Intercultural Education

ISSN: 1467-5986 (Print) 1469-8439 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20

The foreign language and intercultural

competence teacher: the acquisition of a new
professional identity

Lies Sercu

To cite this article: Lies Sercu (2006) The foreign language and intercultural competence
teacher: the acquisition of a new professional identity, Intercultural Education, 17:1, 55-72, DOI:
10.1080/14675980500502321

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Published online: 15 Aug 2006.

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Intercultural Education,
Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2006, pp. 55–72

The foreign language and intercultural

competence teacher: the acquisition of
a new professional identity
Lies Sercu*
K.U.Leuven, Belgium
10LiesSercu
[email protected]
000002006
Intercultural
10.1080/14675980500502321
CEJI_A_150215.sgm
1467-5986
Original
Taylor
2006
17 and
& Article
Francis
(print)/1469-8439
Francis
Education
Ltd (online)

It has now become commonplace to state that foreign language learning should be viewed in an
intercultural perspective. The main objective of foreign language education is no longer defined
strictly in terms of the acquisition of communicative competence. Teachers are now required to
teach intercultural communicative competence. The aim of the study reported on here was to inves-
tigate to what extent and in what way teachers’ current professional profiles meet the specifications
formulated in the theoretical literature regarding the ‘foreign language and intercultural compe-
tence teacher’. To answer this question, an international research design was developed, involving
teachers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Our findings suggest
that teachers’ current foreign language-and-culture teaching profiles do not yet meet those of the
envisaged ‘foreign language and intercultural competence teacher’, and that patterns in teacher
thinking and teaching practice appear to exist within and across the participating countries.

Introduction
It has now become commonplace to state that foreign language learning should be
viewed in an intercultural perspective. The main objective of language learning is no
longer defined strictly in terms of the acquisition of communicative competence in a
foreign language. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural communicative
competence. It follows that new professional demands need to be made on teachers.
If foreign language teaching can no longer be regarded as a mainly linguistic task,
and it needs to be directed towards the full attainment of communicative compe-
tence, including its intercultural dimension, teachers have to be equipped with the
necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes required to accomplish this wider task in
an appropriate way. In addition, teachers have to adjust their views on what it means
to teach a foreign language and adapt their teaching approach accordingly.

*Faculty of Arts, K.U.Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail:

[email protected]

ISSN 1467-5986 (print)/ISSN 1469-8439 (online)/06/010055–18

© 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14675980500502321
56 L. Sercu

Research into teacher thought processes has underlined the importance of under-
standing teachers’ beliefs in situations where teachers are expected to implement a
proposed innovation. Teachers’ views act as filters and affect the way in which they
perceive their current teaching situation and the way in which they can accommodate
new teaching goals (Pajares, 1992). Research into these issues has similarly revealed
that a reasonably clear relationship exists between teacher beliefs and teaching
practice (Nespor, 1987; Knowles & Holt-Reynolds, 1991; Carter & Doyle, 1995).
Much of the research on teacher beliefs has focused on the areas of science and
maths education (see e.g. Brickhouse & Bodner, 1992; Hodson, 1993; Prosser et al.,
1994; Bell et al., 2000). The focus of this study was on teachers of foreign languages
and, more specifically, on teacher beliefs regarding the cultural dimension of foreign
language education and the teaching of intercultural competence. Though some
studies have investigated foreign language teachers’ conceptions (see e.g. Freeman &
Richards, 1993; Markee, 1997; Green, 1996; Borg, 1998), far fewer have focused on
foreign language teachers’ perceptions of the intercultural dimension of foreign
language education, with some notable exceptions (Duff & Uchida, 1997; Ryan,
1997, 1998; Byram & Risager, 1999; Sercu, 2001).
The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent and in what way teachers’
current professional profiles meet the specifications formulated in the theoretical
literature regarding the ‘foreign language and intercultural competence teacher’
(FLIC teacher). Professional profile was defined in terms of teachers’ perceptions
regarding the proposed innovation, namely to teach intercultural communicative
competence instead of communicative competence, as well as in terms of their
current language-and-culture teaching practice.
To investigate these issues, an international research design was developed,
involving teachers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Spain and
Sweden. This international perspective allowed us to investigate commonalities in
teacher beliefs and teaching practices, and thus to move from studies investigating
the idiosyncrasies of individual teachers’ mental processes (Duff & Uchida, 1997;
Ryan, 1998), or focusing on teachers of one or two nationalities only, such as Sercu
(2001), mapping Flemish teachers, or Byram & Risager (1999), profiling Danish
and British teachers.
This international approach, it was hoped, would provide the basis on which to
build international teacher education programmes designed to clarify and exemplify
to foreign language teachers how they can promote the acquisition of intercultural
competence in their classes. Especially with a view to preparing foreign language
teachers for teaching intercultural competence, it appears crucial that teacher educa-
tion programmes be developed which grant teachers the opportunity to learn in an
intercultural and international environment.

Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher

From Byram’s definition of intercultural competence (Byram, 1997), we derived the
knowledge, skills and attitudes, which a foreign language teacher should possess to be
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 57

able to teach intercultural competence. We use the term ‘intercultural competence’

and not ‘intercultural communicative competence’. It is, however, understood that
intercultural competence always implies ‘communicative competence’, and therefore
always also has a linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse component. It is just that, in
this project, the focus was on the intercultural component of intercultural compe-
tence, and not so much on the language component, though that component was
present too.
Byram describes intercultural competence in terms of a number of savoirs. He
defines the first savoir as ‘knowledge of social groups and their products and practices
in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of
societal and individual interaction’ (Byram, 1997, p. 58). To this, it can be added that
savoirs includes both culture-specific (of one’s own and foreign cultures) and culture-
general knowledge, as well as the knowledge regarding the many ways in which
culture affects language and communication. Savoir-comprendre is defined as ‘the abil-
ity to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it
to documents or events from one’s own’ (Byram 1997, p. 61). Savoir-apprendre/faire
is the ‘skill of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture
and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under
the constraints of real-time communication and interaction’ (Byram, 1997, p. 61).
Savoir s’engager is described as ‘critical cultural awareness/political education: an
ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices
and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries’ (Byram, 1997, p. 63).
Finally, savoir-être is defined as ‘curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief
about other cultures and belief about one’s own’ (Byram, 1997, p. 57).
It deserves pointing out here that many of the facets of intercultural competence
identified in the literature regarding intercultural training are implied in Byram’s
definition. Thus, Byram’s definition echoes, for example, Wiseman et al.’s (1989)
conceptualisation of intercultural communication competence, including culture-
specific understanding of other, culture-general understanding and positive regard
for other, or the five dimensions of intercultural competence distinguished in Cui
and Awa (1992), namely interpersonal skills, social interaction skills, cultural
empathy, personality traits and managerial ability.
On the basis of this conceptual definition of intercultural competence, we specified
the knowledge, skills and attitudes that a foreign language teacher should possess to
be able to teach intercultural competence. As regards knowledge, we said that foreign
language teachers should be sufficiently familiar with the foreign cultures associated
with the foreign language they teach and that the contacts they have with these
cultures should be both varied and frequent. In addition, teachers should know their
own culture well and possess culture-general knowledge that can help them to explain
similarities and differences between cultures to learners. They should know both what
stereotypes pupils have and how to address these in the foreign language classroom.
They should know how to select appropriate content, learning tasks and materials
that can help learners become interculturally competent. With respect to skills, we
stated that teachers should be able to employ teaching techniques that promote the
58 L. Sercu

acquisition of savoirs, savoir-apprendre, savoir-comprendre, savoir-faire and savoir-être.

Teachers should be able to help pupils relate their own culture to foreign cultures, to
compare cultures and to empathise with foreign cultures’ points of view. They should
be able to select appropriate teaching materials and to adjust these materials should
they not allow achieving the aims of intercultural competence teaching. In addition
to being skilful classroom teachers, teachers should also be able to use experiential
approaches to language-and-culture teaching. With respect to attitudes, FL&IC
teachers should be favourably disposed towards the integration of intercultural
competence teaching in foreign language education and willing to actually work
towards achieving that goal. They should define the objectives of foreign language
education in terms of both language learning and intercultural competence acquisi-
tion. When selecting teaching materials, they should also consider to what extent
these materials can serve the purpose of promoting the acquisition of intercultural
competence. FC&IC teachers are willing to take account of their pupils’ perceptions
and attitudes regarding foreign cultures, and to depart from these perceptions and
attitudes when designing the learning process.
Our definition mirrors insights put forward in the literature regarding intercultural
training. Paige (1996), for example, offers a conceptual model for trainer competen-
cies, which is organized into four categories: knowledge, skills, personal qualities and
ethics. In our study, the focus was primarily on knowledge and skills, less on personal
qualities or ethics. Thus, no data were collected with respect to teachers’ tolerance of
ambiguity, cognitive or behavioural flexibility, cultural identity, patience, enthusiasm
and commitment, interpersonal skills, openness to new experiences and people,
empathy, respect, sense of humour or ethical behaviour (Paige, 1996, pp. 155–158).
The aspects of the intercultural teacher’s profile we focused on are directly related to
foreign language-and-culture teaching. They concern teachers’ views regarding inter-
cultural competence teaching as well as facets of their knowledge and teaching skills.

The study
Research questions
The research questions guiding the study were:
(1) How can foreign language teachers’ current professional self-concepts and
language-and-culture teaching practices be characterized, and how do these self-
concepts and teaching practices relate to the envisaged profile of the intercul-
tural foreign language teacher?
(2) Is it possible to speak of an ‘average culture-and-language teaching profile’, that
applies to teachers in a number of different countries?

