The inclusion of multicultural literary texts from the U.S. with the teaching of English as a Foreign Language: A pedagogical convergence to foster EFL learners' intercultural competence

Abstract

This dissertation reports a qualitative case study research conducted in advanced EFL classroom of the language program at a university in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2010. The study proposes the inclusion of multicultural literary texts of the U.S. with the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) as a means to develop learners' intercultural communicative competence. The study explores theoretical views of intercultural and multicultural competencies, provides teaching approaches to teach multicultural literature in the EFL context, and suggests appropriate literary texts to be studied in the language classroom. The voices and opinions of the EFL learners' who participated in this study became relevant data to show how they read literary short stories in the target language and developed intercultural and multicultural competencies. The dissertation demonstrates that integrating language and literature in the EFL classroom not only constitutes a communicative reading practice, but the opportunity to construct intercultural awareness through the negotiation of literary meaning.