Developing Intercultural Competence at Slovak Secondary Schools

Abstract

The importance of developing intercultural competence as one of the key competences in today’s rapidly changing and multicultural society has been spoken of often. The requirement of preparing interculturally competent communicators has therefore become one of the goals of today’s foreign language education. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on the practice of fostering intercultural skills in teaching English as a foreign language at Slovak secondary schools. The findings of the research, including observations of lessons, interviews with teachers, as well as analysis of teaching materials, reveals that the development of intercultural competence is still not integrated into foreign language education in Slovakia.