Methodology
Teachers’ beliefs were profiled by means of a web-based questionnaire, with mainly
closed and some open questions. This approach allowed us to compare different
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 59

national data sets in a relatively straightforward manner. More qualitative research

methodologies frequently employed in research on teacher thinking were considered
less appropriate in view of the fact that the research was international in set-up and
that one of the aims of the research was to compare teachers’ profiles in the different
countries participating in the research. Using unstructured interviews, journals,
collaborative data collection techniques and the like would have yielded more in-
depth data, but would have made international comparison next to impossible.
Operationalising the study’s main research questions led to the development of a
questionnaire containing 11 sections.1 The questions addressed various facets of
teachers’ knowledge, skills and attitudes, as extensively as we thought was allowed in
view of the time respondents would probably be willing to devote to completing the
questionnaire. It turned out that the average time needed to complete the question-
naire was about 1 hour, which confirmed to us our impression that more questions
might have made the questionnaire indigestible.
The questions in the first section inquired into the respondents’ sex, age, number
of years of teaching experience, native tongue, nationality, as well as into the foreign
languages they taught.
The questions in the second section inquired into the characteristics of the school
where the teacher taught most of the time. Next to a number of questions pertaining
to the type of education the school offered, a question was included that asked the
respondents to indicate what percentage of their school’s population were ethnic
minority community children.
The questions in the third section concerned teachers’ perceptions of their teach-
ing objectives. One question inquired into teachers’ general educational objectives.
Three questions focused specifically on the cultural dimension of foreign language
education, asking respondents to indicate what they understand by culture teaching
in a foreign language teaching context, how they distributed their teaching time over
language teaching and culture teaching, and whether they felt they would like to
devote more time to ‘(language-and-) culture teaching’ but somehow never get
around to it, and inquiring into possible reasons for not getting around to it more
often.
Section 4 inquired into teachers’ perceptions of their pupils’ perceptions and
attitudes regarding foreign cultures and peoples usually associated with the foreign
language they were learning. Two questions towards the beginning of this section
asked the respondents to indicate which cultures, countries and peoples tend to be
associated with the foreign language they taught in their country, and which of these
countries/cultures tended to be the one primarily associated with that foreign
language. The first question investigating teachers’ perceptions of their pupils took
the format of a series of statements, which the respondents were asked to score on a
10-point scale. The statements inquired into teachers’ perceptions of (1) their
pupils’ degree of motivation to learn the foreign language; (2) their pupils’ apprecia-
tion of the degree of difficulty involved in learning that language; (3) their pupils’
degree of familiarity with the foreign culture(s) usually associated with that foreign
language; and (4) the extent of pupils’ positive or negative orientation towards the
60 L. Sercu

peoples and cultures associated with that foreign language. The next question was
an open question and asked teachers to describe their pupils’ actual perceptions and
ideas regarding the country/ies and people(s) usually associated with the foreign
language they taught, using keywords and distinguishing between countries when
needed.
The questions in section 5 investigated the extent to which teachers deemed
themselves familiar with the foreign culture(s) associated with the foreign language
they taught, and the extent of teachers’ direct and indirect contacts with the foreign
cultures associated with that language.
The questions in section 6 aimed to document teachers’ perceptions of their culture
teaching practices, investigating both the contents of their teaching and the techniques
used to teach culture or promote the acquisition of intercultural competence.
The questions in section 7 inquired into teachers’ perceptions of the cultural
dimension of the foreign language teaching materials they used. The questions also
aimed to assess the degree of importance teachers attached to the cultural dimension
when selecting a textbook, and thus, indirectly, the importance they attached to
teaching intercultural competence.
The questions in sections 8 and 9 shifted attention from the teachers’ perception
of their classroom work to their perception of direct contacts with the foreign culture
outside the classroom via school trips or exchange projects. The topics addressed
were (1) the reasons which teachers saw for school trips or letting their pupils take
part in exchange programmes; (2) whether or not teachers considered it part of their
teaching job to devote teaching time to preparing a school trip or exchange
programme, or to do follow-up work; When teachers do consider it part of their
teaching job, how much time they devote to preparatory or follow-up work, and
what it is they do exactly; (3) the extent to which teachers believe school trips or
exchange programmes can affect their pupils’ attitudes and perceptions regarding
foreign countries, cultures or peoples. With respect to each topic, the respondents
were first asked to score a closed question, and then to explain their answer in an
open question.
The questions in section 10 aimed to investigate whether or not schools organized
(cross-curricular) intercultural/multicultural/international activities, what activities
the school mounted, and whether the teachers believed these activities could affect
pupils’ attitudes and perceptions regarding foreign countries, cultures or peoples.
In the final section of the questionnaire, teachers were asked to indicate on a 5-
point scale to what extent they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements inves-
tigating different facets of intercultural competence teaching in foreign language
education. The facets addressed are clarified in the findings section.

