Sessions /
Intercultural competence: An overview #133

In an increasingly interconnected world, our students now need intercultural communication skills for their personal and professional relationships more than ever. What the term intercultural communication comprises, how it can be learned, and how that can be applied to the classroom, however, is not always clear.

This video poster session will begin with some background from a few theorists who have described the nature and relevance of intercultural communication. They include Edward T. Hall, who suggested the pervasive influence of an unconscious aspect of culture, and Michael Byram, who laid out the attributes of an effective intercultural communicator.

Moving onto how these communication skills are acquired, the second part of the session will consider culture through the lens of social psychology. Specifically, there will be a description of implicit knowledge, its role in how we interpret and intuitively respond to ambiguous cues in interpersonal interaction, as well as empirical research on how these implicit interpersonal perceptive skills develop.

Because of this unconscious component of culture, the challenge for us as educators is to bring experiential approaches into our teaching practices. In a foreign language learning environment detached from any large community of speakers, though, this is especially challenging. As a potential solution, an approach to intercultural learning through film and television will be briefly described. Through these visual storytelling media, now accessible internationally via streaming services, learners may be able to develop the beginnings of deep and implicit understandings of cultural practices and perspectives.