Embedment of cultural competence in foreign language classrooms

Abstract

Contemporary classrooms are portrayed by the use of many languages as they are influenced by many cultures. This fact is the plain and imminent outcome of globalization. This situation boosts the importance of integrating compatible and relevant elements of culture as a teaching pedagogy. Hence, teachers should recognize students’ differences and commonalities. In other terms, the instructors need to form themselves in a way that serves their students’ needs and expectations about the cultures handled in their classrooms. Hitherto, this paper’s significance can be embodied in the relevance of integrating culture in teaching to achieve satisfactory learning outcomes. The research has relied on three research instruments; classroom observation, questionnaire, and unstructured interview, and the data are analyzed qualitatively. The sample population is represented by teachers and students of Moulay Tahar University (Saida Algeria). The results demonstrated that foreign language teachers should integrate culture in their lectures since it comes up with auspicious results namely communicating interculturally. The paper at hand raises new opportunities to handle another research for further findings with a large size of informants.

Keywords: Communication; competence; culture; responsive teacher; student’s learning.