Diglossie au Maroc : Inter-culturalité et Aménagement Linguistique

Embracing Social Media for Intercultural Language Learning

Houssine Soussi

Introduction

Nowadays, globalization and rapid developments

in science and technology, especially advanced

transport systems and online communication technologies,

have changed individuals’ perceptions of

spatial boundaries and those between countries

and cultures, and have literally shrunk the world

into a “global village”. It is noticeable that the world

today is characterized by an ever growing number

of intercultural contacts, resulting in communication

between people with different ethnic, cultural,

and linguistic backgrounds. Accordingly, becoming

interculturally competent is a vital requirement for

modern citizens and qualified professionals in the

contemporary multicultural world.

From the perspective of individuals, intercultural

learning is the first step to become interculturally

competent and to succeed in intercultural encounters.

However, this competence can be addressed

in a variety of ways and in many research areas,

including foreign language education. In fact, language

theorists increasingly acknowledge the intercultural

dimension of foreign language education,

and foreign language teachers’ social and moral

responsibilities in this domain. Sercu, Garcia and

Castro, for instance stated that: “Foreign language

education is by definition an intercultural subject

matter. All languages are used within particular

cultural contexts and they reflect those contexts.

Learning a new language, therefore, involves more

than the acquisition of linguistic and communicative

competence in that language. It also entails an

increase in learners’ familiarity with that language’s

cultural background, an expansion of the learner’s

cultural awareness and intercultural competence”

(85-86).

This paper aims to describe and analyse the impact

of using a foreign language in online social media

and especially Facebook (FB) on students’ intercultural

communicative competence. More specifically,

it seeks to answer the following research questions:

To what extent can intercultural interactions in a FB

group enhance or hinder university students’ intercultural

learning? What are students’ perceptions

towards FB as an online intercultural language learning

environment? In this respect, this study adopted

Byram’s model (Byram 34) of ICC as the main

intercultural framework.

Research Background

Byram’s Model of Intercultural Communicative

Competence

Within the field of foreign language learning, the most

widely cited and developed conceptual framework

for intercultural learning has been put forward by Byram

and his colleague Geneviève Zarate as part of

their common work for The Council of Europe. Byram

in his book Teaching and Assessing Intercultural

Communicative Competence proposes a model

of intercultural communicative competence, which

is divided into the five savoirs. These five key components

of ICC are: a) Intercultural attitudes ,which

refer to curiosity, openness, readiness, beliefs and

behaviour of the interlocutors. b) Knowledge, which

refers to understanding how social groups and social

identities function, including one’s own groups and

identities. c) Skills of interpreting and relating, which

designate the ability to interpret and explain a document

or an event from one culture to another. d) Skills

of discovery and interaction, which refer to the ability

to acquire and operate newly acquired knowledge,

attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-time

interaction. e) Critical cultural awareness, which is

the ability to critically evaluate perspectives, practices

and products in one’s own culture as well as

another’s culture (Byram 34).

This model provides a framework for specifying

objectives when planning teaching and assessment

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