Intercultural Communication and Technology

I strongly believe in the insertion of culture in the teaching of a foreign language, since it is in this way how the value of intercultural communication can be perceived. I believe that thanks to the growth of the Internet, the use of foreign languages have increased from different perspectives.

Originally, the Internet facilitated communication between a huge number of people with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. After having put this into practice, the use of technology started being implemented in our classrooms, as a way to bring the target culture. I think that delving into the electronic interculturality, as well as investigating areas on action would help in order to conceptualize international communities.

Likewise, I find extremely interesting to look at the opportunities and challenges of virtual communities for intercultural communication, in order to enable barrier free communication. Needless to say, I also perceive these possible barriers for people to engage in this virtual communication, such as: it is typical to run into struggles with technology for a lack of technological competence, the communication turns out to be more reduced when written, since paraverbal cues are not always visible, a lingua franca emerges at some point of the communication.

On the other hand, I believe that studying or working abroad for some time is the best way to interpret or perceive Intercultural Communication, since it is then when one needs to open his/her mind, in order to understand the foreign culture.

Amongst the points discussed this week in class, I believe that recul is quite important for learners’ development, since it could better future Intercultural Communication interactions. Culture is learned through language and social interaction. Hence language and culture are closely related. If we are learning about TIFLE, it is now when I personally stress the importance of taking advantage of technology for cultural purposes, since if we prescind from the culture, as Griffin (1973) stated, “we exclude from the classroom the values and life styles of the people whose language we teach, we virtually exclude the supreme viable dimension without which language study is not much more than a sterile linguistic exercise”.

As the readings say, when our students work on an intercultural communication project, we should let them know about some tensions that may arise. For instance, we should encourage them to be open with their partners and ask them about their learning expectations, the time they could dedicate, and the reasons for them to be in the class. Likewise, these studies share the same point: when our students succeed to communicate with others, they also succeed to challenge possible stereotypes, as well as learn a new culture. For those of you who teach Spanish, I highly recommend to you a book which relates to this topic Contenidos culturales en la enseñanza del E/LE (Soler-Espiauba, 2006) and might be of your interest.