COVID-19 and Interculturality: revisiting assumptions about intercultural competence and criticality development in Modern Language degree programmes

ABSTRACT

The initial response to Covid-19 exposed widespread racism and Sinophobia across the world, which contributed to a rethinking of equality and diversity in Higher Education (HE) and beyond. Within Modern Languages, much attention has been placed on decolonising the curriculum. The death of George Floyd in 2020 further contributed to an increased awareness of the need to rethink racism and challenge current practice within the curriculum. This paper re-examines the findings of a doctoral study exploring students' development of Intercultural Competence (IC) and criticality in Modern Languages with the aim of revisiting ways in which students' intercultural development can be defined and fostered in Higher Education.

Die erste Reaktion auf Covid-19 hat weit verbreiteten Rassismus und Sinophobie auf der ganzen Welt aufgedeckt, was zu einem Umdenken in Bezug auf Gleichheit und Vielfalt in der Hochschulbildung (HE) und darüber hinaus beigetragen hat. Innerhalb der modernen Sprachen wurde viel Aufmerksamkeit auf die Dekolonisierung des Lehrplans gelegt. Der Tod von George Floyd im Jahr 2020 trug weiter zu einem verstärkten Bewusstsein für die Notwendigkeit bei, Rassismus zu überdenken und die derzeitige Praxis innerhalb des Lehrplans in Frage zu stellen. Dieses Papier untersucht die Ergebnisse einer Doktorarbeit, die die Entwicklung der interkulturellen Kompetenz (IC) und Kritikalität in modernen Sprachen bei Studierenden untersucht, mit dem Ziel, Wege zu überdenken, wie die interkulturelle Entwicklung von Studierenden in der Hochschulbildung definiert und gefördert werden kann.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural communication
• Covid-19
• Modern Languages
• Intercultural Competence
• Criticality
• Interculturality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elinor Parks

Elinor Parks completed her PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Hull. She is currently a Lecturer in German Language at Durham University and has previously taught German at the University of Manchester and University of York. Her doctoral research explored the complexity behind the separation between language and content in Modern Language degrees both in the UK and in the USA. In particular, the research examined implications of the divide for the development of criticality and intercultural competence in undergraduates. Her current research interests include implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events on our understanding of interculturality, and how we define it, as well as the possible applications of the recent scholarship on interculturality to the teaching of Foreign Languages in Higher Education.