Međukulturalna kompetencija u nastavi stranoga i drugoga jezika

It is a known fact that learning and teaching a foreign language involves direct or indirect learning (teaching) about culture, i.e. about some of the basic cultural facts necessary to cope and survive in the country where the L2 is spoken.
Various groups of students learn foreign languages primarily in order to communicate in everyday life. To do this in the best possible way it is important not only to be competent in the language but also to have some degree of intercultural competence. Learning the local habits, cultural etiquette, and cultural rules of behaviour etc. should be of equal importance in the language curriculum as learning grammar and writing. Not knowing about local cultural behaviour can lead to a misunderstanding even more often than a usage of incorrect case endings. Actually, it seems that a moderate amount of intercultural competence is necessary to be learnt even before language competence because it is often needed already before the first contact with new culture.
In this paper the importance of intercultural competence in foreign language curriculum is being discussed.