Chapter Title 1

Introduction
MICHAEL BYRAM, ADAM NICHOLS AND DAVID STEVENS

The initial impulse for this book came from the requests of language
teachers for examples of good practice. We hope, however, that much of
what follows in the chapters of this book will also be of interest to
teachers of other subjects that deal with social and cultural issues,
whether in learners’ own multicultural societies or in the study of other
societies. The editors themselves are from different disciplines, and have
sought to highlight the potential for disciplines and school subjects to
learn from each other.
It is not very difficult to persuade language teachers that it is important
to teach language-and-culture as an integrated whole, probably because
the cultural dimension, referred to variously as ‘background studies’ in
English, civilisation in French, Landeskunde in German, has long been part
of the thinking of the language teaching profession even if it has not been
part of its practice. Indeed many syllabi and guidelines refer to the
importance of cultural learning and more recently intercultural compe-
tence, but there is still a lack of good practice, and insufficient attention to
the cultural/intercultural dimension in teacher education, inspectors’
reports and the like.
Perhaps this is an example of the significance of theory. Language
teaching has in recent decades been much influenced by linguistics,
pure and applied, and the impact on methods has been considerable.
The introduction of notional and functional syllabi, the development of
‘communicative language teaching’ and the appearance of humanistic
approaches can all be traced to theoretical work. Although many practi-
tioners may not be aware of the underlying theory, there is no doubt
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that theory has impact, and that the impact has been on developing new
ways of presenting language, of developing linguistic skills, of creating
linguistic fluency as well as accuracy, of ensuring that learners know
how to use language appropriately according to analyses of socio-
linguistic practices.
Yet there is in fact no lack of theorising on the cultural dimension
either, and some of it has been established for a long time, not least in

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 2 Developing Intercultural Competence in Practice

Germany where there is a long tradition of discussion of Kulturkunde and

Landeskunde. This is not the place to trace the tradition, however, nor to
discuss why the impact was weakened. Nor is it the place to analyse the
ways in which social change, in the form of ‘internationalisation’ and
‘globalisation’, seems to have created the conditions for taking the cultural
dimension seriously again.
What is important is that attempts to theorise and explain the integration
of language and culture and the nature of intercultural understanding (for
example Kramsch, 1993; Bredella, 1992; Zarate, 1993) have provided a
renewed basis for practice. It is clearly not just an issue for the language
teaching classroom.

Working Together in Theory and Practice

Our own work has been an illustration of this. It has involved a
combination of theory and practice. Teaching and Assessing Intercultural
Communicative Competence (Byram, 1997b) attempted deliberately to start
from a ‘top-down’ perspective, to discuss what intercultural communi-
cative competence (ICC) means and then to identify ways in which it
could be formulated as teaching and assessment objectives. Then as
teacher educators we have worked together to introduce trainee teachers
of foreign languages, mother tongue and geography to ways in which
they can develop interdisciplinary courses for students in schools. This
has led us to exchanges with Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, and the
former allowed us to discover the exciting work being done in Bulgarian
schools, which we felt had to be presented in this book.
The invitations to other colleagues were issued whenever we came
across what we thought was interesting work which would inspire other
teachers. This happened by chance and there is no claim here that we
have found all the interesting work which is developing, often quietly
and modestly, in classrooms in many countries. It is, however, not
important to be exhaustive in representing such work, even if it were
possible, since we are not presenting the chapters of this book as models
to be copied but as encouragement for other teachers. It is not possible or
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desirable simply to copy what one teacher does into another teacher’s
classroom, not even in the same education system let alone across
different education systems. Teaching has to fit the occasion, the learners,
the teacher’s own style, as all experienced teachers know. The examples
given here provide models of another sort, i.e. they embody principles
and techniques which can be transferred to other situations, in language
classes and beyond.

