Abstract:

The paper overviews the research conducted in 2016-2017 within the national research scheme called VEGA under the project number 1/0106/15. Based on the conceptual framework related to developing intercultural communicative competence, the first step of the project was to find out cultural awareness of teachers of English and their ways of introducing culture in English language teaching. The second step was to measure the effect of intensive intercultural communicative competence training. One of the goals of the project was to analyse course books used in teaching different target languages and their impact on meeting the standards set in the national curriculum. The article deals with the analysis of English course books, used in Slovak primary and secondary schools, published in the U.K, focusing on their contribution to developing intercultural communicative competence of Slovak language learners. The data achieved in a partial study will be presented and analysed. Some recommendations related to teaching intercultural communicative competence will be introduced and supported by illustrative samples for both primary and seondary school language teaching.

Keywords:

CEFR, ICC, the national educational programmes – Language and Communication.