La Dimension Interculturelle de la Formation des Enseignants de Langues Etrangeres (The Intercultural Dimension of the Training of Foreign Language Teachers).

A discussion of the cultural aspect of language teacher training looks at the current situation and offers some possible directions for the future. "Cultural" is intended to signify not only the manifestations of group culture, or civilization, but also and more specifically the daily life and common experience of the group. Traditional teacher education is seen as emphasizing the former through its structure and content, and it is argued that an emphasis on teacher acculturation would be more appropriate and would complement the current emphasis on communicative competence in language instruction to promote cultural competence. A preservice language teacher education curriculum that would have two parallel strands is suggested. One strand, linguistic training, would include instruction in both theoretical and applied linguistics. The other, a social science strand, would focus on providing knowledge of the sociocultural system and insights into application of that knowledge to daily reality. It is proposed that this approach would provide language teachers with the tools to teach in a truly intercultural fashion. Contains six references. (MSE)