Silent Voices and Unseized Spaces

Intercultural teaching practices in the EFL classroom: The case of non‐elite communities

“…Moving from the known to the unknown can shed light on how to engage students in the study of interculturality because it reinforces the study of local topics in depth, as suggested in the Colombian curriculum and other frameworks (Risager, 2007, 2022) before moving to foreign or global issues. This orientation can help students construct a personal culture identity (Short, 2009; Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Risager, 2022; Ministerio Educación Nacional, 2016a) that becomes a springboard for studying these and other global topics. This practice also ties to Kramsch's (2013) position that it is the recognition of the known which helps us understand the unknown.…”

“…Going beyond factual information goes beyond the study of the four Fs commonly presented in language textbooks by prompting learners to understand the origin of cultural products and practices, the perspectives embedded in them, and their critical position about cultural topics. Challenging textbooks and existing sources contribute to exploring and questioning the meanings embedded in discourse to gain a broader perspective of the positions presented in textbooks and any other pedagogical sources (Brandenburg et al., 2017; Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Kramsch, 2011; Núñez Pardo, 2022). Luz mentioned that the English textbook and international news give a narrow and stereotypical view of who Colombians are and their cultural practices.…”

“…Likewise, Luz used multimodal texts, code‐switching, and embodied tools (i.e., gaze, gesturing) to facilitate students' understanding of controversial topics (e.g., the social problem in Tasajera) and allowed them to challenge the textbook and existing sources. Extensive research has documented teachers' view of interculturality as well their intercultural teaching practices (Castro et al., 2004; Collings, 2007; Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Sercu, 2005). Most of these studies concluded that teachers traditionally favor language objectives over culture or intercultural objectives.…”

“…Likewise, research (Castro et al., 2004; Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Gómez Rodríguez (2015); Risager, 2018; Sercu, 2005) has indicated that teachers select lesson objectives and topics based on their textbooks, resulting in the study of superficial topics and activities. Crozet and Díaz's recent work (2020) described how most teachers limit their classroom intercultural interactions to the discussion of touristic and superficial cultural topics presented in textbooks. In the few cases where teachers challenge the content, they reduce their contributions to the sharing of anecdotes.…”

“…Extensive research has reported students' and teachers' development of interculturality through telecollaboration projects and experiences abroad (Dressler & Tweedie, 2016; Medina‐López‐Portillo, 2013; Olaya & Gómez, 2013). Another research line has explored the methodologies and, more recently, the practices teachers use to foster interculturality in the high school and college language curriculum (Byram & Kramsch, 2008; Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Díaz, 2013; Kearney, 2021; Kohler, 2020; Kramsch, 2011; Menard‐Warwick, 2009; Wagner et al., 2018) as well as community‐based refugee communities (Shufflebarger Snell, 2019).…”