The role of intercultural competence in english language teaching

In addition to being skillful classroom teachers and competent users of foreign language teaching materials, teachers should also view foreign language teaching through an intercultural perspective. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural competence within and out of their classroom. Moreover, they are expected to have the ability to understand each other across all types of cultural barriers in order to make our societies work. That is why there is a real urgency for teachers that can promote and transfer intercultural competence through their work and adopt approaches to culture teaching. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to the dimensions of intercultural competence and to serve as an encouragement for the future progress of different concepts of teacher training and teaching practice. Finally, it targets to reflect the preparedness of english language teachers to an intercultural challenge in the classroom and their openness to future training sessions on developing and using techniques to promote intercultural competence within their classroom.