Enhancement of socio-cultural and intercultural skills of EFL students by means of culture-related extra-curricular events

Abstract

This paper considers the enhancement of socio-cultural and intercultural skills of EFL students by means of culture-related extra-curricular events. The purpose of the paper is to ground theoretically and test experimentally the principles for selecting the elements of socio-cultural component which are expedient to be included into the content of foreign languages teaching. Different approaches to develop socio-cultural and intercultural skills in EFL classrooms are analyzed. The effect of culture-related extra-curricular events on socio-cultural and intercultural skills development is presented. The authors highlight didactic characteristics of culture-related extra-curricular events that can be taken into account for the enhancement of socio-cultural and intercultural skills. Main characteristics of preparation and carrying out culture-related extra-curricular events are presented. The example of designing and implementing of culture-related extra-curricular events into EFL teaching was given. The authors come to the conclusion that culture-related extra-curricular events result in the enhancement of the level of language proficiency as well as contribute a lot to bringing up citizens, intellectually, culturally and multi-culturally developed professionals with deep awareness of intercultural values.