12. Intercultural communication and its role in foreign language teaching.

Intercultural communication is defined as situated communication between individuals or groups of different linguistic and cultural origins. This is derived from the following fundamental definitions: communication is the active relationship established between people through language, and intercultural means that this communicative relationship is between people of different cultures, where culture is the structured manifestation of human behaviour in social life within specific national and local contexts, e.g. political, linguistic, economic, institutional, and professional. Intercultural communication is identified as both a concept and a competence. Intercultural competence is the active possession by individuals of qualities which contribute to effective intercultural communication and can be defined in terms of three primary attributes: knowledge, skills and attitudes. In the context of this document, the acquisition of skills and human attributes likely to enhance intercultural communication is viewed exclusively as a component of language programmes, i.e. as an accompaniment to the practical acquisition of language itself.

Nowadays, English fulfils the role that Latin had in the Middle Ages – it is a world language or lingua franca, and as such, it is the main medium in intercultural communication. It is not likely that this position will be jeopardized in 40-50 years by other great languages in the world such as Spanish, Chinese or Arabic, which are becoming more and more important nowadays due to various reasons. However, the status of English is changing as the world is changing and becoming multicultural around us. The paper strives to give an overview of these changes and trends.

13. Grammar is very important in foreign language learning. Why? What were the most common difficulties you had in teaching English grammar at school?

The importance of grammar in learning a foreign language.

Grammar is the technique of English. In order to understand a language and to express oneself correctly a learner must understand the grammar mechanism of the language studied. One may know all the words in a sentence but fail to understand it if he does not see the relationship between the words in the given sentence. But if you know grammar, you can easily understand the sentence even if a sentence contains one, two and more unknown words. Grammar is central to the teaching and learning of languages. Learners need grammar to be able to listen, speak, read and write in the target language. It is also one of the more difficult aspects of language to teach well. If you can’t speak well and write well – your windows of opportunity are closed. Traditional language teachers, when hear the word "grammar", think of grammar rules and their usage. They teach grammar by explaining the forms and rules and then drilling students on them. As a result students can produce correct forms on exercises and tests, but consistently make errors when they try to use the language in context. Other language teachers, influenced by recent theoretical work on the difference between language learning and language acquisition, try not to teach grammar at all. Believing that children acquire their first language without learning grammar instruction, they expect students to learn their second language the same way. They say that students will absorb grammar rules when they hear, read, and use the language in communication activities. But this approach does not allow students to use one of the major tools they have as learners: their active understanding of what grammar is and how it works in the language they already know.