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Intercultural competence through experience-curriculum experiences
Anne Fox

The presentation traced the importance of fostering process over content to
promote Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and discussed some of the associated difficulties. The pay-off for targeting process is experiential learning which is likely to be longer-lasting than traditional content-based programs. Starting with an understanding of one’s own culture, learners distinguish between personal preferences, cultural norms and universal norms.
Enhancing ICC is about moving easily between different cultural norms and requires learners to understand not just what a person from another culture says but why; the notion of attribution. The concept of ICC is divided into Byram´s five “savoirs” and the need to balance all five in an ICC curriculum is noted.
Current principles of best practice in language learning fit well within an ICC curriculum. Finally, additional features of best practice relating specifically to ICC were considered.

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