Contributions of intercultural education to the training of foreign language professionals XIV Taller Internacional de "Pedagogía de la Educación Superior"

Abstract

Interculturality is an indispensable tool for achieving harmonious social coexistence in the current world scenario, emphatically marked by cultural diversity. Intercultural training prepares for respect and understanding between cultures, acquires special relevance for the foreign language professional, dedicated to interaction with subjects and communities that practice the target language. The investigative routes of interculturality in the educational field point to intercultural education as a cognitive area with extensive and valuable results, which addresses the needs for coexistence and the conflicts generated by diversity in multicultural society and schooling processes. The objective of the paper is to analyze premises of intercultural education that can contribute to the intercultural training of foreign language professionals. Based on the systematization and content analysis carried out, theoretical and methodological keys are identified in this regard: the eminently intercultural nature of the teaching-learning process, the potential of the study of cultures to promote mutual appreciation and empathic encounter, the relevance of training in values and attitudes, the strengthening and legitimization of one's own culture as a starting point for interculturality and its enrichment, the opportunities offered by the multicultural classroom to favorably resize diversity, the need to overcome formal treatment, stereotyped and discriminatory of cultural aspects, as well as the experience and cultural immersion, the holistic approach of the training process that is proposed.