Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning

This research-based survey of teaching and learning practice in intercultural language education explores the full spectrum of methodological issues. Its focus on the intercultural aspects of language teaching and learning is vitally relevant to our increasingly integrated world, reflecting the current consensus that learning languages plays a crucial role in developing our understanding of the rich diversity of human cultures. The text offers trainee and practicing teachers, as well as researchers and graduate students, a ready point of access to the wealth of insight and experience accumulated by the authors over a decade of research. Underpinned by the material generated throughout years of collaboration with working teachers, the work features detailed documentation of teaching practice spanning a multitude of languages.

Progressing from a discussion of core theoretical concepts in language, culture, and learning, the book provides detailed assessment of numerous factors related to teaching languages, including classroom interactions, technologies, program evaluation, language assessment, and professional development. It provides a much-needed practical toolkit for teachers preparing to develop language programs in which intercultural understanding has a central role to play. Eschewing prescriptive notions of ‘method’, the authors advocate a responsive pedagogy that is open to the particularities of context and adapts to the diverse requirements of language learners.