المستخلص: |
The early childhood education experience in Tunisia is marked by several scholarly tributaries all reflecting its complex, interdisciplinary nature. Its focus on foreign languages has been gaining prominence among stakeholders, yet with disproportionate reliance on a literacy- focused pedagogical approach. Little attention instead has been directed to the cultural substance despite being brought to the fore internationally by recent research in an increasingly globalized world that sees in intercultural communication as one of the ultimate goals of 21st century education. The feasibility of maximizing intercultural encounters in classroom sites is such seeing the advances in computer- based technology and the burgeoning of multimedia resources, and this yields new possibilities to promote children's receptivity of an assorted number of cultural variables. In keeping with this impossible dissociation between the formal and cultural constituents of a given language, this article gives an account of a pilot study of three eight-year olds responding to intercultural content to show whether their empathy, being part of intercultural competence, would be positively reinforced. Implications of this study would offer some recommendations for the role of multimedia in the personality- building process of young children in general and in setting guidelines for the pedagogy of foreign language education in preschools.
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