Sample
The questionnaire was offered to an opportunity sample. In each of the participating
countries,2 an equal number of respondents were invited to participate in the research.
They were not randomly chosen, but purposefully selected. Purposeful sampling is
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 61

based on the assumption that the investigator wants to discover, understand and gain
insight, and therefore must select a sample from which the most can be learned
(Merriam, 1988; Creswell, 1994). Each sample can be considered representative of
secondary school teachers in each of the participating countries. The criteria used to
select the respondents were: language taught (English, German, French, other
language) and sector of education (secondary).
The total number of respondents was 424, with Belgium having the largest sample
(151) and Bulgaria the smallest (30). In total, 20.03% of all respondents were male
and 79.97% female; 79% of the respondents reported they were primarily teachers
of English, 9% teachers of German, 7% teachers of French and 2% teachers of
Spanish. A total of 2% mentioned other languages as the main language they taught.
Two thirds of the respondents taught in general secondary education, and one-third
in technical, vocational or artistic secondary education. The average experience in
language teaching was 15 years.
Though the samples were opportunity samples, statistical analyses on the data
(one-way ANOVA, Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance, Kruskal–Wallis one
way analysis of variance) revealed that the different country samples did not differ
significantly with respect to the respondents’ sex, age, degrees obtained, main
languages taught, other languages taught, number of years of teaching experience,
and percentage of ethnic minority community children in school. Only with respect
to the number of teaching periods and the kind of education offered at the various
schools did the samples appear to differ significantly.

Analysis
Since the questionnaire contained both closed and open questions, quantitative and
qualitative data analysis procedures were used. Quantitative data were processed by
means of descriptive and correlational statistical techniques (including Levene’s test
of homogeneity of variance; Bonferroni multiple comparisons tests; ANOVA;
Pearson’s correlations test). The qualitative data were analysed by hand.

Findings
We have described what knowledge, attitudes and skills a FL&IC teacher should
possess in order to be able to promote the acquisition of intercultural competence in
the foreign language classroom. In this section, we want to consider the research
findings we obtained in the light of the proposed conceptual model.3

Teachers’ knowledge
With respect to knowledge, we said that foreign language teachers should be suffi-
ciently familiar with the foreign cultures associated with the foreign language they
teach and that the contacts they have with these cultures should be both varied and
frequent. In addition, teachers should know their own culture well and possess
62 L. Sercu

culture-general knowledge that can help them to explain similarities and differences
between cultures to learners. They know both what stereotypes pupils have and how
to address these in the foreign language classroom. They know how to select
adequate contents, learning tasks and materials that can help learners become
interculturally competent.
Data with respect to teachers’ familiarity and contacts with the foreign cultures
and people associated with the foreign language they teach, as well as concerning
their perceptions of their pupils’ stereotypes regarding these cultures and people,
were collected by means of a series of closed and open questions directly investigat-
ing these issues. The other aspects of teachers’ knowledge were indirectly investi-
gated by means of questions focusing on different facets of teachers’ teaching
practice. These facets of knowledge will be dealt with in the next section on teachers’
skills.
Our findings show that teachers considered themselves sufficiently familiar with
the foreign cultures associated with the foreign language they taught, that they had
frequent media contacts with these cultures and travelled to the foreign countries as
tourists quite often, at least in some of the countries investigated. Teachers felt they
could deal extensively with ‘daily life and routines’, ‘traditions, folklore and tourist
attractions’, ‘youth culture’, ‘education’ or ‘history, geography, the political system’
in the foreign language classroom, and that they could say at least something about
for example ‘values and beliefs’, ‘other cultural expressions (dance, art, architecture,
etc.)’, ‘different ethnic and social groups’ or ‘international relations’.
Our findings also suggested that teachers knew what stereotypes their pupils held.
In answer to an open question, they proved to be able to list the main ideas their
pupils associated with each of the foreign cultures and peoples associated with the
foreign language they were learning, mentioning both positive and negative stereo-
types pertaining to a large variety of cultural aspects. The findings regarding the
USA can illustrate this. The USA and North Americans were said to be perceived by
pupils in mainly positive terms. The US was deemed to be a highly attractive and
essentially positive cultural community. Mexican pupils appeared to be less posi-
tively disposed towards Americans than pupils in other countries. Greek, Polish and
Swedish pupils appeared particularly positively disposed towards Americans,
whereas pupils in Belgium, Bulgaria and Spain occupied a middle ground, associat-
ing Americans with both positive and negative features. On the whole, pupils
appeared to be more knowledgeable regarding the US, its people and culture than
regarding the UK.
From the above, one could conclude that the extent of teachers’ knowledge
approaches what is expected of the FL&IC teacher. Additional data regarding teach-
ers’ knowledge and the use they make of it in the foreign language classroom,
presented in the next section, will demonstrate whether this conclusion is warranted.
Today’s foreign language teachers may indeed be sufficiently knowledgeable when
teaching within the context of the traditional ‘foreign cultural approach’ (Risager,
1998). Their knowledge might, however, fall short of expectations if they were to
teach towards the attainment of intercultural competence.
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 63