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 Introduction 3

There are thus some common themes represented in the chapters in

this book:
• the emphasis on learners becoming aware of and analysing the
cultural phenomena of their own society as much as those of other
societies;
• the development of skills of analysis and interpretation of un-
familiar social and cultural data from a foreign society;
• the opportunities to collect data for oneself, either by stepping
outside the classroom into the society in which learners live, or at a
distance with the help of old and new technology – the postal
service is still a rival to the internet in this respect, and the potential
of television is still to be fully developed;
• the use of literary texts to stimulate affective as well as cognitive
understanding of otherness and the use of students’ literary
imagination.
The chapters which follow are almost all written by language teachers
and focus on societies where the languages they teach are spoken. On the
other hand, the chapter by Françoise Vigneron, who is also a linguist,
demonstrates work where a foreign language is not involved. Similarly,
the chapter by Eva Burwitz-Melzer could be readily adapted to children
with English as their first language even though it was developed with
learners for whom English is a foreign language. Indeed most of the
chapters can be adapted to situations where a foreign language is not
involved but where learners are acquiring an intercultural competence
and awareness of otherness wherever it exists.
In the foreign language classroom, what was often seen as a problem in
teaching the cultural dimension, the lack of opportunity to travel to a
foreign country and society, should not inhibit teachers and learners
at all. This is not because new technology can ‘replace’ first-hand
experience, but rather because the cultural dimension has become the
intercultural dimension. In other words, it is recognised that it is not the
teacher’s task to provide comprehensive information and to try to bring
the foreign society into the classroom for learners to observe and
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experience vicariously. The task is rather to facilitate learners’ interaction

with some small part of another society and its cultures, with the purpose
of relativising learners’ understanding of their own cultural values,
beliefs and behaviours, and encouraging them to investigate for them-
selves the otherness around them, either in their immediate physical
environment or in their engagement with otherness which international-
isation and globalisation have brought into their world.

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 4 Developing Intercultural Competence in Practice

Furthermore, even where opportunity for foreign travel is available,

either in the context of learning a foreign language or for example in a
geography field trip, it is not self-evident that mere exposure to exper-
ience of a different culture will lead to understanding. It can in fact lead
to resistance and rejection if the experience is not well prepared
pedagogically and here too models of good practice are useful (Byram,
1997a; Byram & Zarate, 1995).
So to some extent teaching the intercultural dimension is a matter of
seizing opportunities, being systematic in developing those oppor-
tunities – i.e. drawing on theory for help and guidance – and evaluating
the results against clear and explicit criteria. This is what the teachers
writing the chapters of this book have done, sometimes working alone,
sometimes as part of a team. The opportunities come from the specific
situation, and sometimes this involves working in the classroom,
sometimes going outside the classroom either physically or with the
help of technology. Sometimes the teaching materials are of a familiar
kind – texts both factual and fictional – and sometimes the materials
have to be collected and shaped by learners or teachers themselves.
In many cases all of these are features of the lessons and courses
described.
We have tried to organise the chapters to represent the writers’ main
emphasis, but most chapters could have been allocated to more than one
section. To enable readers to browse across and beyond the simple
classification we have used, there is a brief overview at the beginning of
each chapter of its content and purpose. Each chapter also provides a list
of references but in addition we asked contributors to tell us which books
or articles they thought would be most useful for other teachers. There is
in fact no lack and for any teachers coming to the intercultural dimension
for the first time through this present book, we hope that they will
develop their theoretical understanding, their classroom techniques and
their course planning with the help of this list of Further Reading,
presented at the end of the book.

Intercultural Competence
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The concept of intercultural competence referred to in our title was not

imposed on our contributors. They were asked to report on their practice
and decided for themselves whether they would make explicit links with
theory. Most have done so and some have referred to theory developed
by one of the editors. A brief account of the definition of intercultural
competence is therefore provided here for ease of reference.

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 Introduction 5

Language teaching has long been dominated by theory transferred from

analysis of how people learn their first language, and language teachers
have long used the native speaker as a model for their learners and a
benchmark against which to measure their linguistic abilities. This may be
useful, although still contentious, with regard to linguistic/grammatical
competence, but reflection on the nature of interaction between native
speakers of a language and foreign speakers of that language, or again
between foreign speakers of a language which is serving them as a lingua
franca, has led to the recognition that it is neither appropriate nor desirable
for learners to model themselves on native speakers with respect to the
learning about and acquiring an understanding of another culture.
We have therefore introduced the concept of the ’intercultural speaker’,
someone who has an ability to interact with ‘others’, to accept other
perspectives and perceptions of the world, to mediate between different
perspectives, to be conscious of their evaluations of difference (Byram &
Zarate, 1997; see also Kramsch, 1998). Where the otherness which learners
meet is that of a society with a different language, they clearly need both
linguistic competence and intercultural competence. Here we focus on
intercultural competence which is necessary whether a different language
is present or not.
The components of intercultural competence are knowledge, skills and
attitudes, complemented by the values one holds because of one’s
belonging to a number of social groups, values which are part of one’s
belonging to a given society.
The foundation of intercultural competence is in the attitudes of the
intercultural speaker and mediator:
Intercultural attitudes (savoir être): curiosity and openness, readiness to
suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own.
This means a willingness to relativise one’s own values, beliefs and
behaviours, not to assume that they are the only possible and
naturally correct ones, and to be able to see how they might look from
the perspective of an outsider who has a different set of values, beliefs
and behaviours. This can be called the ability to ‘decentre’.
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Another crucial factor is knowledge, not primarily knowledge about a

specific culture, but rather knowledge of how social groups and social
identities function, both one’s own and others. If it can be anticipated
with whom one will interact, then knowledge of that person’s world is
useful. If it cannot, then it is useful to imagine an interlocutor in order to
have an example of what it means to know something about other people
with other multiple identities:

