Language educators in Australia and Finland are expected to foster intercultural understanding within foreign language education. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study focusing on theoretical and practical intercultural understanding in secondary school language education. The data for this study includes lesson observations…

Increase in diversified teaching contexts has led researchers to investigate the potentials of telecollaboration in multicultural learning environments. While there are abundant telecollaboration studies, improving intercultural awareness through a theoretical model is usually under-investigated. Based on Byram's (1997) co-orientational and…

This activity report describes a sample unit (Effective Data Presentation) from a communication course prepared as part of an Intellectual Output within the BADGE Project, which was carried out by 12 partner universities from 10 countries during 3 academic years (2019-2022). The article first describes the results of a survey which show that…

The ability to effectively communicate with individuals from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds is an invaluable asset. Learning a second language proves useful as students navigate the culturally diverse world; however, studying a second language can be difficult for learners who are not immersed in the real and natural environment of…

The increasing importance attributed to the cultural dimension of foreign language (FL) education has entailed new demands for teachers and teacher educators. This paper explores the cultural agenda in Finnish language teacher education from a student teacher perspective. The focus is on the students' perceptions regarding how effectively cultural…

A small study to investigate cultural instruction in Finnish schools is reported. Twelve randomly selected teachers of English were interviewed concerning their attitudes about the importance of cultural studies, how they implement cultural studies, and problems in presenting cultural instruction in the classroom. The interviews suggest that the…

Throughout Finland the different centers for Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), along with diverse interests of LSP instructors, account for a wide range of LSP curricula in Finland. This paper examines the situation in two centers and argues that any LSP program for postsecondary students who are likely to have professional contact with…

Two studies are reported: "Elements of 'Good Teaching': A Comparison of Education Students' Perceptions in Botswana, California, Finland, and Zimbabwe" (John Yoder, Larry Shaw, Ben Siyakwazi, Kaarina Yli-Renko) and "Intercultural Communication: A Challenge to German Language Teacher Education" (Kaarina Yli-Renko). The first…