Skills

In the area of skills, we stated that teachers should be able to employ teaching tech-
niques that promote the acquisition of savoirs, savoir-apprendre, savoir-comprendre,
savoir-faire and savoir-être. Teachers should be able to address pupils’ stereotypes,
help pupils relate their own culture to foreign cultures, compare cultures and
empathise with foreign cultures’ points of view. They should be able to select appro-
priate teaching materials and to adjust these materials’ contents and pedagogical
approaches should they not allow achieving the aims of intercultural competence
teaching. Next to being skilful classroom teachers, teachers should also be able to
use experiential approaches to language-and-culture teaching.
The different components distinguished as indicators of a teacher’s teaching
practice in this research were: (1) the frequency with which teachers touched upon
particular cultural topics during classroom teaching; (2) the frequency with which
they practised particular kinds of culture teaching activities (e.g. ‘I ask my pupils to
compare an aspect of their own culture with that aspect in the foreign culture’; ‘I talk
with my pupils about stereotypes regarding particular cultures and countries or
regarding the inhabitants of particular countries’; I ask my pupils to independently
explore an aspect of the foreign culture’; ‘I tell my pupils why I find something fasci-
nating or strange about the foreign culture(s)’); (3) the way in which they distributed
their teaching time over language teaching and culture teaching; (4) the time they
devoted to preparatory and follow-up work in connection with school trips and
exchange programmes, in instances where the school organised such experiential
learning activities; and (5), the extent to which cultural aspects were considered
when selecting teaching materials.
The different data sets collected with respect to teachers’ culture teaching practice
were found to confirm each other. Therefore, we shall confine ourselves here to
reporting on one indicator of teaching practice only, namely the frequency with
which teachers practised particular kinds of culture teaching activities. From the
kinds of teaching activities most frequently practised in the foreign language class-
room, we can derive that teachers tended to employ techniques that aimed to
enlarge learners’ knowledge of the foreign culture, and not to encourage learners to
search for information in different sources, analyse it independently and present
their findings in order to discuss them with others. Though ‘comparison of cultures’
appeared to be an activity frequently practised, other activities aiming at the acquisi-
tion of intercultural skills, such as ‘reflect critically on one’s sources of information’,
‘explore an aspect of the foreign culture’, ‘practise skills useful in intercultural
contact situations’ were not.
With respect to the demand that FL&IC teachers should be able to select teaching
materials appropriate for intercultural competence teaching, our data suggest that
teachers were definitely able to comment critically on the cultural contents of foreign
language teaching materials, pointing out good and less satisfactory sides. Care has
to be taken, however, not to equate this ability with the ability to assess teaching
materials with respect to their potential for teaching intercultural competence. The
64 L. Sercu

teachers who commented on the cultural dimension of their teaching materials did
so from the perspective of the traditional ‘foreign cultural approach’, pointing out
where the information regarding the foreign culture had been incorrectly selected or
represented. Individual teachers also pointed to the need to revise the textbook’s
approach to the teaching of culture, and demand for more intercultural tasks. The
number of teachers doing so was very small, and did not allow the conclusion that
teachers were able to assess the culture teaching approaches adopted by their
textbooks from an intercultural perspective. Neither do our data allow us to state
that teachers were able to adapt the materials they used in order to enhance their
potential for promoting the acquisition of intercultural competence.
We stated earlier that, in addition to being skilful classroom teachers and able
assessors of foreign language teaching materials, FL&IC teachers should also be able
to use out-of-classroom experiential approaches to language-and-culture teaching.
Our data reveal that school trips and exchange programmes tended not to be consid-
ered activities that take place in the context of foreign language education. Only a
minority of the teachers devoted time to preparing or following-up on this kind of
activity in the foreign language classroom. Despite teachers’ beliefs in the positive
effects of such activities on learners, teachers thought of them as the responsibility of
the school, other teachers or all teachers. Teachers who did devote teaching time to
following-up on experiential learning activities appeared to use activities typical of
intercultural approaches to foreign language education, and which assist learners to
reflect on their experiences and on cultural differences between their own and the
foreign culture.
From this, one can conclude that teachers appeared sufficiently skilled to teach
within the ‘foreign culture approach’, but may have lacked the skills necessary to
teach towards the full attainment of intercultural competence.

Attitudes
Finally, we compare the current foreign language teachers’ profile and the envisaged
FL&IC teacher profile from the point of view of attitudes. With respect to attitudes,
FL&IC teachers should be favourably disposed towards the integration of intercul-
tural competence teaching in foreign language education and actually willing to
work towards achieving that goal. They should define the objectives of foreign
language education in terms of both language learning and intercultural competence
acquisition. FC&IC teachers should be willing to take account of their pupils’
perceptions and attitudes regarding foreign cultures, and to depart from these
perceptions and attitudes when designing the learning process.
At different stages in the questionnaire, questions were included that inquired into
the degree of teachers’ overall support for the teaching of intercultural competence
in foreign language education. The two questions most directly investigating teach-
ers’ overall readiness to teach intercultural competence teaching took the format of a
statement, with respect to which teachers were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale
to what extent they agreed with it. The statements were: ‘I would like to teach
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 65

intercultural competence through foreign language education’ and ‘I would like to

