5th Teaching & Education Conference, Amsterdam

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING: FULBRIGHT EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGE

RENY RADKOVA

Abstract:

This study focuses on problems and opportunities for learning intercultural communication and English as a second language. The study was conducted among Bulgarian students and American teachers. Part of the training takes place in lessons and extracurricular activities. The intercultural context in which foreign language teaching and learning takes place helps both children and adults to acquire a new sense of their own culture as well as a sense of tolerance for different cultures. Teaching English and English-language culture teaches children to communicate in the new situation and to create an appropriate "new" cultural environment by getting in touch with a teacher from another culture. Teachers from Fulbright educational programme, which aim is to help with English teaching in Bulgaria, present different relationship of the students/teachers and lessons that will contribute to new interpretation of the process of teaching and learning foreign language. Their progress in foreign language learning and the development of intercultural understanding leads to developing of new methods of teaching and new skills of cultural understanding.

Keywords: English as a second language, intercultural understanding, Fulbright programme, teaching learning

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