UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA EXPERIMENTAL LIBERTADOR

INSTITUTO PEDAGÓGICO DE CARACAS

SUBDIRECCIÓN DE INVESTIGACIÓN Y POSTGRADO
SUBPROGRAMA DE ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS COMO LENGUA EXTRANJERA

INTERCULTURALITY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL EFL CLASSROOM.

Prof. Audy Castañeda Nahir Aparicio M.

INTERCULTURALITY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL EFL CLASSROOM.

Author: Nahir Aparicio M.

ABSTRACT

The present study determines the criteria on which English

teachers of 4th year at “Luis Razetti” high school in Caracas
design their instructional materials to develop Intercultural
awarenes through English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This
study is a descriptive, qualitative field research. The sample
group. The instrument used to collect the data will be the
questionnaire and checklists. The questionnaire will be used to
explore how teachers of English at “Luis Razetti” high school
develop intercultural aspects in their classes and to identify the
criteria they use to design intercultural materials

Key words: English as a Foreign Language, materials design,

culture, Intercultural Competence, Intercultural Awareness.
 An increasingly urgent call for language teachers has been to combine the

established ´four skills` of reading, writing, listening and speaking with a set of

´intercultural` skills and competences. Within the Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment, intercultural knowledge

and skills combine with language knowledge and skills in the investigation of some

topics such as:

 How we construct our notions of the self and others

 How we might relate the behaviour of others to their attitudes and beliefs
 How we can empathise with, respect and value the beliefs of others.

Interculturality, as a global tendency with a critical view, is one of the components

that might be included in the high school curriculum, EFL teachers are expected to

develop intercultural awareness in their students teaching the English language. Cultural

diversity understood as inclusion of different microcultures inside the same culture

people share, and even from the same region as it happens in Latin America and the

Caribbean. Many may say that intercultural language education has a political agenda

and by exploring the role language plays in creating social, professional, ethnic and

national groups, language learners will be able to view their own attitudes and beliefs,

and become able to empathize with the attitudes and beliefs of others, to transform the

information gap into an intercultural gap in which the learner becomes a mediator

between cultures and the EFL classroom becomes a “third place” (Kramsch, 1993)

Contextualization and justification:

In a globalized world, it may be necessary to prepare students for future exchange

with people from different cultures, as it is included in the UNESCO Universal

Declaration on Cultural Diversity in one of their goals “Promoting through education an

awareness of the positive value of cultural diversity and improving to this end both

curriculum design and teacher education”; In Venezuelan classrooms, interculture has

been explored from different views: as a way to promote Venezuelan aborigen ethnic

groups, as well as promoting different cultural, mainly folkloric, manifestations of the

same country culture, mostly dances from different regions. In the new curriculum,

proposed by the MPPEDC, they established the following goals for the foreign language

class:

 Reconocer y respetar los pueblos y comunidades indígenas, afrodescendientes,

europeos y asiáticos con todos los elementos histórico-culturales que las
caracterizan;
 Asumir el compromiso de la unidad del género humano dentro de la diversidad
lingüística y cultural, donde las relaciones entre los pueblos y culturas requieren
de nuevos mecanismos de justicia y equidad que garanticen las mismas.

In addition, these are some activities proposed by the MPPECD:

 Investigar sobre las comunidades indígenas afrodescendientes, europeos y

asiáticos que hayan aportado rasgos culturales a nuestra identidad
 Analizar los valores y principios que guían a esos pueblos.
 Realizar visitas guiadas a lugares donde aún existan comunidades originarias o
que conserven su idiosincrasia.

Exploration of attitudes and beliefs to other groups within the same Venezuelan

culture in the EFL classroom has been scarcely done, and using English as a way to

understand them has hardly been attempted. In view of the above mentioned, it is worth

examining what EFL teachers understand about interculturality within one culture/

between microcultures from a macro, and interculturality in a latinamerican, caribbean,

and global contexts, following the philosophical principles in the Constitución Nacional

de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela(1999) as well as one of the goals set in the

Bolivarian Education System states “Promover el fortalecimiento y valoración de la

interculturalidad y la diversidad cultural” (p.23).

This research attempts to explore the principles underlying the activities EFL

teachers, in 4th year of high school at “Luis Razetti” Caracas, use in the development of

intercultural topics in their classes.

Research Question:

 On which criteria should “Luis Razetti” high school teachers of EFL base the
design of instructional materials to develop Intercultural (IC) awareness?
General objectives

 To examine criteria used by “Luis Razetti” high school teachers of EFL to

develop IC awareness in their 4th year students in the school year 2008-2009.

 To design a set of criteria to be used by “Luis Razetti” high school teachers of

EFL to develop IC awareness in their 4th year students in the school year 2008-

2009.

Specific objectives:

 To determine the procedure “Luis Razetti” high school teachers of EFL use in

their IC classes

 To analize the criteria “Luis Razetti” high school teachers of EFL use for

designing material/lesson plans with an IC perspective through EFL teaching.

 To compare the criteria found in the teachers’ practice to what IC approaches

suggest.

 To suggest (or construct with teachers) a set of criteria for designing

material/lesson plans with an intercultural perspective through EFL teaching.

Preliminary Theoretical Framework:

The following poinst will be discussed and defined througout this chapter:

 Interculturality

 Interculturality and foreign language learning/teaching

 Intercultural competence along with the four skills: listening, reading, writing

and speaking.

 Intercultural awareness
  Information gap vs intercultural gap

 Material design

Methodology:

This research can be inserted within the Exploratory Field research since the object of

the analysis will be taken from a situation in real life with the purpose of describing and

understanding the criteria “Luis Razetti” high school EFL teachers use in developing

intercultural lessons.

 Exploratory:- descriptive: it will search to know an area not or hardly studied

before.

 It may also be considered a Feasible project since it intends to propose some

criteria for material design with an intercultural perspective adapted to the

context in which this study will be caried out.

Instruments

The technique to be used to collect the data will be the survey and the instrument will be
the questionnaire. According to Arias (2006), the questionnaire is a printed instrument
or paper which includes a sequence of questions to obtain specific information about a
topic.
Surveys. Structured interviews. Likert scales.Questionnaires

Class observation. Checklists.

Population: teachers of English at ”Luis Razetti” high school, Av.Morán, Caracas

Sample: 1st year of Diversificada teachers of English

References

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