Mike Byram is an international superstar in the area of intercultural communication and language and culture acquisition. In Europe, this area has much evolved into including civic discourse, citizenship and cultural identity/affiliation.

The presenter: “In this presentation – which I hope will develop into a discussion – I shall focus on different notions of ‘critical cultural awareness’ and ‘criticality’ and their place in foreign language education. I will do so with an eye to the chronological evolution of the ideas involved, providing a sketch rather than a full chronicle of events. I shall also relate the notions to education theory beyond foreign language education, including education for citizenship, and the current research at the Council of Europe on Competences for Democratic Culture and Intercultural Dialogue. The most recent developments in language teaching and intercultural citizenship will be illustrated with an example of work from an international network of researchers and curriculum developers, including colleagues at UCONN, with the hope that this too will stimulate discussion of the relationship of this work with theory of education for ‘social justice’”.

Biography

Michael Byram is Professor Emeritus at Durham University since October 2008.
His work comprised initial teacher education and being Director of Research Degrees with supervision of research students. He began his career teaching French and German at secondary school level and in adult education in an English comprehensive community school. After being appointed to a post in teacher education at the University of Durham in 1980, he carried out research into the education of linguistic minorities, foreign language education and student residence abroad.
He supervised doctoral students in intercultural studies, language teaching and comparative education.
He has published many books and articles including, most recently, Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence; Language Teachers, Politics and Cultures (with Karen Risager); From Foreign Language Education to Education for Intercultural Citizenship; and is the editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning.

NEW BOOK: The Common European Framework of Reference. The globalisation of language education policy.

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