From Self-Awareness to Cultural Awareness
From Self-Awareness to Cultural Awareness

Summary/Abstract: To be culturally aware is, undoubtedly, a prerequisite for professional and personal success in the globalized world we live in. If our students are to develop into competent professionals, able to grasp the complexity of any communication act, then they need more than the technical and the language skills which they acquire during their studies. Cultural awareness has been on foreign language teachers’ agenda for many years now. This article looks into how this skill can be enhanced in the foreign language class, and, moreover, it argues that, before being culturally aware (aware of other people’s cultural similarities and differences), one needs to be self-aware (aware of one’s own patterns of thinking, speaking and relating to the others, be they simply others or significant Others).

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