Abstract:

For many years European glottodidactics has been postulating for joining the practice of foreign language teaching with the presentation of the realities and culture which resulted in birth of a new glottodidactic sub-discipline called intercultural glottopedagogics, also known by the following terms: die Landeskunde (German), area studies (English), la civilisation (French), la civilt.. (Italian) or stranovedenie (Russian). There is a growing conviction that foreign language teaching should be deeply embedded in the cultural context, including introduction of the culture of a given language area and information about intercultural differences, since despite the fact that in currently dominating communicative approach the key didactic objective is the ability of efficient communication, the indisputable fact is the threat of the efficiency of the communication in the given language posed by the lack of so called intercultural competence. It is defined as the ability to communicate with the members of different cultural circles and nations and the ability to build the „bridges of agreement”, in other words – complex ability to manage oneself in the complicated reality of multilingual and multi-cultural contemporary world. The objective of my paper is the reflection upon cultural problems on the ground of foreign languages, current issues of intercultural approach in the didactics of foreign languages, place and role of intercultural competence among the goals of language teaching, as well as mutual relationship between cultural and communicative competence, theoretical premises and concepts underlying the basis of practical solutions of intercultural teaching and emphasising the function of glottodidactics consisting in approaching the culture of the target language country and explaining intercultural differences, hence the outline of the problems of intercultural tendencies on the ground of contemporary glottodidactics.

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