promote the acquisition of intercultural skills through my teaching’.
Our findings suggest that teachers in all countries indicated that they were favour-
ably disposed towards teaching intercultural competence in foreign language educa-
tion. Teachers in Bulgaria and Sweden appeared to be the strongest proponents,
with mean scores of 4.90 and 4.73. The lowest mean score was obtained for Belgian
teachers (4.29), with a smaller group of teachers (44.44%) agreeing completely to
the statement than in other countries. The largest percentages of teachers who are
undecided could be found in Greece (20.51%) and Poland (16.67%). On the whole
in all countries, at least 79,48% of all teachers either agreed to a certain extent or
agreed completely with the statement ‘I would like to teach intercultural competence
through my foreign language teaching’.
To investigate teachers’ beliefs further, the respondents were offered 22 state-
ments similar to the ones mentioned above. These statements inquired into 11
different facets of intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education.
The statements were offered in two sets, with each set containing one question for
each facet. While completing the questionnaire, the respondents had to submit their
answers to the first set before they could access the second set. In this way, the
degree of consistency in teachers’ answers could be investigated. The topics
addressed were:
● conviction that it is only when there are ethnic minority community children in one’s
class that one should try to promote the acquisition of intercultural competence;
● conviction that language and culture cannot be taught in an integrated way;
● conviction that intercultural education has no effect on pupils’ attitudes;
● conviction that intercultural skills cannot be acquired at school;
● conviction that a sufficiently high level of language proficiency is needed before
one can start teaching culture;
● conviction that culture teaching is as important as language teaching in foreign
language education;
● conviction that the teaching of intercultural competence should be undertaken
cross-curricularly;
● conviction that language teaching should not only deal with foreign cultures, but
also help pupils to deepen their understanding of their own culture;
● conviction that more knowledge and a larger familiarity with the foreign culture
will lead to a more tolerant attitude;
● conviction that a foreign language teacher should present a realistic image of the
foreign culture, not a merely positive one and;
● conviction that all pupils should acquire intercultural competence, not only pupils
in classrooms with ethnic minority children.
Information regarding the aspects of teachers’ conviction that appear to co-variate
with teachers’ degree of willingness to interculturalise foreign language education
was obtained through running a Pearson’s correlations test (level of significance set
at 0.05) on teachers’ answers. From these research findings, it is clear that patterns
66 L. Sercu

of teacher thinking appear to exist within the different country samples and across
them. The results point towards the existence of two teacher profiles: the teacher
who is favourably disposed towards the integration of intercultural competence in
foreign language education and the teacher who is unfavourably disposed towards its
integration. Teachers who are not in favour of the integration of intercultural
competence teaching in foreign language education believe that it is impossible to
integrate language teaching and culture teaching. They also believe that intercultural
skills cannot be acquired at school, let alone in the foreign language classroom. On
the whole, these teachers do not believe in the positive effect of intercultural compe-
tence teaching on pupils’ attitudes and perceptions. The only effect they see is a
negative one: intercultural competence teaching reinforces pupils’ already existing
stereotypes. In addition, these teachers believe that it is only when there are ethnic
minority community children in one’s classes that one should teach intercultural
competence.
In contrast, teachers who are favourably disposed towards the integration of
intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education share a number of
convictions too. They believe that teaching culture is as important as teaching the
foreign language, and that it is possible to integrate the two. To their minds,
intercultural competence teaching makes pupils more tolerant. These teachers prefer
an approach that is cross-curricular and are convinced that teachers of every subject
should teach intercultural competence, not only foreign language teachers. In
addition, they do not think intercultural competence should only be taught in
schools with ethnic minority community children: it should be taught to all pupils.
As hinted at above, our findings also reveal that this willingness is not reflected in
the way in which they currently shape their teaching practice or define the objectives
of foreign language education. These objectives continue to be defined mainly in
linguistic terms, though teachers in some countries, notably Bulgaria and Greece,
clearly give greater prominence to cultural objectives than teachers in other coun-
tries. With respect to the way in which teachers attend to their pupils’ perceptions
and attitudes, it is clear that teachers take their decisions as to how to shape their
culture teaching practice largely independently of their pupils’ current knowledge
and disposition. In this sense, they clearly do not meet the expectations voiced
towards the FL&IC teacher.
From the above, we can conclude that the basic attitude of about 80% of all
respondents can be said to be the attitude desired of the FL&IC teacher, but that
this attitude is largely dependent on the teacher’s conviction that language and
culture can be taught in an integrated way.

Average profile across countries

Having answered our first main research question, namely ‘How can foreign language
teachers’ current professional self-concepts and foreign language-and-culture teach-
ing profile be characterised, and how do these self-concepts and teaching profiles
relate to the envisaged profile of the intercultural foreign language teacher?’, we can
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 67

now turn to answering the second one, namely ‘Is it possible to speak of an ‘average
culture-and-language teaching profile’, that applies to teachers in a number of
different countries?’
We can answer this question affirmatively. Our findings allow the conclusion that
an average culture-and-language teaching profile exists and that teachers are moving
towards becoming FL&IC teachers, but that at present their profile does not meet
all expectations regarding knowledge, skills and attitudes voiced towards the ‘FLIC
teacher’. Individual teachers may already possess the envisaged FL&IC teacher
profile. The majority of teachers in all countries participating in this research,
however, either have what could be labelled ‘a foreign language teacher profile’,
focusing primarily and almost exclusively on the acquisition of communicative
competence in the foreign language, or a ‘foreign language-and-culture teaching
profile’, focusing primarily on the acquisition of communicative competence in the
foreign language, but also teaching culture so as to enhance pupils’ familiarity with
the foreign culture as well as their motivation to learn the foreign language.

