Affordances, complexities, and challenges of intercultural citizenship for foreign language teachers

Abstract

This article explores the intercultural and citizenship dimensions of foreign language teaching and discusses, in particular, the implications for foreign language teaching and teacher education. The work (1) extends the fundamental concepts that were developed by Byram and Wagner () in this journal—that foreign language education has instrumental purposes but also educational aims that constitute the development of the individual and of societies by fostering democratic competences and values and linking the language learning that takes place in classrooms with the community, whether local, regional, or global; and (2) links language education and community engagement in the form of service‐learning, which was also addressed in this journal by Palpacuer Lee, Curtis, and Curran (). An intercultural citizenship project carried out in Argentina serves as illustration. Pedagogical implications are offered.

Critical Chinese as an Additional Language education in Australia: A journey to voices, courage and hope

“…He started to realise restrictions blocking his memorisation, deployed the knowledge and experiences he had with pronunciation learning, and autonomously took up the social responsibility of suggesting the use of a workbook for a more desired outcome (Freire, 2000). The critical dialogue between the teacher‐researcher and students overcame a strong instrumental that ‘addresses almost exclusively linguistic concerns’ (Porto, 2019, p. 18), and represented an educational orientation towards civic and social student engagement. The constant dialogic practices, as a political tool, afforded students a fundamental instrument for creative learning design—they made themselves listened to and understood, shared ideas as active participants and exercised power with a concern for the common good (Giroux, 1988).…”

“…Therefore, CAL education has both instrumental purposes and also broader educational aims (Porto, 2019); more than a functional literacy skill, it can be understood as a political means for disadvantaged students to decode and demythologise normative practices and the inequitable structures of society. In this sense, the teaching of Chinese bears the potential of fostering ‘a critical citizenry capable of analysing and challenging the oppressive characteristics of the society’ (Pennycook, 1990, p. 309), as well as democratic competences and values that align with Western values.…”

Introduction: Arts integration and community engagement for intercultural dialogue through language education

“…They worked collaboratively through telecollaboration using the foreign languages they were learning (English in Argentina and Spanish in the UK) to create bilingual artistic artefacts with this aim. They engaged with their communities by delivering talks in community centres, designing awareness-raising leaflets and distributing them in their town, among other civic actions (Porto, 2014(Porto, , 2019Porto and Yulita, 2017). Other projects in the same higher education setting, also arts-based and community-action oriented, addressed the military 1976 dictatorship in Argentina (Porto and Byram, 2015;Yulita and Porto, 2017) and mural art and graffiti (Porto, 2017(Porto, , 2018a.…”

Deliberate training and incidental learning through the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media: Capitalising on a European tool to enhance visual literacy and intercultural dialogue globally

“…The scarcity of empirical investigations into the AIEVM is notable when compared to the AIE. Research that specifically looks into this instrument has been conducted by Svarstad (2016), Lindner and Méndez-García (2014), Méndez-García and Lindner (2021), Porto (2019a, 2019b, 2019c) and Porto and Yulita (2016). Research substantiates the significance of the AIEVM in furthering the understanding of diversity and intercultural encounters in the light of processes such as othering, pigeonholing and stereotyping (Svarstad, 2016).…”