Lost in translation: teaching intercultural skills through media images

In language teaching and in intercultural communications, we use images displayed in textbooks or in the media to help create an understanding of other cultures and to facilitate communication between cultures. To understand another culture, we need to understand our own. In this paper, I concentrate on how we can achieve the best results for intercultural competence by analysing and discussing images so that the implicit becomes explicit. Students need a toolbox of cultural know-how to obtain practicalbe results that can be used in intercultural communications. This toolbox includes a clear definition of culture, and a set of methods for the analysis of images. I use some practical examples from the internet and from advertising and film to show how students can take an active role in reading and interpreting signs to help crate meaning out of text (in this case the media image) by drawing upon their own experiences, attitudes, and emotions.