Learners as ethnographers, informants and mediators: Developing intercultural awareness through language teaching materials

LÓPEZ BARRIOS, MARIO LUIS

e-flt Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching

NUS

Lugar: Singapur; Año: 2012 vol. 9 p. 312 - 312

0219-9874

he article aims to present a model of materials design for the development of plurilingual intercultural competence in a secondary school setting where two foreign languages ? English and German ? are taught. The intended learners are native speakers of Spanish, have acquired an elementary competence in English (A2 level) and are learning German as a second foreign language (A1 level). The plurilingual activities involve the simultaneous use of both languages in the class and simulate situations to communicate about the social practice of barbecues in Argentina, and English and German-speaking settings. Learners act as ethnographers as they find out facts about barbecues in other countries through access to Internet sources and further develop a plurilingual competence as they get information in the two foreign languages they learn. They also get ready to transmit the information to people who do not speak one or the other foreign language, thus acting as mediators across languages an