COLLABORATIVE STORY WRITING FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in the constraints of the classroom faces many obstacles: not just formal, in terms of the choice of approaches, material and assessment, but also ethical and value-related. Building intercultural awareness in future teachers is equally important, as they should be prepared not only for the intercultural classroom, but for the imminent diversity that any classroom encompasses: ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, learner style. One of many techniques that have been used in the ICC classroom is cooperative story writing. The collaborative project was done by the American and Serbian university students, the former starting the stories and working under the instruction of Professor Kenneth Cushner, an intercultural communication specialist, and the latter finishing them. The jointly written stories showed that both students were up to a degree stereotypical in their understanding of the other culture, but were at the same aware of the steps that had to be taken to improve intercultural communication. A small-scale study is used to show how the learners’ understanding of culture may be enhanced, with a special focus on how future English language teachers might benefit from it.