THE PRESENCE OF SPANISH STEREOTYPES IN TEACHING SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN SERBIA

Abstract

Bearing in mind that it is the teacher’s role to be the guide in foreign culture comprehension so that his or her students are able to acquire intercultural competence, and that both foreign language teaching and learning should not be separated from foreign culture teaching, it is our opinion that language teaching which includes cultural input from the beginning increases students’ motivation. Since intercultural awareness covers an awareness of how each community appears from the perspective of the other, often in the form of national stereotypes (CEFR, 103), it is our hypothesis that the presence of stereotypes can have a positive influence on students’ motivation. In our opinion, positive stereotypes should be used at beginning levels in order to increase the motivation for studying Spanish as a foreign language. That is why our paper deals with the presence of stereotypes regarding the Spanish language and culture in Serbia by analyzing a survey data gathered from our students.