Joe\u27s Laundry: Using Critical Incidents to Develop Intercultural and Foreign Language Competence in Study Abroad and Beyond

The development of intercultural competence and foreign language skills in study abroad and the foreign language (FL) classroom is often seen as an either/or proposition due to lack of time, training or the availability of materials in the target language. The Critical Incident method (CI) provides an example of an intercultural training tool that can link these competencies in ways that are developmentally appropriate for the FL and IC levels of the students. This method uses authentic intercultural mishaps to develop critical thinking skills as students reflect on the cultural values and attitudes underlying the experience. Drawing on research in study abroad FL pedagogy, this paper describes the CI method, provides a review of best practices in the context of study abroad, and develops an example of a CI from a study abroad program in France to illustrate how cultural incidents can be used to promote both intercultural and foreign language competence