This book is based on a project – originally called ‘Citizenship Education in the Language Classroom’ – which was a collaboration among some of the members of an informal network of researchers ‘Cultnet’ (http://cultnet-world.wordpress.com). The network consists of teachers and researchers who are interested in foreign language teaching and its cultural dimension and, in particular, in introducing intercultural communicative competence into foreign language teaching on a systematic basis. This network was formed by Michael Byram and has grown over almost two decades from a small group of PhD students who came together in mutual support to an email list of over 200 people who share information and ideas. The idea for this project was born at the annual Cultnet meeting 2013, attended by about 20 members of the network, and then advertised to the whole group by email, inviting anyone to join. Eventually a much smaller number – the authors of this book – became the settled group, working together in pairs or small groups but aware of each other’s work through sharing a pbworks page, a real-time collaborative editing system. The page was provided by Robert O’Dowd, a Cultnet member, who also facilitated the use of and interaction on this social network.

This book is one of the outcomes of the project. Its purpose is to show how teachers and researchers – who are sometimes the same people, i.e. teacher–researchers – can work together to develop new curricula and pedagogy. Put briefly, this involves first the creation of new theory – of ‘intercultural citizenship’ – and an imagined procedure for implementation. Secondly, there has to be a group willing to implement experimentally, and describe for other teachers the processes and procedures. Thirdly, there is a review of the ups and downs of implementation so that other teachers might attempt replication with full knowledge of the realities and willingness to experiment in their own classrooms.