This forum examines issues of intercultural competence and language education, discussing the extent to which language courses provide students with intercultural competence and the extent to which intercultural competence and language skills are, or should be, linked. With language education in the West in inarguable decline, the authors face the…

The French as a second language (FSL) teacher shortage crisis has been a longstanding issue in Canada. In this paper, we examine the links between teacher agency, autonomy and identity in light of findings about marginalization, deprofessionalization, and/or difficulty in developing a strong sense of identity. Taking these findings into account,…

The incorporation of intercultural competence (IC) in higher education (HE), through the internationalization of the curriculum (IoC) faces challenges associated with policy and programing, levels of support, staff and faculty preparedness, and skill development opportunities for students. The premise is that IC can be better integrated in IoC…

German, and increasingly French and Spanish, programs are by nature global because they attract graduate students and faculty from around the world. Most have studied the language and "big C" cultural products during their graduate studies, but they have not necessarily learned approaches for fostering intercultural communicative…

In contrast with debates over language pedagogy or aptitude, this paper examines seven societal obstacles which impact the success of classroom language learning and the development of intercultural competence in American language classrooms. These include expectations for teacher preparation, language proficiency and target language use;…

The significance of questioning in intercultural language learning was highlighted during Phase 1 of the project as project team members worked with teachers preparing units of work and long-term programs. This paper explores the types of questions asked by team members to elicit teachers' thinking regarding students' learning and teachers' roles…

A college course used an explicit intercultural approach and collective research activities to compare French and American cultures and to examine the reasons for cultural attitudes and culture conflict. Class assignments dealt with contrastive analyses of American and French institutions like advertising, cinema, feminism, etc. (MSE)

This report describes the planning process for the Export Academy at Eastern Michigan University, designed to prepare students for a Master of Arts degree combining export and trade studies with second language (French, German, Spanish). In 1989-91, the Academy prepared the proposal for the new Master's degree program and sponsored a series of…

A discussion of cross-cultural training in the context of business and professional education outlines the need for such training and proposes methods of designing and implementing it within foreign language courses. Four segments address specific aspects of development for such courses. The first looks at procedures used to determine the type of…

The report describes and assesses an adult literacy program for Hmong immigrant adults in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The overall approach was to assist students in developing a new communication system using principles of intercultural communication and community networking. The instructional model had four components: native language literacy…