Discussion
The fact that an average language-and-culture teaching profile appears to exist is
surprising in view of the fact that data were collected in seven different countries.
These countries can be assumed to have different foreign language teaching tradi-
tions. In some countries, parents and pupils may be more convinced of the need to
learn foreign languages than in others. Pupils’ perceptions and attitudes regarding
the foreign cultures, countries and peoples that tend to be associated with the
foreign language taught may be different, depending on the kinds of relationships
that exist or existed between particular nations. For teachers and pupils in some
countries, it may be easier to travel to the foreign country primarily associated with
the foreign language than for teachers and pupils in other countries. Some countries
may have easier access to television channels broadcasting in the language learnt in
comparison with other countries. The number of teaching periods available for
learning a particular foreign language may differ across countries. In some countries,
teachers are free to choose their own teaching materials, while in other countries
they are not.
In spite of these differences, an average teacher could be profiled. This may mean
that local teaching circumstances may be less different than presupposed. The fact
that teachers in all countries mention the same reasons for not getting around to
culture teaching more often provides evidence for this interpretation. It may also
mean that local teaching circumstances really are different, but that the respects in
which they differ do not affect teachers’ perceptions regarding the integration of
intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education. Thus, though
teachers do not perceive their pupils’ attitudes and perceptions regarding foreign
cultures in exactly the same way in the different countries, these differences do not
affect teachers’ beliefs regarding intercultural competence in foreign language
education. As a matter of fact, it appears that teachers tend to take little account of
68 L. Sercu

their pupils’ abilities, needs and interests in the area of culture learning and the
acquisition of intercultural competence, and adopt teacher-centred approaches to
culture teaching.
The fact that an average profile appears to exist is not surprising in view of the
insights gained from research on teachers’ beliefs. From that literature, it has
become clear that well-established teachers’ beliefs tend to persevere, and thus tend
to affect teaching practice. In view of the fact that the communicative approach to
foreign language education has been advocated since the 1980s, it seems reasonable
to assume that teachers in the different countries participating in the research share
the conviction that languages should be taught for communication—and not, for
example, to provide access to the masterpieces of the foreign literature—as well as a
number of basic views on how to assist learners to acquire communicative
competence in a foreign language. Communicative conceptions of foreign language
education can be said to constitute the core of teachers’ views. These conceptions
affect the way in which teachers teach the language and approach culture teaching. It
is against this background that teachers assess proposals for innovation. At present,
intercultural competence teaching is perceived to be an important proposal for
innovation in all participating countries. Yet, it is also viewed as peripheral to the
commonly accepted linguistic goals of foreign language education. The fact that
teachers in all countries are clearly willing to interculturalise foreign language educa-
tion may follow from the fact that teachers in all countries share the same conviction
that, as educators, they have to prepare learners for life in an increasingly multicul-
tural world, in which they have to be fluent in more than one language and have to
be interculturally competent.
The fact that this average profile does not yet coincide with the envisaged profile
of the FL&IC teacher should not surprise, in view of what was said above regarding
teachers’ present conceptions of foreign language education. This finding does
surprise, though, in view of the fact that the recommendation to teach for intercul-
tural competence has been around since at least the 1980s. Why then is it that
teachers primarily display a ‘foreign language teacher’ profile or a ‘foreign
language-and-culture teacher’ profile? Is this because teachers do not read the
professional literature, explaining why and how to teach intercultural competence?
Is it because pre-service and in-service education programmes have failed to
prepare teachers adequately for FL&IC teaching? Is it because textbooks continue
to adopt foreign culture teaching approaches, instead of intercultural approaches?
The answer to this question probably lies in a combination of these and other
factors. This leads us to a number of recommendations regarding what teacher
training institutions, textbook authors and policy makers could do to assist teachers
to acquire the envisaged FL&IC profile.

