La compétence interculturelle de communication en langue seconde – état des lieux

Abstract

In its policy aiming to build an united Europe, the Council of Europe focuses on the promotion of linguistic and cultural diversity. That is why the present methodologies of foreign language teaching aim not only at acquiring a linguistic communicative competence but also a cultural competence. And that is also why the European Centre for Modern Languages in Graz has developed the project "The integration of intercultural communication (ICC) competence in initial and in-service training of teachers". The project includes five workshops. The first is a survey among practicing teachers on "The teachers perspective on the ICC in modern language teaching (English and French)". The article presents the part of this workshop which concerns French teachers. It is a qualitative survey conducted on 15 teachers from 8 European countries. The questionnaire is divided in two parts, the first meant to establish the context (age, place of work, experience), while the second consists of 6 open questions. The article presents in detail the analysis of the replies. It is an interpretative analysis which reaches the conclusion that all the teachers involved recognize the importance of ICC in communicating with native speakers in a foreign language.