Gap in Intercultural Communicative Competence within English classrooms in Chile

Abstract

This article is a narrative review of the literature on intercultural competence in the English foreign language classroom in a Latin American context. The intercultural communicative competence model was designed in the 1990s in Britain by Michael Byram, a French teacher, to assist foreign language students with communicating with interlocutors from other cultures. The objective of this narrative review is to discuss the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of intercultural communicative competence model with the teaching of English as a Foreign Language in the classrooms of Latin America and specifically Chile. This narrative literature review strives to discuss in a broad way what the literature reveals is occurring and discover gaps in the research. The principal findings are that schools in Chile need to reduce ethnic and racial tensions and that the intercultural communicative competence model in the English as a foreign language classroom can form culturally sensitive students and teachers.