Shifting conceptualisations of foreign language teaching in New Zealand: students’ journeys towards developing intercultural capability

Abstract

Developing students’ intercultural capability is now an expectation within language programmes in New Zealand schools. This is a challenge, particularly as intercultural capability is still a new concept for many teachers. Drawing on data from a two-year project, this paper foregrounds student voices to reveal how beginner learners experienced language programmes where non-specialist intermediate school teachers facilitated comparative intercultural explorations for the first time. The findings indicate that shifts in teachers’ practices led to some worthwhile, although variable, intercultural learning gains. An interdisciplinary approach is taken to consider the possible impact of age on learners’ intercultural development at this level. 培养学生的跨文化能力是新西兰学校语言课程的目标之一。但是实现该目标仍面临一些挑战，因为对许多教师而言，“跨文化能力”仍然是一个新概念。本文基于一项为期两年的研究项目，强调了学生对语言课程的体验，该语言课程由全科教师（非专业的语言老师）执教，并首次融入了跨文化比较的内容。本文发现，尽管每位学生的提升效果不一，教师在实践中增加跨文化比较的内容可以在一定程度上促进学生的跨文化学习。另外，本文采用了跨学科方法，探讨了学生年龄对其跨文化能力发展的影响。