Maestra

1. Introduction
Foreign language learning is comprised of several components, including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, as well as a change in attitudes towards one’s own or another culture. For scholars cultural competence, i.e., the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs, and systems of meaning of another country, is indisputably an integral partof foreign language learning, and many teachers have seen it as their goal to incorporate the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum.
Culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictates who talks to whom, about what, and how the communication proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and theconditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted... Culture...is the foundation of communication.
2. What is National Curriculum Framework
The National Curriculum Framework constitutes the basic elements of pre-school, general compulsory and secondary education, including education for children with special needs. The National CurriculumFramework is the fundamental document that presents the elements of the curriculum system: the values, goals, principles, content and general goals of educational areas, the evaluation of student achievements, and the evaluation and self-evaluation of the realisation of the national curriculum.
What are the elements?
The basic elements of the National Curriculum Framework are as follows:
socio-cultural and educational values
 goals that demonstrate expectations of achievement throughout each student’s education by defining what knowledge each and every student must acquire, and which skills, abilities and attitudes he or she must develop
 principles as the guidelines of educational activity
 methods, means, and forms of work
 educational areas as the core substance
assessment and evaluation of student achievements and schools.

The first cycle- first four grades of elementary school

* Reading in order to become familiar with and respect one’s own culture and other cultures
* Students will:
* deduce, through reading very short texts in a foreign language, simple facts about life in the country or countries of the foreign language in question,and compare them with their own lives and environments
* appreciate the importance of observing their own and other cultures, based on very simple and concrete examples
* recognise universal human values such as friendship, collaboration, altruism, and tolerance.
* Writing in order to become familiar with and respect one's own culture and other cultures
* Students will:* write simple compositions concerning life in the country or countries of the foreign language in question, and comparing applicable foreign lifestyles with their own life and surroundings
* acquire the most basic habits of courteous writing in a foreign language, and write a very short text in everyday language in accordance with the cultural norms of the language being learned
*appreciate the importance of observing their own and other cultures, based on very simple and concrete examples
* recognise universal human values such as friendship, collaboration, altruism, and tolerance.
Intercultural activity
* 1. Preparing for appropriate intercultural activity
* Students will:
* become aware of the existence of similarities and differences between theirown culture and that/those of the foreign languages in question, based on very simple and concrete examples, in terms of their everyday lives and the meaning and use of linguistic expressions
* develop fundamental curiosity and interest in the culture/cultures of the foreign language in question
become aware of the need for tolerance and empathy with persons from other cultures....