Intercultural communicative competence as a focus of applied linguistic research in Poland

Abstract

Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has become an important goal of foreign language education. The role of school instruction is not only to equip foreign language (FL) learners with appropriate language competence, but also to prepare them to understand FL cultures and successfully communicate with their representatives. Intercultural communicative competence has become a focus of a number of studies conducted within the area of foreign-language acquisition, those theoretically oriented and those aiming to approach this subject area in a more practical manner. The paper looks at a selection of recent studies that explore issues related to ICC conducted by Polish researchers and published in academic publications. The overview examines how the concept of ICC is understood and investigated in FL studies and what intercultural topics are most up-to-date in a Polish research context. The analysis highlights the areas that need more academic attention. It also describes Polish educators’ endeavors to implement the principles of the intercultural approach in a foreign language classroom. This discussion should be of interest to researchers exploring foreign language issues as well as practitioners responsible for education.