Teaching English for Intercultural Spoken Communication

Abstract

Communicative approaches to teaching English can too easily marginalise or ignore culture and intercultural perspectives, assuming (implicitly or explicitly) that learners aspire to a goal of something approaching idealized English native speaker competence. More than ever, this is a problematic assumption; the linguistic landscape for English is rapidly evolving as English becomes a global lingua franca for interaction between people from different first language backgrounds. This shift raises questions as to what communicative norms, if any, should form the basis for teaching and curricula planning, and how learners can be best prepared to communicate via English with other non-native speakers. In response to such issues, in this chapter I propose a set of principles to guide the teaching of English for intercultural spoken communication. I begin by providing a brief outline of the field of intercultural languages education and the origins of the principles. I then outline the theoretical basis and rationale for each principle and suggest ways in which teachers can draw on the principles to cultivate the practice of intercultural communicative language teaching.