From cultural awareness to intercultural awareness: culture in ELT

Cultural awareness (CA) has emerged over the last few decades as a significant part of conceptualizing the cultural dimension to language teaching. That is, L2 users need to understand L2 communication as a cultural process and to be aware of their own culturally based communicative behaviour and that of others. However, while CA has provided a vital base of knowledge in relation to the cultural aspects of language use and teaching, it is still rooted in a national conception of culture and language. This is problematic given that English is now used as a global lingua franca. Intercultural awareness (ICA) is presented here as an alternative ‘non-essentialist’ view of culture and language that better accounts for the fluid and dynamic relationship between them. Key components of ICA are discussed along with their relevance to ELT practices and suggestions as to how they can be translated into classroom pedagogy.