O desenvolvimento da competência intercultural de alunos de Letras por meio do contato com assistentes de ensino americanas

Abstract

The knowledge of a foreign language for years has been considered not only a right but a necessity for students all over the country. However, the mere linguistic knowledge is not enough to prepare students to have an intercultural vision that leads them to know different cultures and relate them to their own. This knowledge is not inherent to the language teaching, thus it is necessary that professors intentionally help their students to relate their culture to others and to feel empathy to different points of view. This ideia is corroborated by several authors. This study has as its focus the presence of two English Teaching Assistants in a classroom at the language course at a federal university in the southeast. The main objectives of this study are to check the expectations of students and teachers concerning the presence of a native speaker in the classroom and investigate to what point they believe that the intercultural development must be part of the teaching of a language. The results suggest that all people involved believe that the intercultural competence development is one of the main contributions of the presence of teachers from a different nationality in the classroom.