When taught as an independent course in Denmark, be this part of foreign language degrees or combined business and foreign language degrees, intercultural communication tends to focus mainly on knowledge of theories of communication and culture. There seems to be less concern with intercultural communication as competence. In this example of practice, involving a course taught in the third year as part of a joint bachelor degree in economics and English, the teacher tried to move away from this knowledge-only conceptualisation of intercultural communication to include the dimensions of attitude and skills. Through the use of more varied didactic methods, it was hoped to help students understand that encountering the other unavoidably entails encountering the self.
The Language Network for Quality Assurance (LanQua) is developing a toolkit for assuring and enhancing quality in language education. It is producing a European quality benchmark, a series of case studies, and a set of recommendations that will be of interest to higher education learning and teaching staff and quality assurance agencies.