From Language to Intercultural Citizenship: Expanding PCK for Globally-Minded EFL Educators

In an increasingly globalized world, traditional English language teaching (ELT) often prioritizes linguistic competence over intercultural understanding and active citizenship. This creates a gap in teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), which must evolve to address these new demands. A qualitative multiple-case study was conducted with four in-service EFL teachers participating in a professional development program focused on Intercultural Citizenship (IC). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis (lesson plans, teaching materials). Thematic analysis revealed that while teachers initially held a superficial understanding of culture as "facts about countries," the intervention facilitated a significant expansion of their PCK. This included: (۱) developing skills to integrate global issues into existing curricula, (۲) designing tasks that promote critical reflection and perspective-taking, and (۳) navigating the challenges of assessing intercultural learning. However, constraints like exam pressure and a lack of ready-made resources persisted. The study concludes that a deliberate, structured expansion of PCK to include Intercultural Citizenship is both necessary and feasible. It proposes a refined "PCK for Intercultural Citizenship" (PCK-IC) framework for teacher training, arguing that this is a crucial future perspective for EFL education.

کلیدواژه ها:

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) ، Intercultural Citizenship ، EFL Teacher Education ، Global Competence ، Qualitative Case Study ، Teacher Cognition