Addressing intercultural language teaching issues in EFL settings

Globalization has made intercultural competence essential for EFL learners, yet traditional approaches like grammar-translation and communicative language teaching remain prevalent in Algeria. These methods focus primarily on language mechanics, lacking a foundation for developing intercultural skills. This study advocates for adopting an intercultural language teaching approach in Algerian EFL classrooms to better prepare students for effective communication in multicultural contexts. Through literature analysis and classroom observations, the study finds that current practices inadequately address students' intercultural needs. In contrast, ILT fosters critical cultural awareness, empathy, and adaptability, providing a more comprehensive framework for building intercultural communicative competence. It is recommended that policymakers and educators support ILT integration, especially in oral expression classes where students actively engage. Emphasis on teacher training and curriculum reform would help embed this intercultural framework in the classroom, thereby developing EFL learners who are both linguistically skilled and culturally adaptive communicators. Keywords: Communicative competence; English as a foreign language; intercultural; language teaching