Abstract

Contemporary understandings of multilingualism and second language learning have led to a new paradigm (The Douglas Fir Group 2016) that presents a major challenge to current language teaching practice. The shift in orientation from communicative to intercultural and symbolic competence has reframed and expanded the goals of language teaching and learning (Leung and Scarino 2016) . The revised goals include developing learners’ meta-understandings of language and culture, helping them to make sense of the experience of intercultural communication, and nurturing their abilities as bi-(multi-)lingual language learners and communicators.