Towards an intercultural approach to foreign language teaching

Abstract

The present research work analyses the role and the degree of influence of the intercultural dimension in the teaching of English as a foreign language. In fact, it is commonly agreed that the foreign language teacher should display a high level of competence not only in the linguistic components of the language but he must also be able to recognize how the socio cultural norms of the speech community are embedded in the different acts of communication. It is noticeable that the students of the second year Master of English at Mohamed Kheider University of Biskra face a great number of difficulties in the mastery of the various and complex manifestations of the cultural constituents in the English language. Accordingly, we hypothesize that foreign language communicative competence is not only determined by a high level proficiency in the linguistic skills, but most importantly; it requires the mastery of target culture skills. Therefore, the major objective of this investigation is to study the impact and, eventually, the advantages that can be drawn from the effective development of the intercultural dimension as an essential requirement of teaching the English language at Mohamed Kheider University of Biskra. The research methodology that has been adopted in this work is a quasi-quantitative research methodology which necessarily combines both a descriptive (questionnaire) and experimental design (workshops and the application of the statistical package for the social sciences) as the two major research tools of this investigation. The selected population is the second year Master students of English at Mohamed Kheider University of Biskra, and the sample of the study is constituted of eighty-six students. At the conclusion of this work, we have observed that a number of positive outcomes have been realized in terms of the evident improvements which have occurred in the students’ greater awareness and better command of the cultural components of the English language.