ELT Journal Volume 59/2 April 2005 © Oxford University Press
Intercultural communication in English language teacher education
Seran Dogancay-Aktuna is Associate Professor of Linguistics/TESL at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in the U.S., where she teaches methodology and sociolinguistics courses in the MA TESL program. She has a Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and publications focus on micro and macro sociolinguistics, and their applications to language teaching and teacher education. Her current project focuses on strategies for expanding the sociocultural knowledge base of ESL/EFL teacher education. Before joining Southern Illinois University she was a teacher educator at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. Email: saktuna{at}siue.edu
As a result of their sociocultural backgrounds and previous educational experiences, both language learners and teachers bring to the classroom certain norms and expectations concerning appropriate teacher and learner roles and the learning-teaching practices they believe to be conducive to language learning. To prevent frustrations and failure due to mismatches between the teachers' and learners' expectations, teachers need to consider to what extent the underlying principles of their chosen methodology will correspond with the set of assumptions that learners bring to the classroom. To prepare teacher trainees for making more socioculturally informed pedagogical decisions, sociocultural awareness raising and scrutiny need to be incorporated into TESOL teacher education. This article outlines how information about intercultural communication that is integrated with methodology training can foster greater awareness of sociocultural relativity in teacher trainees, and facilitate their reflection on their preconceived notions of target learner groups as they make methodological decisions.
Revised December 2003.
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