Following my recent post on Building Empathy and my 2024 ACTFL session, I had the pleasure of joining Claudia Elliott on her podcast Growing With Proficiency to discuss an essential topic: how to build intercultural competence in the Novice language classroom.

To me, building empathy, reducing bias, and fostering intercultural competence is the purpose of meaningful language learning, but how do we bring it to life when working with beginners? In this conversation, Claudia and I share personal experiences and address some key questions, including:

1. What is Culture and what does Teaching for Intercultural Competence mean?
2. What are some unique challenges of teaching for intercultural competence in the novice classroom?
3. How do we bring the ACTFL five Cs and three Ps to life in the Novice classroom?
4. What specific strategies can we use to build our students’ intercultural competence?

Want to dive deeper into this conversation? Listen to the full podcast episode here and let’s keep the discussion going! How do you foster intercultural competence in your own classroom? Share your thoughts in the comments!