Future language teachers as experts in the subject: Developing cultural content knowledge in teacher education

Abstract

Teachers have many roles to fulfill. One of the most important roles is that of expert in the subject field they teach. Teachers should master the contents of the subject and should be able to deepen understanding and insight in these contents. Language teachers do not only teach the foreign language. They are also responsible for the teaching of the culture of the language. This article reports on a project on cultural content knowledge of future language teachers in teacher education. The project establishes that testing instruments and remediation materials are more effective when adapted to the future target context. Culture is a wide concept. Selecting the basic contents in manuals which are students’ future working material appears to contribute to their motivation. Moreover, the meaning of culture is twofold as it can be split into Culture with a capital c and culture with a small c. If we want to contribute to intercultural language teaching, both components need to be addressed.