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…

Given that meaningful interaction is, in many respects, the backbone of L2 acquisition, language programs have often promoted language exchanges, which connect L2 learners outside the classroom. The present paper discusses two such programs, the "Sprachmentoren" Program (SMP) and "Tandemprojekt" (TP), which were introduced to…

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,…

With the development of science and technology and the popularity of the Internet, streaming media technology has gradually become an important tool in college English teaching. Streaming media technology is a technology to transmit audio, video and other multimedia content through the network. With the rapid development of Internet, streaming…

As part of its ambitious Belt and Road initiative, the Chinese government, cognizant of the fact that establishing strong people-to-people bonds locally, regionally, and internationally will be key to the initiative's success and that languages will play a pivotal role in facilitating this, has called for the diversification of language programmes…

The report presents the results of an experimentation of an intercomprehension (IC) workshop, delivered in blended mode for Italian and Brazilian PhD students, and activated at the Language Center of the University of Ferrara during the academic year 2021-22. The general objective was for participants to learn a methodology that enables…

The Year Abroad (YA) is one of the most valuable parts of our language degree programmes. Here we discuss some of the elements that constitute the assessment Nottingham Trent University students carry out to earn a YA diploma. More specifically we compare the two elements (blog and dossier) that we think contribute most to reflective practice, by…

This chapter presents a case study of an online task-enhanced Virtual Exchange (VE) project that involved 19 English students at Hacettepe University, Turkey, and 19 students of English at Sfax University, Tunisia. The objective behind the VE was to provide students with opportunities for intercultural and interactional development through the…

This article provides empirical evidence regarding Indonesian EFL teachers' perceptions about pragmatic competence and the role of pragmatic socialization to develop learners' pragmatic competence. Considerable viewpoints were obtained by analyzing the data collected from 104 Indonesian EFL teachers using questionnaires and focus group interviews.…

Language is commonly positioned as an economic resource. Recent debates have argued that policy interpretations of language as economic resource can potentially undermine language positioning and reduce understanding of the cognitive, cultural and social benefits of language learning. In monolingual policy contexts, such a positioning means that…

In the context of an undergraduate program in modern languages that includes the learning of French, Italian, Portuguese, and German in addition to English, this paper problematizes anglonormativity; that is, the dominant discourses of English as the taken-for-granted language of development. From the particular context of Colombia, where the…

It is generally accepted that culture is inseparable from language. However, the provision of culture in FL courses takes different forms. At Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), minor route/30 credit language students in the Uniwide Language Programme are allocated 1 h for cultural studies (known as the project hour) in addition to a weekly…

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…

Short-term study abroad (SA) programmes are often promoted as an effective way of developing English language skills and accessing opportunities for intercultural learning. Whilst pre-departure intercultural training is thought to play an important role in enhancing the potential for meaningful learning, overemphasis on essentialist framings of…

Objectives: Two sets of intercultural learning resources incorporating Global Englishes learning content were developed for self-access use in the higher education context. The resources were investigated in terms of student learning experiences across two contexts in Japan: an English language major program and a nonlanguage major program. The…