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5 ways to develop your intercultural understanding for the Spanish IB

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June 8th, 2017Last updated: November 8th, 2022

Intercultural understanding is assessed in both of the IB language groups, yet according to IB Spanish examiner reports, even native speakers often demonstrate a lack of it. In this blog, Vicky sets out 5 easy things you can do to develop your understanding of this key assessment component.  

Read a Spanish newspaper

This might sound daunting, but you’ll be surprised at how much you can read and understand of a Spanish newspaper when you first pick one up, and after a while you’ll be reading far more fluently. This is a great way to get to grips with what’s going on in the Spanish-speaking world and you can keep dipping in and out of it as a reference for months to come. You can pick these up at many newsagents or order them online. You can also read the online version. For Spanish news, El País, ABC and La Vanguardia are some examples. For Latin American news, you could start with El Colombiano, El Diario de Hoy & La Tercera. Be aware that each newspaper will have a sympathy for a specific political party and so it’s useful to vary your reading between right-wing, centrist and left-wing press to gain a well-rounded cultural understanding of stories being reported in the news. The newspaper’s Wikipedia page will usually tell you what their political leaning is.

Watch Hispanic films

As you know, the Spanish language isn’t just spoken in Spain. This is one of the most exciting things about studying Spanish because it means you get to learn about lots of different cultures too. The vast majority of Spanish-speaking countries are in Latin America but there are other parts of the world which also speak it. As part of your assessment you need to be able to demonstrate an understanding of cultural contexts from a wide range of Spanish-speaking countries and a really great way to do this is to watch Latin American and Spanish films. You can often rent these from local libraries but lots are also available online. If you have Netflix, look on the international film section. You can also find them on YouTube or Amazon Prime, and you could buy them online. If the thought of watching an entire film in Spanish is a bit daunting, use the English subtitles to help get you started. Films by the following directors are a good place to start: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Luis Buñuel and Guillermo del Toro.

Cook Hispanic recipes at home

Not only is this approach a fun way to boost your intercultural knowledge, it will also ensure your culinary expertise is top notch before you head off to uni to fend for yourself. There are tonnes of delicious recipes online that you can search through to ensure you know the difference between your tortillas and your tamales. Alternatively, find out what Hispanic restaurants or cafes are in your local area and head to one of them with friends or family every so often. The following site contains over 1000 Latin American recipes, for example: http://allrecipes.com/recipes/237/world-cuisine/latin-american/

Look out for cultural events (film screenings, talks and book reviews etc) at the Instituto Cervantes in central London  

The Instituto Cervantes has over 70 centres worldwide and they promote the Spanish language and cultures of Spanish-speaking countries. The London centre is based on the Strand, just behind Somerset house, and if you check out their site and subscribe to their updates then you will have access to loads of cultural events. Lots of these are free and are a really great way to meet other linguists and gain further insight into Hispanic culture (http://londres.cervantes.es/en/culture_spanish/culture_spanish.htm).

Read the ‘Latin America’ section on the BBC news website

This is a really useful site to gain a general overview of Latin American news stories. The short videos are a great way to get the general gist of a story and some of the articles can be translated into Spanish on the site too. If you get into the habit of looking at this for 5-10 minutes every day then your intercultural understanding will develop very quickly. There is also a page on Spanish news in the European section. This site is especially helpful if you’re studying Ab Initio Spanish or completing the Language B course as intercultural understanding is a key goal of both courses.

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