Teaching intercultural awareness in the English as a foreign language classroom: a case study using critical reading

Abstract

This paper reports on an educational intervention study that used linguistic and rhetorical approaches to critical reading, in order to teach intercultural awareness. The intervention was implemented with a group of Mexican college students learning English as a foreign language. The study focuses on changes between participants’ pre- and post-intervention articulated understandings of the targeted cultural context, namely the USA. The data was coded and analyzed using a complexity theory perspective and directed qualitative analysis. The results indicate that drawing students’ attention to the cultural situatedness of language use can increase their awareness of the multiple ideological positions existing in a cultural context. Based on these results, the paper argues that the field of intercultural education needs to take a linguistic turn in order to further its goals.

Keywords:

• intercultural awareness
• critical reading
• foreign language education
• systemic-functional linguistics
• rhetoric

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professors Anne Gere, Mary Schleppegrell and Diane Larsen-Freeman of the University of Michigan for their help with this project. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors. This research project was funded by the University of Michigan and the Mexican Ministry of Education.