In pursuit of intercultural awareness and the ‘procrustean bed’ of EFL-teaching

Abstract

This paper attempts to scan some of the problems that arise from the introduction of a multicultural dimension in foreign language teaching, with a clear focus on the role tutors should and have to play. A shift in emphasis in EFLteaching from form-oriented approach to a more communication and culture-oriented approach opens a far wider perspective not only towards the very core essence of foreign language teaching, but also towards the generous framework of symbols, ideals, values and symbols that lie at the very heart of multiculturalism. Given the current European outlook, circumscribed to the same concept of globalisation that has managed to ‘shrink’ the world to the dimensions of a global village, foreign language teachers are called to shape a kind of intercultural foreign language education. Knowledge means broader horizons, understanding, tolerance, culture, as Nietzsche saw it in his critique of modernity, where he affirms that because modern culture has become a matter of perspective, a way of knowing rather than a way of practicing culture, it has lost its force. This concept of intercultural awareness the paper approaches could stimulate in young people a double fold perspective, one towards their own culture and one towards the culture of other speech communities and nations we now form a political, social and cultural and linguistic union.