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 6 Developing Intercultural Competence in Practice

Knowledge (savoirs): of social groups and their products and practices

in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general
processes of societal and individual interaction. So knowledge can be
defined as having two major components: knowledge of social
processes, and knowledge of illustrations of those processes and
products; the latter includes knowledge about how other people see
oneself as well as some knowledge about other people.
No teacher can have or anticipate all the knowledge which learners might
at some point need. Indeed many teachers have not had the opportunity
themselves to experience all or any of the cultures which their learners
might encounter. There are however skills which are just as important as
attitudes and knowledge, and teachers can concentrate as much on skills
as upon knowledge.
Because intercultural speakers/mediators need to be able to see how
misunderstandings can arise, and how they might be able to resolve
them, they need the attitudes of decentring but also the skills of compar-
ing. By putting ideas, events, documents side by side and seeing how
each might look from the other perspective, intercultural speakers/
mediators can see how people might misunderstand what is said or
written or done by someone with a different social identity. The skills of
comparison, of interpreting and relating, are therefore crucial:
Skills of interpreting and relating (savoir comprendre): ability to interpret
a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to
documents or events from one’s own.
Secondly, because neither intercultural speakers/mediators nor their
teachers can anticipate all their knowledge needs, it is equally important
to acquire the skills of finding out new knowledge and integrating it with
what they already have. They need especially to know how to ask people
from other cultures about their beliefs, values and behaviours; these can
be difficult to explain because they are often unconscious. So intercultural
speakers/mediators need skills of discovery and interaction:
Skills of discovery and interaction (savoir apprendre/faire): ability to acquire
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new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to

operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-
time communication and interaction.
Finally, however open towards, curious about and tolerant of other
people’s beliefs, values and behaviours one is, one’s own beliefs, values
and behaviours are deeply embedded and can create reaction and rejec-

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 Introduction 7

tion. Because of this unavoidable response, intercultural speakers/

mediators need to become aware of their own values and how these
influence their views of other people’s values. Intercultural speakers/
mediators need a critical awareness of themselves and their values, as
well as those of other people:

Critical cultural awareness (savoir s’engager): an ability to evaluate,

critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices
and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries.

It is not the purpose of teaching to try to change learners’ values, but to

make them explicit and conscious in any evaluative response to others.
There is nonetheless a fundamental values position which all language
teaching should promote: a position which acknowledges respect for human
dignity and equality of human rights as the democratic basis for social interaction.
The role of the teacher is therefore to develop skills, attitudes and
awareness of values just as much as to develop a knowledge of a particu-
lar culture or country, or of different cultures within one’s own country.

Irrespective of whether they have drawn on this particular framework,

the following chapters will show how teachers have responded to this
new role, and with their professional imagination and experience intro-
duced into their work an intercultural dimension which is innovative and
which takes teaching a step further.
We think too that the sharp distinctions which have separated
language teaching from other subjects can be easily broken down as
teachers of languages, whether first, second or foreign, and teachers of
geography, sociology, literature and other social and human sciences see
their common ground in the understanding of otherness and self which
they share as an educational aim.

References
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Bredella, L. (1992) Towards a pedagogy of intercultural understanding. Amerika-

studien 37, 559–94.
Byram, M. (1997a) Face to Face: Learning Language-and-Culture through Visits and
Exchanges. London: CILT.
Byram, M. (1997b) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Byram, M. and Zarate, G. (1995) Young People Facing Difference: Some Proposals for
Teachers. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Byram, P. M., Nichols, A., & Stevens, D. D. (Eds.). (2001). Developing intercultural competence in practice : Developing intercultural competence in practice. ProQuest Ebook
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 8 Developing Intercultural Competence in Practice

Byram, M. and Zarate, G. (1997) Definitions, objectives and assessment of socio-

cultural competence. In M. Byram, G. Zarate and G. Neuner (eds) Sociocultural
Competence in Language Learning and Teaching. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Kramsch, C. (1998) The privilege of the intercultural speaker. In M. Byram and
M. Fleming (eds) Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kramsch, C. (1993) Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Zarate, G. (1993) Représentations de l’étranger et didactique des langues. Paris:
Hachette.
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