5 research outputs found
Pathways to teacher education for intercultural communicative competence: teachers’ perceptions
Intercultural and plurilingual encounters have become increasingly frequent due to
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) developments, mobility (real/
virtual) and migration. To face the challenges inherent in such encounters, the
development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is crucial. ICC
development may start in the home but should also be a commitment in school
curricula, in particular in language classrooms. To facilitate this, language teachers
require training in order to integrate the intercultural dimension into their professional
practice. In such a context, we implemented a training programme entitled The
Intercultural Teacher with an experimental group of language teachers from
secondary schools in the Aveiro district (Portugal). In this article, we describe
teachers’ social perceptions of ICC and explore the following questions: (a) what
does ICC mean for language teachers?; and (b) what are teachers’ views on the
development of ICC? The findings of this analysis enabled us, firstly, to design a
heuristic model of ICC, based on teachers’ views and perceptions. We were then able
to identify some pathways for developing ICC through teacher education, which were
validated by teachers themselves