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becomes special concern for teachers and researchers currently. The intercultural
dimension in ELT emphasizes the effective cross cultural communication based
on the acquisition of a key set of competences of intercultural communicative
competence. On competences of intercultural communicative competences, these
refer to Byram‘s model that consists of five dimensions that are: (1) knowledge;
(2) attitudes; (3) skills of interpreting & relating; (4) skills of discovery &
interaction; and (5) critical cultural awareness (Byram, 1997).
1) Knowledge
The first intercultural dimension is knowledge. The knowledge
becomes a crucial factor in attaining intercultural competences in ELT. The
knowledge here is not primarily knowledge about a specific culture, but
rather knowledge of how social groups and identities function and what is
involved in intercultural interaction. If it can be anticipated with whom one
will interact, then knowledge of that person's world is useful. If it cannot, then
it is useful to imagine an interlocutor in order to have an example of a specific
country or countries and their social groups to understand what it means to
know something about other people with other multiple identities.
Knowledge seems as social groups and their products and practices in
one‘s own and in one‘s interlocutor‘s country, and of the general processes of
societal and individual interaction. So knowledge can be defined as having
two major components: knowledge of social processes, and knowledge of
illustrations of those processes and products; the latter includes knowledge
about how other people are likely to perceive you, as well as some knowledge
about other people.
2) Attitudes
The components of intercultural competence are knowledge, skills and
attitudes, complemented by the values one holds because of one's belonging
to a number of social groups. These values are part of one's social identities.
The foundation of intercultural competence is in the attitudes of the
intercultural speaker and mediator.
Intercultural attitudes aim to fulfill curiosity and openness, readiness
to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one‘s own. This
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