Original Culturally-Marked Text as a Way of Implementing Intercultural Approach

Today’s critical issue is how to make education better for school students and future graduates. The main concern is related with providing the most important for the 21st century skills required for successful understanding and interacting. HSE researches claim that the key factors that have a big influence on educational system are: the dissemination and promotion of participation in Olympiads, the tightening of the content and conduct of Final Exams, and the tightening of the content of textbooks. While analyzing such textbook as «Starlight 11», a recommended book for 11th grade students, it can be said that there is a deficit materials for developing cross-cultural competence and spreading understanding of cultural diversity. Moreover, in some cases «Starlight 11» doesn’t present broad language knowledge but ambiguous cultural messages. Such cultural representation in the textbook can distort the understanding of reality, form stereotypical thinking about different cultures or even cause problems in understanding and peaceful interaction. Thus, the main goal of this thesis is to develop and test a teaching aid using original culturally-marked texts within the framework of an intercultural approach. For achieving goals it was necessary to: 1. Consider existing approaches to teaching English and compare their components. 2. Determine the prerequisites for the emergence of an intercultural approach. 3. Identify the relevance and place of the intercultural approach in the methodology of teaching foreign languages. 4. Identify the ideological and theoretical foundations of the intercultural approach. 5. Describe and interpret the shaping models of the intercultural approach. 6. Describe the content and structure of the developed teaching aid in English. 7. Consider and analyze the representation of culture and the implementation of intercultural communicative competence in school educational materials through the prism of hidden content. 8. Make an analytical note on the results of testing the textbook with the interpretation of the conclusions. 9. Collect reviews of researchers and teachers about the quality of the textbook. 10. Outline further work plans. As a result of testing the teaching aid in the Moscow school with students of the 11th grades it’s possible to note that: -students are able to find information that is set explicitly; -students are able to formulate direct conclusions; -students are able to draw conclusions based on the facts that presented in the texts; -students are able to interpret the information that is in the texts; -students are able to summarize the information that is in the texts; -students are able to give a critical assessment of the cross-cultural features of Russia and the United States; -students can demonstrate openness and interest in learning cultures; -students perceive social and cultural differences; -students are able to interpret cultural information. At the same time, identifying difficulties among students show that: -students have problems while doing creative tasks (for example, make up a story); -students have problems while searching examples and texts in the public domain; -students have problems while distinguishing between the collective and individual in the behavior of representatives of different cultures. Thus, this textbook illustrates how and why there may be successes and failures in the course EL working with culturally marked texts. The development of an electronic textbook for students of the 11th grades with video cast is designated as the key goal of further activities.