Cross-Cultural Communication Issues of Educating Bicultural Students

The article is devoted to the importance of incorporating of a foreign culture learning, acquiring cross-cultural communication and cultural awareness skills in a foreign language teaching. The authors point out that teaching culture in foreign language teaching context should include cultural knowledge, cultural values, cultural skills and behavior. The author also emphasize that attitudes to teaching culture in the process of foreign language teaching involve, on the one side, considering teaching culture as teaching the fifth language skill along with speaking, listening, reading and writing, implying teaching cultural sensitivity and cultural awareness or the behavior in certain cultural situations, and on the other side, regarding language as social practice being defined by culture in which culture becomes the core of language teaching with cultural awareness viewed as enabling language proficiency. Cultural awareness is the foundation of communication; it helps to understand cultural values, beliefs, and perceptions of the other culture. Training of both bilingual and bicultural students at higher educational institutions is of primary significance. Intercultural awareness presumes a number of skills, improving students’ native culture and other cultures’ awareness and understanding. The authors come to the conclusion that intercultural awareness skills imply overcoming misinterpretations and accepting differences.