Critical Intercultural Pedagogy for Intercultural Communication in the English Language Classroom

Abstract

The proposed empirically-based chapter investigates how the teaching of English as a foreign language can advance towards intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and reflective intercultural communication through the lens of critical intercultural pedagogy (CIP). Intercultural perspectives in education advocate for approaches that celebrate diversity, social justice, human rights, and peace education (De Leo, 2010). The chapter examines a case study where 20 pre-service English language teachers (PELTs) who are low-income students of a scholarship programme at a private university in Colombia employ CIP as a mechanism to seek intercultural communication in the English language classroom. Intercultural English language teaching (IELT), inspired by Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed (TdO), helps create oral dynamics that go beyond the mere teaching of the linguistic-communicative dimensions of the language and create a critical reflective classroom ecology. The author concludes that, supported by the aesthetic dimension of TdO, PELTs understand and approach CIP as a positive way to develop ICC and aim for socially and politically engaged intercultural communication leading to dialogue and mediation for more harmonious societies.