Contact: ilesig@braztesol.org.br

Board members:

Welcome to the BRAZ-TESOL Intercultural Language Education SIG, which was founded at the BRAZ-TESOL Convention in Rio in 2012. We welcome members from around the world to share ideas and resources about combining language learning with cultural exploration, creativity and critical thinking.

Our objectives are

• To promote intercultural communicative competence (ICC), i.e. to promote:
(a) Curiosity about different cultures
(b) Knowledge of different cultural values and behaviours
(c) Openness towards cultural difference
(d) The ability to interpret products from different cultures
(e) The ability to observe, understand and account for different cultural practices
(f) The development of critical cultural awareness
• To promote critical literacy as a key means of achieving critical cultural awareness
• To integrate intercultural communicative competence and critical literacy into language teaching by the development of classroom materials, teacher education and online content and networks.
• To encourage research into ICC and critical literacy in language education, and its dissemination via teacher education and teacher networks.
• To increase and support multicultural exchanges, particularly among BrazTESOL members, chapters and teachers’ associations - but extending world-wide.

We participate in regualr events in Brazil, at BRAZ-TESOL conventions, and other conferences and seminars. Our members span the world, and we have linked up student groups in Argentina, Brazil, the UK, and Macau.