Abstract:

Abstract. Intercultural competence in the paradigm of intercultural communicative competence plays an important role in the present time of the Foreign Language Teaching profession. Intercultural skills (Sercu, 2004) of the intercultural speakers (Byram, M.2000), rather than the language skills of the language speakers is more prominent nowadays. This radical shift in the view of the language researchers and experts certainly affects language teachers’ role in promoting learners’ acquisition of intercultural skills and consequently, fostering their cultural dimension. The present study focuses on the role of teachers as mediators of both language and culture in foreign language classes. To collect the data, a questionnaire was distributed among 93 Iranian foreign language teachers of both genders from seven different provinces. They were asked to express their opinion regarding several aspects of including the culture element in foreign language teaching. To analyze the data, frequencies are computed, chi square is obtained and finally the r formula for some of the answers is used. Completing the questionnaire, teachers express their opinion about culture and language teaching. The participants also explain the extent to which they are interested in interculturalizing the foreign language teaching and the conditions and circumstances they think to be important doing that. The findings suggest that teacher training programs should pay more attention to training the language teachers in intercultural skills as well as intercultural competence. The curriculum developers should also include more cultural points and information in the material the teachers are using and keep them updated. Though some  of teachers in our study believed that interculturalizing the foreign language teaching is important, they were more linguistic-oriented and did not regard intercultural skills and knowledge as necessary, hence their failure in practically integrating language and culture in their classrooms.

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