Call for Papers
Target Culture - Target Language?
eds. Nicole McBride and Karen Seago
Contributions are invited to a forthcoming volume of the AFLS
“Current Issues in University Language Teaching” series which
will focus on the role of the target language in the teaching
of cultural competence and which aims to explore bridges
between language and ‘cultural studies.’
Traditionally, cultural awareness was understood to be a part
of communicative competence and has been primarily associated
with language teaching and experiential learning in the period
of study spent abroad. In innovative course design, cultural
competence has increasingly been identified as a distinct
learning objective within the curriculum and mediated in
‘cultural studies’ modules.
In the context of resource driven changes in HE language
programmes it is essential to investigate the potential of such
curriculum-based teaching of cultural competence.
‘Cultural studies,’ for the purposes of this Call for Papers,
are defined pragmatically - not theoretically - as modules
which are not primarily concerned with teaching the language:
literary, linguistic, media, history as well as area studies
modules.
The editors will provide a chapter on theoretical perspectives
and definitions of cultural competence and an introduction to
existing research in the area. We also hope to include a survey
of current practice in HE with regard to the use of the target
language in the teaching of ‘cultural studies’ modules as
defined above..
The aims of the book are:
1. to consider cultural competence in terms of learning
objectives and to discuss its place in the curriculum with
reference to recent research
2. to examine and evaluate ways of how cultural competence can
be taught with reference to examples of innovative practice
where available
3. to evaluate the impact of target language teaching on the
‘acquisition’ of cultural competence and / or to consider the
role of the native speaker as teacher in mediating cultural
competence
4. to examine the impact of resource constraints on the
delivery of cultural competence and explore the possibilities
of compensatory approaches in the mode of delivery such as
technology, immersion courses etc.
If you are interested in participating in the debate and
writing a paper for this volume, please send an abstract
(350 words max.) by 30th September 1998 to:
Nicole McBride ([log in to unmask]) or
Karen Seago ([log in to unmask])
School of European and Language Studies
University of North London,
166-220 Holloway Road
Karen Seago
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