The potential of the novel "Bend it like Beckham" for intercultural learning in the EFL classroom

Intercultural communication has become more and more important over the past years because we live in a world where everything is becoming global. A few centuries ago, only people who dealt with international businesses needed to think about intercultural communication and its problems. Today, also ordinary people from different cultures come into contact with each other. Companies work more and more globally instead of locally. We live in a multicultural society with a variety of cultures. Intercultural communication has become a topic which concerns everybody. It will become more and more important in our world of globalization where people from all over the world come together and get in contact with each other.
Because of the aspects mentioned above, intercultural learning is an essential part in learning as well as in teaching. Intercultural aspects are involved in our daily life and this is why intercultural teaching is becoming more important. It should be an essential part of modern teaching. The subject English should help to develop students` intercultural awareness. The Kultusministerkonferenz considers intercultural learning as a key element of English language teaching. Because of this fact, the KMK put intercultural competence in the educational standards for grades 9 and 10 (cf. http://www.kmk.org/schul/Bildungsstandards/1.Fremdsprache
_MSA_BS_04-12-2003.pdf 10.10.2008, p. 16)
The novel “Bend it like Beckham” which is discussed in this work is very popular among young people. Football unites people from different nationalities, opinions, generations, classes, religions and cultures (cf. Thaler, 2006, p. 4). The language is understood anywhere in the world and this is why this novel is very adequate for teaching intercultural learning. Football is the most popular activity in Germany and kindles interest of the boys.
First of all, the following term paper “The potential of the novel Bend it like Beckham for intercultural learning in the EFL classroom” defines Intercultural Competence. Secondly, Byram`s Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence is presented. Afterwards a short summary about the novel “Bend it like Beckham” is given. A description of the title follows. The next aspect describes the potential of “Bend it like Beckham” in school. The term paper ends with a general conclusion and the bibliography.