Acquiring Intercultural Competences in the Language Classroom: A Case Study on the Balearic Islands

Abstract

[eng] In the Balearic Islands, a growing number of immigrants has been noticed within the last decades. This fact has not only affected economy or demography, but also education. Today’s schools are the mirror of the culturally diverse society we are living in today. Recent studies that deal with the cultural framework that teachers encounter in a classroom have discussed the features to take into account when facing this situation. In order to suit the new multicultural target audience, one of the roles teachers have to assume is to promote the intercultural discourse among the students with the aim to teach them how to communicate in this multicultural world. When talking about education, it is expected from teachers to transmit not only knowledge, but also values for the students to learn how to behave in this new diverse context they are living in today. By giving students the tools to do so, they will be able to leave prejudices behind and learn about the other cultures they are daily in touch with. In order for this to happen, UNESCO (2013) believes that people need to feel curiosity about other societies’ customs so as to adopt a receptive position to acquire a new knowledge that may give them a broader perspective of the world. The aim of this present study is to ask, by means of a questionnaire, secondary foreign language teachers from Col·legi Ramon Llull about their attitudes towards this scenario, as well as their contribution to the acquisition of intercultural competences during their lessons. In order to contrast teachers’ answers, students will also be surveyed, not only as a source of information, but also as a self-reflection practice. Finally, in order to suit this need and put students’ intercultural competences into practice, a proposal that involves using the online platform Edmodo will be presented. By means of this tool, both students and teachers will be able to interact with other schools from different countries and participate in online activities.