Improving Intercultural Competence through Literary Texts and the Strategies of Teaching it in French Language

Intercultural competence plays a significant role in learning French language because language and culture are correlative like the two sides of the same coin. In other words, learning a language is not merely concerned with learning its structure and vocabulary, yet in order to communicate, the language learner should study the culture of the target country well and respect it. Thus, teaching culture in the process of learning French language seems to be a crucial task. French literature is considered one of the richest resources that one can use to get familiar with French culture and the instructors can teach the culture to language learners, using some literary texts in their classes. Teaching a language with the help of literature is not merely intended for higher-level classes but one may take advantage of literary texts to teach the introduction to culture in lower-level classes. In this article, the authors attempt to introduce thirteen cultural elements of Gililian Lazar's theory after examining the impact of cultural education through literary texts and apply them in three literary texts in The French Literature Progressive (Littérature Progressive du Français); beginner-level literary texts also contain cultural elements and can help the teacher to teach culture. Then, some assignments are proposed to present the points in the class. These activities include personalization, providing explanations, asking students to infer cultural information, making cultural comparisons, making association, providing cultural background information as reading or listening comprehension and extention activities. In fact, doing these exercises improves individual and social capacities. Our objective in this study is to transform the course of French literature at the beginner level to develop the linguistic and individual capacities of the students and allow them to better understand themselves through other cognitions. To reach this goal, the question will be answered: How does literature improve intercultural competence? And finally, we recommend French language instructors include literary texts in the process of teaching and stimulate students’ curiosity to know cultural issues.