated areas: structure; knowledge and understanding; strategies and skills;
values. The intercultural dimension is explicitly interwoven across all of them.
However, frameworks are just that. It is what institutions and individuals make of
them that matters.
Intercultural understanding 173
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Conclusion
This paper has highlighted the theoretical and practical implications that the
intercultural dimension brings to language teaching, particularly with respect to
teachers’ ethical roles and responsibilities as educators. It has also argued that in
general ITE and INSET programmes until now have been unable to support the
intercultural development of language teachers. The importance of the cultural
dimension in language learning has been widely acknowledged and documented in
language policies, but it has not been consistently integrated in educational
programmes. The intercultural agenda continues to be underdeveloped in language
studies as language teachers have not been adequately prepared to understand and
deliver it with confidence.
It is undeniable that teachers’ professional growth is ‘essentially a question of time,
struggle, commitment and support’ (Kohonen, 2002, p. 49). Time, struggle and
commitment are to a great extent in teachers’ hands. The concept of support is a
wide-ranging one. It may denote a strong external coordinated effort, mostly from
institutions and teacher education agencies. It also embraces the networks where
teachers support each other by reflecting on their practice and sharing their
experience (Glisan, 2001). There is however a level of scepticism regarding what can
be expected from institutions, for various reasons. Firstly, current practice shows
that ITE and INSET programmes lack the infrastructure that should support the
strategies mentioned above, so that they can help bridge the gap between current
theories of teaching and learning and classroom practice. Secondly, resources for
continuous support are not always available. Thirdly, if resources are accessible, the
dependency that arises may impinge on the readiness of teachers to create their own
autonomous answers (Allwright, 1991).
Teacher education reform should encompass professional training that is
conducive to independent development. Formal and informal education, provide
knowledge of a very different kind. A ‘blended’ approach combines formal training
which explicitly articulates practices and conventions, making teachers fully aware of
them. Instead of adopting pre-existing teaching and learning paradigms, teachers
should be encouraged to pay attention to daily cultural interactions so that they can
develop their own conceptual understanding of what cultural knowledge really is,
how authentic the cultural experience portrayed by the course resources is, and what
strategies allow them to deconstruct the biases that are often integral to historical
appreciations of a culture. Experiential learning brings about self-development. In
other words, ‘language teacher education is a lifelong process that should occur both
inside and outside organised teaching and learning contexts’ (Kelly et al., 2004,
p. 19).
As we have seen, there are already some positive attempts to address the need for
the development of a redefined language teacher profile with clearer roles and
responsibilities, but it must be emphasised that they are merely a point of departure.
Implementation brings many challenges and only time will tell whether the intended
objectives will be achieved. The next step is to test the practical application as well as
the real impact of these initiatives on the language teaching and learning experience.
174 C. Garrido and I. Alvarez
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Finally, it is important to emphasise that a number of issues regarding the
intercultural education of language teachers remain unresolved. Teacher education
programmes need to decide the main purpose of intercultural development (e.g.
awareness-raising versus behavioural change) and determine whether it is a generic
educational issue or specific to the language teaching domain. Lines of enquiry need
to investigate whether the models for intercultural development should be the same
for teachers and learners and, if different, where the differences lie. They also need
to evaluate how effectively language teachers are able to transform the knowledge
and understanding of the intercultural dimension into educational praxis and to
what extent they are capable of sustaining that competence independently of further
formal education.
Notes on contributors
Cecilia Garrido is Associate Dean at the Faculty of Education and Language Studies
at The Open University, UK. Her research and publications are mostly in the
area of intercultural competence and its implications for curriculum design,
materials development and teacher education.
Inma Alvarez is a lecturer in Spanish in the Department of Languages at The Open
University, UK. She has researched and published on the incorporation of the
intercultural dimension in the modern languages curriculum. In particular she
has investigated the role of translation skills, web-based activities, reading
literature, and on the new training needs for teachers and learners that come
with the development of intercultural skills.
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