THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL INTERCULTURAL AWARENESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

This article intends to reveal the ways and methods of developing students’ CIA in an EFL classroom. It presents the incorporation of intercultural components into classroom practice and the participation of some students from diverse gender and ethnic backgrounds in the intercultural awareness (IA)-based learning program. This research shows whether and how learners can increase their CIA using culturally relevant video materials with the help of social network platforms and pedagogical tasks. Especially, we try to explore whether there are significant differences in the critical intercultural awareness development of students in terms of gender and ethnicity. Furthermore, this investigation employs intercultural awareness model to study the ongoing development of students’ CIA and to identify what can be developed and how. This study also plans to increase a model of IA-based learning using video-assisted intercultural and pedagogical learning tasks to encourage CIA among students. This will stimulate a theoretical and empirical usage of this model, providing its applicability, practicability and effectiveness in the educational context. Video materials that are taken as main part of teaching methodology can be considered as basic tools for enhancing intercultural learning.