Integrating Intercultural & Language Learning

At the most recent Intercultural Leadership Forum—a free monthly strategy session I host—we discussed the intersections between language learning and intercultural development. The session drew a lot of language instructors looking to integrate intercultural learning into their courses. The conversations were rich, and I offered a few ideas in response to participant questions that I realized others might find useful, so I’m sharing them in the blog this month.

First, it’s important to recognize the difference between cultural competence and intercultural competence. Cultural competence involves learning about a specific culture or cultures, whereas intercultural competence involves developing more transferable intercultural mindsets, heart sets and skillsets. I define intercultural competence as the capacity to engage effectively, appropriately, and authentically across cultural differences, locally and globally (see this blog series for a deeper dive into that definition).

Exposing students to food, music, art, or even teaching them about the politics or history of, say, Central and South America, in a Spanish language class may help them learn about and appreciate those places and cultures, but it doesn’t necessarily help them develop intercultural competence.

I am fascinated by the interactive, dynamic relationship between language and culture. Language is a tool through which culture is transmitted—consciously and unconsciously—from one generation to the next. And through languaging with others, we participate in and perpetuate (or perhaps seek to change) cultural norms, values, and beliefs. This idea is captured in the following quote I shared during the Intercultural Leadership Forum:

“If different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think, but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about. […] When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories, and orientation in the world.”

- Guy Deutscher

For example, in the English language, we use similar verbs with time as we do with money—we save it, waste it, spend it, etc.—which normalizes thinking about time as a commodity. Many languages—such as French and Spanish—require speakers to choose between more formal or informal forms of the word “you.” Thinking about context, relationship, and hierarchy thus becomes habitual for speakers of these languages.

To help students develop transferable intercultural competence, as opposed to just cultural competence, I suggest trying to connect culture-specific with culture-general, and other-awareness with self-awareness. You can help students identify differences (as well as similarities) between their native language(s) and the language they’re learning. What does each language oblige its speakers to think about regularly that the other does not? How might that relate to patterns in deeper values, beliefs, or norms in the respective cultures?

For example, if students are learning about the multiple forms of “you” in another language, you could help them recognize that the idea of having to regularly take into account relationship/context/hierarchy to decide what form of address to use is challenging because it’s not the norm in their native language (self-awareness), and then extend this to learning that how we relate to context, relationships, and hierarchy may differ more broadly across cultures (culture-general), and from there bring it back to the specific cultures that speak the language you’re teaching (culture-specific and other-awareness).

In other words, infusing intercultural development into language learning means moving beyond teaching about specific cultures to also helping students develop greater cultural self-awareness and awareness of broader patterns of cultural differences and similarities.

If you’re an educator who would like to develop your own intercultural competence and capacity to integrate intercultural learning into your work—whether you teach languages or another discipline, or work in international education, advising, career services, or another office—I invite you to apply for the Facilitating Intercultural Learning professional development program. This cohort-based program is offered publicly every fall and spring semester, and we’re currently enrolling for Spring 2026. Learn more and schedule a call with me to discuss whether it’s a good fit for you here:  www.truenorthintercultural.com/facilitating-intercultural-learning

Photo credit:  Dariia Lemesheva, Unsplash