This article focuses on a case study of English language teachers, who are asked to teach intercultural communication to mixed classes of local and international students in Chinese Higher Education, although they do not specialize in this complex field. They were interviewed to find out about their experiences and perceptions of this 'improvised'…

Culture is an important element of language teaching. This multiple case study explores the beliefs of 14 novice Indonesian EFL teachers regarding teaching about culture. Data sources included: interviews, lesson observations, professional learning community sessions, and journal entries. Data analysis classified participants in two groups: those…

In this article we depart from a conceptualisation of foreign language teaching as intercultural citizenship in schools and universities. We extend this conceptualisation by suggesting that foreign language teaching can and should also sensitise students about issues of human suffering and cultivate empathy, solidarity, hospitality and inclusion.…

This study utilises the 'small story' approach to investigate metaphor in mobile students' narratives of intercultural experience. Metaphor in narrative is seen as a dynamic, discursive, and sociocognitive phenomenon. The narrative accounts presented in this paper derive from interviews conducted for mobility project evaluation. The participants…

Naming practices are inextricably linked to cultural values and social norms. Among Chinese English language learners, naming practices have been the focus of studies in both domestic and transnational contexts; however, teachers of Chinese as a foreign language have been largely overlooked. This case study seeks to address this gap by…

Language educators in Australia and Finland are expected to foster intercultural understanding within foreign language education. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study focusing on theoretical and practical intercultural understanding in secondary school language education. The data for this study includes lesson observations…

As a consequence of accelerating globalisation there has been an emphasis on developing international students' proficiency to communicate in a foreign language. However, willingness to communicate in a foreign language other than English is an issue less discussed. This case study is an attempt to clarify expats' experience of living in Denmark…

This article offers a critical intercultural perspective to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education inspired by Freire's conceptualisation of dialogue required in contexts where teachers must comply with hegemonic language policies. Drawing on an ethnographic study with Yusef, a Palestinian-Arab EFL teacher in Israel, I examine how…

Recently, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has produced several internationalisation policies to develop their notion of "guroubaru-jinzai" (global human resources). However, a lack of clear direction regarding theories and approaches about how to achieve these initiatives has created a…

The study examines second language identities constructed in small stories around intercultural communication. It presents a detailed narrated-event and narrating-event analysis of small stories narrated by an Iranian user of English as a second language (ESL). The analysis suggests that small stories can become a site where second language…

Although it has revealed the material conditions under which language education programmes are implemented worldwide, research on neoliberalism and language commodification has not yet adequately centred pedagogy. Thus, processes commodifying 'objects' other than language as product go unnoticed in educational settings. Drawing on a four-year…

This article shows the potential of the Council of Europe's Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters and Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media to develop quality education in the (foreign) language classroom in Higher Education. Whereas the literature focuses on their contributions to fostering intercultural awareness and…

The Council of Europe's "Autobiography of Intercultural Encounter" (AIE) is a tool to develop intercultural competence (IC) in education by encouraging users to reflect upon and learn from momentous intercultural encounters they have experienced face to face. Its parallel resource, the "Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters…

This article illustrates the significance of intercultural competence in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to a multicultural group of students in a matriculation preparation programme in Israel. It is based on an action research using a case study approach to examine the role of cultural background in the acquisition of EFL. Drawing…

This study intends to highlight the role that Foreign Language Education (FLE), particularly in the Higher Education context, can play so as to contribute to the rapprochement of two distant and still mutually unknown countries such as Portugal and Turkey. In this sense, it ultimately aims at supporting the training of intercultural speakers,…