Bridging the gap between theory and practice in developing teachers’ intercultural communicative competence

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Edukacinis projektas; Mokytojų ugdymas; Studentų - mokytojų tarpkultūrinės komunikacijos kompetencija; Tarpkultūrinis mokymas; Tarpkultūrinė komunikacinė kompetencija; Žinios ir gebėjimai; Education of teachers; Educational project; Intercultural communicative competence; Intercultural training; Knowledge and skills; Student-teacher Intercultural Communicative Competence.

ENRecent demographic changes and global migratory flows make an impact on all the spheres of life, including the contexts of education. International dimension in the field of teacher education has been acknowledged as the key factor contributing to the development of versatile personalities responsible for education of future generations. Therefore, teachers, regardless of the subjects they teach, are expected to be those who display a high level of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). The phenomenon of mobility is one of the means that tests the proficiency level of its participants’ ICC which, with no doubt, enables them not only to speak a common language but also interact effectively and appropriately in a new cultural context. The paper focuses on the case study of development student teachers’ ICC through the designed educational project that was carried out within the framework of an Intensive Programme. The participants of the project were student teachers from eight European Teacher Training institutions - Cd Foscari University (Italy), Pedagogical University of Tirol (Austria), the University of Cyprus (Cyprus), the School of Education of Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Nantes (France), Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest (Hungary), Jagiellonian University, Krakow (Poland), the Institute of Foreign Languages, Vilnius University (Lithuania). In order to enhance the component of knowledge of the project participants’ ICC, a two-week intensive theoretical course on the ways how to reveal cultures was given.The emphasis was put on the anthropological approach towards discovering a new culture. The component of skills was tested in practice when the student teachers immersed in the socio-cultural context of the Republic of Lithuania had to explore and identify its type. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the correlation between the given theoretical input into the student teachers’ ICC component of knowledge and the progress in internal and external outcomes (Dcardorff, 2010) of their target competence. Diary was chosen as an instrument of research which allowed the author of the study to follow the fluctuations of the project participants' attitudes. The data based on the participants’ diary reflections revealed the fact that the theoretical input and special training had little influence in case the project participants’ preconceptions of the hosting country were strong enough. No matter how positive the respondents’ attitudes towards mobility are, and how willing they are to participate in various exchange programmes, sometimes the level of their ICC does not meet the desired internal and external outcomes. This proves the fact that Intercultural training should not be considered as a random input to substitute one or the other subject but it has to be integrated into the content of the majority of study programmes. [From the publication]

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