This open access book presents an account of five teacher educators who over a two-year period
undertook a research project with five teachers of languages other than English in
pre-secondary schools in New Zealand. Their collaborative aim was to develop students'
intercultural capability in the context of learning a new language. The school participants
were typical of many in New Zealand's pre-secondary sector the teachers had limited
language-teaching experience and limited prior knowledge of how to develop the intercultural
dimension in their language classrooms and the students were largely at the beginning stages
of learning a new language.The book discusses the findings obtained using a range of data
collection methods including classroom observations reflective interviews with teachers and
focus groups with students. It documents instances of breakthrough and growth for teachers and
students and reveals the problems and tensions. Lastly it reflects on thelessons learned in
the course of this project and speculates on the roles that teacher education needs to play if
the goal of intercultural capability is to be better achieved in language classrooms both in
New Zealand and internationally. Of interest to a wide range of stakeholders in the area of
education the book allows readers to gain an understanding of the opportunities of working
with teachers through an action-research model alongside the challenges that this brings and
ways in which intercultural capability may be strengthened.
