Teachers' perceptions on the integration of intercultural training in pre-service teacher education at the ENSC

Abstract EN

Over the last two decades or so, the field of foreign language teaching has witnessed a shift towards intercultural education.

Educators are no longer concerned with merely enhancing learners' communicative abilities, but also with developing their intercultural communicative competence which involves knowledge, skills, attitudes and critical cultural awareness.

In the Algerian higher education context, intercultural education is a relatively neglected area of research.

The present paper aims at investigating teachers' perceptions towards the integration of intercultural training in English as a foreign language curricula at the Teachers' Training School of Constantine (ENSC).

The ultimate goal of such a training is to prepare ENSC pre-service teachers to deal with interculturality in their future teaching practice at middle or secondary school settings.

In order to gather relevant data, a questionnaire was administered to twelve English language teachers from the ENSC.

The findings reveal a consensus among the respondents of the necessity of integrating the intercultural dimension in pre-service teachers' training, who, in turn, would be responsible for transmitting this knowledge to teenagers and adolescents in need of tolerance and respect towards others, an understanding of oneself and others in addition to critical cultural awareness.