The Difficulties of Teaching Intercultural Competence in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

Because of the multicultural society that we live in today, it has become important to focus on developing students Intercultural Competence (IC). It is a competence that means being able to understand, relate to, and being open towards different cultures. This paper analyses research on English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding the concept of IC. The paper focuses on three difficulties that have been shown to have impact on the efficiency of IC teaching. Firstly, it addresses the difficulty of evaluating material. Secondly, it looks at the extent of teachers’ knowledge of the concept of IC. Lastly, it addresses teachers’ negative attitudes towards IC teaching. The paper looks at what these problems might be due to and what possible solutions that research highlights. The findings indicate that these difficulties are, amongst other things, due to a lack of teacher training in the field, lack of emphasis regarding IC in curricula, lack of teaching material with an IC approach, and because of teachers’ negative attitudes towards including IC in EFL teaching.