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The Future of Education 10th Edition 2020

Challenges and Opportunities of Croatian EFL Teachers’ Continuous Professional Development for Intercultural Dialogue

Matea Butković; Renata Čepić

Abstract

With the growing emphasis on the need for an intercultural approach to modern education (Byram 1997; Nieto, 2004) and the pedagogy of intercultural competence (Huber and Reynolds, 2014), twenty-first century EFL teachers are no longer expected to merely transmit factual information about the target culture; they have assumed the role of a cultural facilitator or mediator through the learning process (Byram et al., 2002). This comes as no surprise given that language is an inseparable part of culture. In the Republic of Croatia, the National Curriculum Framework (2011) presumes a high level of teacher competences and their ability to effectively utilize a range of methods and teaching aids in order to successfully organize the educational process. However, while the need to implement the fundamental tenets of intercultural education across subject curricula and the emphasis on the role of teachers have become the focus of much scholarly effort (Mrnjaus, 2013; Bedeković, 2014; Piršl et al., 2016; Čepić and Kalin, 2019), teachers would benefit from additional encouragement in fostering both their own and their students’ intercultural competences. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an insight into the challenges of intercultural education and opportunities of continuous professional development of EFL teachers that encourage a positive classroom atmosphere and facilitate risk-taking, self-reflection, and development of respect for cultural differences as well as an open and constructive intercultural dialogue.

Keywords: intercultural education, teachers’ professional development, foreign language, pluralism.

References:


[1] Bedeković, V. (2014). Odgoj i obrazovanje za interkulturalnu kompetenciju u kontekstu europskih vrijednosti. In: Hrvatić, N. (ed.) Interkulturano obrazovanje i europske vrijednosti. Zagreb-Virovitica
[2] Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters Ltd.
[3] Byram, M, Gribkova, B, & Starkey, H. (2002).  Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching. A Practical Introduction for Teachers. Language Policy Division, Directorate of School, Out-of-School and Higher Education DGIV, Council of Europe, Strasbourg
[4] Čepić, R., Šteh, B., & Kalin, J. (2019). Incentives and obstacles in the process of teachers' professional development. In: Mihăescu, D., Andron, D. (Ed.) Education beyond the crisis: new skills, children’s rights and teaching contexts (pp. 129-133). Sibiu: “Lucian Blaga” University Publishing House
[5] Huber, J. & Reynolds, C. (2014). Developing Intercultural Competence through Education. Council of Europe Pestalozzi Series, No. 3, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg
[6] Mrnjaus, K. (2013). Interkulturalnost u praksi – socijalne distance prema “drugačijima,” Pedagogijska istraživanja, 10(2), 309-323.
[7] National Curriculum Framework for Pre-School Education and General Compulsory and Secondary Education. (2010). Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia.
[8] Nieto, S. (2004). Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (4th ed.). New York: Pearson
[9] Piršl, E., Benjak, M., Diković, M., Jelača, M., & Matošević, A. 2016. Vodič za interkulturalno učenje. Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak


Publication date: 2020/06/19
ISBN: 978-88-85813-87-8
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