Intercultural Competence In English Language Analysis

Name: Jette Lykke Møhl

Age Group: 4th to 10th grade

Title and competence area:

• Learning and teaching communicative competence

• Intercultural competence in English language acquisition

Introduction and background:

During my years as a 10th grade teacher I have learned that even though my students have been taught English from 3rd grade, they often don’t know very much about other English-speaking countries. Perhaps they have a slight knowledge about holiday traditions such as Christmas and Halloween, but knowledge about people’s daily life and culture in general is not a usual competence. On the contrary, I would say that they often have prejudices about people’s lifestyle, religion and culture. That’s why every year I try hard to find

When Byram (2000) talks about knowledge about a country and its people, it can be about nature, history how the education system is, how do people live in the cities as well as in the countryside. A huge part of that is to compare these subjects to the student’s own surroundings. It gives them a possibility to relate to other people’s lifestyles. To read an original text from an English-speaking country, which can be literature in English, news articles, listening exercises from native speakers, gives the students the ability to interpret and understand other countries views on certain perspectives. For young learners it is a very good idea to listen to native speakers or to have contact with other students in English-speaking countries for examples by using pen palls as a method to gain knowledge about culture, behavior, and writing

What do you know about the different parts of London? Would you like to go to school in England as an exchange student? How would you behave if you should visit an English family for the first time? Do you know any phrases of politeness?

A course containing the themes “How would you behave if you should visit an English family for the first time, what would you like to know about London and what do you like them to know about you” looks like this:

a. We will discuss differences in behavior in England as well as in Denmark. This contains language structure exercises about phrases of politeness in addition to good manners. The students write scripts with different situations e.g., restaurant visits, private visits, shopping situations and booking tickets for a stay in a youth hostel. The students join together two and two to practice the script as a little role-play.

b. Write a letter to the family you will visit in London. You can ask questions about school, spare time activities, parents’ job, family relations, which places to visit, friends, etc. According to that, remember to write about yourself with the purpose of giving a description of your daily life in