Foreign language textbooks as cultural bridges:A road to communicative competence (A proposal for textbook writers and evaluators)

النوع : Mémoire

Textbooks have gained so important a status in foreign language teaching and learning that it has become dangerous to ignore their influence. They are the primary material for both teachers and learners. They are written and selected with the intention and assumption of presenting a curriculum. Besides, in the time of educational reform, they are a main concern which should be taken care of, just as has been the case in Lebanon. Further, when language learning is in question, the goal is to help the learner get to use the language appropriately and correctly, taking into consideration the situatedness of the interaction—written or oral—that s/he is involved in. In other words, while using a foreign language, the learner should be able to not only abide by the linguistic rules of the language, but also consider factors such as the age of the interlocutor — reader/writer or listener/speaker— and the level of formality required. The learner must also be able to take into account the cultural background of the interlocutor as compared to her/his own background. In short, the goal of language teaching and learning is to help the learner attain intercultural communicative competence, and foreign language textbooks should contribute to this goal since they are a primary tool in the foreign language classroom. This study presents a pedagogically motivated model of intercultural communicative competence as constituting two main components, conceptual competence and procedural competence. The former comprises the different subcomponents that the language learner should ‘know’ at the pre-processed level or before actually using the language. The latter deals with the learner’s ability to coordinate or bring together the different subcomponents in actual language use. In addition to the model, the study outlines a set of criteria that textbook writers and evaluators should take into consideration when they write, evaluate, and/or select a foreign language textbook. The criteria are followed with a model lesson as a demonstration of the feasibility of the pedagogically motivated model and the criteria that the study proposes.