International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
culture (Robatjazi, 2008). (Mayer 1991). So, in Hymes (1972) words grammatical competence is not enough for
a good command of a foreign language, but also the ability to use language appropriately must be acquired.
According to Van Ek’s model (1986) communicative ability comprises six competences:
1 .Linguistic competence: the ability to produce and interpret meaningful utterances which are formed in
accordance with the rules of the language;
2. Sociolinguistic competence: the awareness of ways in which the choice of language forms is determined by
such conditions as setting, relationship etc.
3. Discourse competence: the ability to use appropriate strategy in the construction and interpretation of texts;
4. Strategic competence: when communication is difficult, we have to find ways of ‘getting our meanings
across’ such as rephrasing, assigning for clarification;
5.Socio-cultural competence: being in one specific reference frame.
6.Social competence: involves both the will and the skill to interact with others, involving motivation, attitudes,
self-confidence, empathy and the ability to handle social situations.
Moreover, nonverbal language including gestures, body language, facial expressions are also culturally and
socially remarkable from one language to another. From this point of view foreign language teaching is
concerned with communication which is more than exchange of information and sending messages; focusing on
establishing and maintaining relationship it often involves the indirectness of politeness.
How to teach intercultural communication in the classroom?
Developing students’ skills in intercultural communication is necessary part of language teaching. For this
purpose, EFT curriculum and textbooks are expected to reflex a range of cultural context and to include
intercultural elements.
As Rabatjazi puts forward to have a valid and affective outcome of foreign language teaching process, a
special attention should be given to curriculum planning and syllabus design. The curriculum, according to him
is more than a syllabus where both terms are frequently used in a variety of ways, as syllabus is a list of what is
to be thought, sometimes including a list of appropriate materials, whereas curriculum involves a proposal for
ordering what is to be thought in order to arrive at specific objectives which may be integrated into the
curriculum.
As designing foreign language curriculum and syllabus appears challenging and requires a lot of time and
energy to focus on linguistic and cultural aspects to be covered; textbooks should not only reflect the target
culture but also the source culture and international cultures. Therefore, a text book has important functions on
several levels:
1.A text book is considered to be a TEACHER in the sense that it contains material that is intended to instruct
students directly about the target culture.
2.A text book is considered to be a MAP in the sense that it clearly gives an overview of the structured
programme of linguistic and cultural elements to be covered in a specific period of time.
3.A text book is considered as a RESOURCE in the sense that a set of materials and activities from which the
most appropriate or useful items are selected is presented.
4.Text books are also regarded as a TRAİNER in the sense that it teaches not only the teachers but also the
students how to proceed.
5.As an AUTHORITY a textbook appears very reliable, valid and written by experts.
In short, we can say that textbooks culturally designed are an important angle of the triangle of teaching and
the other angles are teachers and students (Cortazzi and Jin, 2000).
Selection of texts
Moreover, the texts selected to serve as textbooks for the students should be interesting, informative and
enlightening. To achieve this writers must be experienced in sociology, anthropology, science and culture,
should be encouraged.
As Byram 1997 and Kramsch 1998 argued the textbooks should be loaded not only with the culture of the
target language, but with native language culture as well in order to developed students’ perspectives to view
the world in order to make them intercultural speakers. Therefore, finding similarities and differences can help
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