Implications
One of the reasons for investigating teachers’ beliefs about teaching intercultural
competence in foreign language education was to be able to provide teachers with
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 69

professional development opportunities that build on their existing beliefs and

teaching practices. The findings of research on teachers’ beliefs indicate that teachers’
beliefs regarding teaching and learning affect their conceptions of specific teaching
situations and, ultimately, their teaching practice. Departing from teachers’ beliefs
and trying to alter them, therefore, seems to hold the best promise for altering teach-
ing practice. We need to offer professional training that can provide teachers with
opportunities to evolve their beliefs so that they may be more compatible with teach-
ing intercultural competence. Our findings suggest for example that teachers perceive
culture teaching foremost in terms of teacher-centred transmission of cultural knowl-
edge. To change teachers’ beliefs regarding culture teaching, they need to be exposed
to beliefs that provide alternatives for this kind of pedagogy, and that help them
perceive intercultural competence not only in terms of the acquisition of cultural
knowledge, but also in terms of the acquisition of intercultural skills and attitudes.
In some cases, teachers may already be convinced of the importance of assisting
learners to acquire intercultural competence and yet still experience barriers to
implement intercultural competence teaching. These barriers can take the form of
conflicts or inconsistencies in a teacher’s belief system. One of the conclusions of our
study is that the majority of teachers are willing to integrate intercultural compe-
tence in their teaching, and yet define the objectives of foreign language education
foremost in terms of communicative competence, not intercultural communicative
competence. Teachers may feel it is important that their learners become intercul-
turally competent, and yet feel they are accountable to parents and students who
think acquisition of communicative competence in the foreign language should be
the principal objective of foreign language education. This conviction that it is to the
promotion of communicative competence that teaching time should be foremost
devoted may be reinforced by constraints related to the curriculum and to schedul-
ing. Teachers may have to cover a full language curriculum and only be allotted a
limited number of teaching periods. In addition to conflicts within a teacher’s own
system of beliefs, there may also be conflicts with beliefs of colleagues (e.g. a teacher
would like to implement a cross-curricular approach to intercultural competence
teaching but colleagues believe in language teaching within the confines of the
subject) and conflicts with beliefs of students (e.g. a teacher wants his/her students
to become independent explorers of cultures, but students prefer teacher-directed
instruction). Very often, these kinds of conflicts in beliefs remain subconscious.
Teacher education sessions will need to provide opportunities for teachers to make
these conflicting beliefs explicit, to examine and discuss them.
Apart from building on teachers’ existing beliefs, teacher development sessions
should also build on teachers’ existing teaching practices and on their beliefs regarding
intercultural competence teaching. The findings of our study suggest that teachers
who do not believe that language and culture can be taught in an integrated way are
also the teachers who are not willing to integrate intercultural competence teaching
in foreign language education. Providing these teachers with examples of how language
teaching and culture teaching can be integrated may help these teachers to explore
alternative ways of culture teaching and to change their negative disposition. Helping
70 L. Sercu

teachers to integrate teaching activities directed towards the acquisition of culture

learning skills in day-to-day teaching may help to win over teachers who are in doubt.
In view of the fact that our data reveal that textbooks play a prominent role in foreign
language education and given most textbooks adopt foreign cultural approaches, not
intercultural approaches, teacher training should provide opportunities for teachers
to reflect on the quality of their teaching materials for promoting the acquisition of
intercultural competence in their learners, and assist teachers to adapt existing teaching
materials. Finally, teacher development programmes may help teachers realise the
opportunities to enhance learners’ intercultural competence inherent in experiential
learning activities, such as exchange projects and school trips, and show ways to avoid
possible pitfalls which can lead to reinforcement of already existing stereotypes.
Apart from developers of pre-service and in-service teacher training sessions, other
parties involved in foreign language education may also find the results of this study
of interest, amongst them textbook authors and policy makers. Textbook authors
should design teaching materials that aim to promote the acquisition of intercultural
competence amongst learners. They should show ways to integrate the teaching of
language and culture, and to promote the acquisition of intercultural skills and
attitudes, in addition to cultural knowledge. In view of the fact that the textbook
continues to play an important role in foreign language education (Sercu, 1998), we
believe textbook authors have an important role to play in evolving teachers’ implicit
theories and in reshaping teaching practice.
This also applies to policy makers. We can assume that teachers’ implicit theories
or beliefs are affected by official theories, and that there is a certain convergence
between the two. Our findings may help educational policy makers realise that teach-
ers are at present not sufficiently informed about the enlarged objectives of foreign
language education. They may realise the need to familiarise foreign language teach-
ers with the central concepts and methods of intercultural foreign language education.

Notes
1. The questionnaire can be obtained through the author of this article.
2. The different researchers involved in this project collected the data on which this paper is
based. The author of this article, who initiated and co-coordinated the project, is much
obliged to Ewa Bandura (Jagiellonian University, Poland), Paloma Castro (University of
Valladolid, Spain), Leah Davcheva (The British Council, Bulgaria), Chryssa Laskaridou
(University of Thessaloniki, Greece), Ulla Lundgren (Jönköping University, Sweden), María
del Carmen Méndez García (University of Jaén, Spain) and Phyllis Ryan (UNAM:
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico).
3. For reasons of space, no tables, substantiating the findings, have been included. Readers
interested in receiving these tables and figures can contact the author.

Notes on contributor
Lies Sercu (1966) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics of the
K.U.Leuven, Belgium. She is president of the reserach group ‘Multilingualism,
language acquisition and educational linguistics’. Her research interests include
 Foreign language and intercultural competence teacher 71

the acquisition of multilingualism and intercultural communicative competence

in an educational context. She has published numerous articles and book on
those topics. She teaches courses in language acquisition and language teaching
methodology.

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