German‑Arab encounters: A cross‑cultural Training approach

Abstract

Abstract The paper addresses intercultural differences which should contribute to raising awareness of sociolinguists in particular with respect to the role religion plays in shaping talk in Arabic and to serious confusion and misunderstandings that may occur when communicators from different cultural backgrounds meet. Successful intercultural interactions are at the heart of what intercultural communication is all about. So what does it mean that Arabs interact successfully with Germans (Westerners) and vice versa? This is the focus of this paper which led to the development of an intercultural communicative competence framework (Byram 1997) based on critical incidents (Schumann 2012a/b). In utilizing such a framework, our efforts toward developing intercultural competence in our students can be included in a more comprehensive, integrated approach instead of having too much trust in the mass-market course book not necessarily always tailored to the teaching context.