Abstract Book of the 8th International Academic Conference on Education, Teaching and Learning
Year: 2025
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Metapragmatic Instruction as a Path for the Development of ICC
Prof. Dr. Diana Ibarra Santacruz
ABSTRACT:
Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) can nowadays be considered a coveted skill to establish effective interactions despite cultural differences. Although ICC is now a pivotal actor in education, especially in foreign language teaching programs, its materialization has proved to be a daunting task. Empirical evidence suggests two scenarios; first, teachers ignore what the competence is or lack the theoretical basis; second, they may know the theory but do not know how to put it into practice. That is, they do not know specific strategies to operationalize ICC. On this basis and considering that ICC has a lot in common with (meta)pragmatic awareness, this research proposes (meta)pragmatic instruction as a way to foster ICC. More specifically, this study explored the initial level of (meta)pragmatic awareness and the level post instruction of a group of EFL pre-service teachers divided into an experimental (n =22) and a control group (n = 18). The effects, were visible in terms of intercultural adaptability more than in pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness.
Keywords: EFL teaching, intercultural communicative competence, intercultural adaptability,(meta)pragmatic awareness, pre-service teachers