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Teaching English with American Volunteers. The Kosciuszko Foundation TEIP Program
Thought – Language – Communication: Intercultural Competence in the Teaching English in Poland (TEIP) Program RENATA NOWAKOWSKA-SIUTA
Christian Academy of Theology in Warsaw ORCID: 0000-0001-7227-6127 r.nowakowska@chat.edu.pl
Abstract The paper discusses the relationship between thinking, language and communication skills. The starting point for a brief review of the concepts related to the importance of linguistic communication in human development is the law of linguistic relativism, formulated in the 1970s by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, which is particularly important for understanding cultural differences and similarities in human thinking and behavior, understood as a function of the language in which we formulate our thoughts about the world and other people. The problem questions related to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that I will try to answer in this paper are: How does culture affect language, and how does language affect culture? Exploring the relationship between language and culture is important for understanding the process of intercultural communication; it is important not only for the process of lifelong human education, but also for crossing the boundaries of how we perceive other people. The paper deals with the skills developed by the TEIP program, in which language is not only a communication tool, but also a tool for acquiring knowledge and understanding of other people and the cultural context from which they come.
Keywords: intercultural communication language competence theories of intercultural communication Home
