Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Culture pedagogy became a relevant factor in Foreign Language Teaching in the sixties. Since then, the notion of culture teaching has evolved from an anthropological approach into an approach that, in virtue of globalisation, highlights culture awareness and sensibility towards otherness. Cultural competence plays a special role when it comes to learning Chinese as a foreign language, since there are a considerable amount of cultural differences between Chinese Eastern culture and Western cultures. Therefore, this competence is an important component in Chinese Language Teaching curricula, and yet there is a lack of research literature on this topic. In this context, this study focuses on how cultural competence is taught in the Spanish Official Language Academies, a Spanish public institution that has recently implemented Chinese as a Foreign Language courses. In this study, an empirical analysis is conducted throughout the material used in this institution to teach Chinese in order to identify the approach followed in these volumes when teaching cultural competence. This analysis is based on a review of relevant literature on this topic, namely the theoretical framework set for cultural competence, from which a set of criteria is drawn out to assess this teaching material. The expected findings of this investigation will guide comprehension of how this didactic material contributes to the teaching of cultural competence for Chinese learners in the Spanish Official Language Academies.