Many universities have adopted criticality as a general aim of higher education, in order to meet the demands of an increasingly globalised world. But what is criticality, and how does it develop in practice? This book explores the concept in detail and considers how it can be systematically developed in practical ways through foreign language education. Taking a practice-first rather than a theory-first approach, the book presents two case studies based on action research in order to investigate criticality development through foreign language education. One study was conducted in beginner level Japanese language classes at a British university by a Japanese teacher-researcher, and the other was conducted in upper-intermediate English language classes at a Japanese university by a British teacher-researcher. The two studies illuminate the complex experiences of students and teachers as criticality starts to develop in both planned and unplanned ways, from beginner-level to more advanced levels of foreign language learning. The authors also suggest a range of practical teaching approaches which can be used to develop criticality through targeted instruction.

As people move into the new era of the twenty-first century, they will have more and more opportunities to communicate and interact with others using foreign languages. While this will naturally generate wide-ranging intercultural experience, people may not be alert to it in everyday life, and teachers may not know how to address the issues that arise. This book starts by exploring what it means to be intercultural from different theoretical standpoints, before contrasting ways in which people do (or do not) become intercultural in both tutored and untutored ways, inside and outside the classroom. The main purpose of this book is to introduce the concept of interculturality, to examine how it can emerge in an unplanned way and to consider ways in which it can be more systematically addressed through education, particularly through foreign language education.