DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE VIA DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES

Petra Ivenz, University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic;

Abstract: One of the long-term aims of the European Union is to incorporate intercultural communication into the lessons of foreign languages. However, studies have shown that teachers of foreign languages usually do not know what activities and methods should be used to develop students’ intercultural communicative competences (ICC). Through the four steps of the action research method, students of the course called Intercultural training were exposed to several intercultural topics such as greetings, addressing, non-verbal communication, small talk, punctuality, diversity, etc. Students took part in activities regarding the presented topics and the knowledge they gained from the activities gave a basis for students to create their own cultures. Students were asked to imagine they were aliens from different planets, and they had to create their own planets including all the knowledge from the previously discussed topics. Three new planets (cultures) were created by students and then presented. At the end of the lesson, there was a discussion about the new planets and their acceptance amongst the other created planets. Throughout the whole lesson, students were able to include all the previously acquired knowledge and showed open-mindedness and curiosity toward foreign cultures.

Keywords: intercultural communicative competence, intercultural communication, culture, language, foreign language teaching