engleski

Foreign Language Teachers and the Intercultural Dimension in Primary Education

Today the objective of foreign language (FL) learning is defined in terms of the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence rather than communicative competence only. This approach to FL learning has been developed in the European context with the aim of educating students for the 21st century world. To fulfil the requirements, FL teachers need to be willing to integrate intercultural competence (IC) teaching in FL education as well as acquire the adequate sociocultural knowledge and a range of skills and attitudes that will enable them to succesfully work towards the desired goal. The paper reports on a study into the possibility of developing IC in Croatian primary school (grades 1-8), which aimed to investigate into teachers' beliefs pertaining to IC acquisition in primary school and their self-concepts relating to the envisaged profile of the FL&IC teacher. The study involved 105 Croatian primary school teachers of English. It elicited teachers' beliefs about the objectives of FL education and culture teaching. Data was collected for teachers' perceptions of their own skills, knowledge as well as their pre- and in-service training and experiences, all with regard to their ability to promote the acquisition of IC in FL classroom. IC was identified as the second important objective of FL learning and teaching, communicative competence being the most important. Teachers' positive views of their own competences were evident as well as their willingness to incorporate IC into their teaching, although this willingness appeared to be conflicting with teachers' teaching practices. Certain deficiencies regarding their pre- and in-service training were pointed out by teachers. The study might prove to be useful to teacher educators designing teacher education and training programmes.

foreign language learning and teaching; intercultural competence; foreign language and intercultural competence teacher; primary school education

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