Making the Most of General Education Foreign Language Requirements.

Abstract

Given that most postsecondary institutions have recognized the need to prepare interculturally competent undergraduates, this study used the Intercultural Development Inventory to measure the extent to which one group of undergraduate learners demonstrated increased intercultural competence after taking a first‐semester foreign language (FL) course. Drawing on research on the role of culture in the FL curriculum and on intercultural competence development, the findings illustrate that (a) beginner‐level language courses contribute minimally to students’ intercultural competence development, and (b) FL departments need to substantially redesign their beginner‐level curriculum if they hope to contribute in meaningful ways to their institution s intercultural, diversity, global learning, and/or 21st‐century goals. The data suggest that in addition to re‐envisioning the beginner and intermediate FL instructional sequence, universities need more robust FL requirements for general education.