Böcker i Intercultural Communication and Language Education-serien

This book has explored in depth the beliefs and practices of foreign language teachers regarding global awareness in the context of a Chinese senior high school. This book defines global awareness as a combination of global knowledge, global attitudes, and global skills for a global citizen to act from the local community to the global community. By analysing qualitative data such as classroom observations, interviews and focus groups with language teachers and linking these findings to language education policy and practice in China, this book has explored how English language teachers teach English language, intercultural communicative competence and global awareness in China. This book will be of interest to researchers, language teachers and students in the fields of language education and intercultural communication. It also provides a readable overview for those new to the field of ICC and global citizenship education.

This book explores the benefits of teaching reflection upon one¿s own culture to develop intercultural competence and looks into the relationship between the proficiency level of the second language and the target culture. It introduces new debates on the concept of ¿critical cultural awareness¿ in intercultural learning and teaching, for example the indiscriminate use of terminologies related to the idea of ¿intercultural encounters¿. Also, it provides insight into the relationship between language and culture using a new tool such as the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media. The presentation of different approaches, tools, barriers, educational and cultural realities, online intercultural exchange projects and concepts such as motivation, attitudes, stereotyping, otherization, and critical cultural awareness makes this book an excellent instrument not only for teachers but also for researchers, policy-makers and private and public institutions that want to explore culture and interculturality and to promote an intercultural competence and global citizenship among its learners / users / clients and / or an interculturally-oriented language education.

In turn, it discusses the interdiscursive nature of ideologies and the complex ways in which ideologies influence objective and material realities, including hiring practices and, more broadly speaking, unequal distributions of power and resources.

It explores the nature of (English and Japanese) native-speakerism in the Japanese context, and possible grounds on which language teachers could be employed if native-speakerism is rejected (i.e., what are the language teachers of the future expected to do, and be, in practice?).

This book employs the realm of English Language Teaching (ELT) as a discursive point of departure to explore how individuals, groups, entities and institutions apprehend, embrace, deal with, manipulate, problematize and resist glocal flows of people, ideas, information, goods, and technology.