N°020_Vol.2_20

Introduction:  The growing tendency towards the enhancement of intercultural interaction is recognized as a global imperative in foreign language classes. In the Algerian context, significant attempts are made to foster intercultural openness and international interaction within the English curriculum. In this vein, the Algerian Curriculum of English Language (ACEL) at high schools signifies the necessary requisites for international communication mainly students’ openness to international cultures (Hassina Kalla&Djallel Boulmaiz, 2025). These significant attempts resonate with the worldwide conceptualization of intercultural competence which tends to surpass the traditional teaching of culture as a set of factual knowledge. It regards intercultural communication a dynamic process of producing meaningful interaction and authentic real life scenarios. While many policies advocate the development of learners’ intercultural skills and global communication, their objectives are not consistently translated into clear instructional frameworks, measurable intercultural outcomes or concrete classroom practices. In many Algerian secondary schools, instruction remains basically linguistically-oriented and predominantly textbook-contextualized with pre-selected reading passages, static images, and end-of-unit project-based products that prioritize reproduction over interaction. Thus, a noticeable discrepancy emerges between the intercultural aspirations promoted by policy makers and the actual pedagogical realities of EFL classrooms. This gap reflects the absence of explicit methodological guidance and pedagogical models capable of operationalizing intercultural competence in meaningful and experiential ways within Algerian secondary education. This impacts students’ interpretative skills, their deep understanding of cultural nuances and limits their interaction appropriately and effectively across cultures.

Intercultural competence has been conceptualized by Michael Byram (1997) in his model based on the development of three elemental dimensions that are referred to as the cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural dimensions. They all overlap to equip students’ with the necessary skills to become intercultural mediators. “Intercultural knowledge” or what he coined as “savoirs” serves as the cognitive basis for developing higher-order intercultural skills such as interpreting, relating, and discovering cultural meanings. However, in many EFL contexts, including Algeria, this dimension remains underdeveloped due to the predominance of information-based teaching approaches that prioritize factual recall over experiential understanding. Consequently, there is an increasing call for the adaption of instructional models that address cultural products, practices and behaviours not as a static representation of reality with an emphasis of linguistic proficiency over the interpretation of the cultural phenomena critically and comparatively. This dynamic interaction necessitates a move towards the integration of interactive artificial intelligence (AI) as a pedagogical tool that transforms learning into an experiential process. In this regard, prompt-based AI visual avatars represent a promising transformative tool as they create interactive, scenario-based simulations where learners can engage with culturally embedded characters through guided prompts. Unlike the traditional materials, these AI visual avatars can simulate real-life intercultural situations including food practices, daily routines, greetings, festivals, and social norms across different cultures. Hence, learners will be able to interact with virtual interlocutors with diverse cultural backgrounds and to access an experiential learning of cultural vivid realities.

Despite the notable flow of AI integration in educational environments, there remains a major breach when it comes to the empirical and conceptual research regarding the use of prompt-based visual avatars for developing intercultural knowledge in EFL contexts. This gap is particularly evident in the Algerian secondary education where traditional instructional methods are prevalent and dominate cultural teaching practices. Therefore, the present study aims to draw a conceptual framework for integrating AI visual avatar scenarios into EFL instruction to enhance intercultural knowledge (savoirs).

This study provides a conceptual triadic framework that integrates prompt-based AI visual avatar scenarios as a potential tool to foster students’ intercultural knowledge which can be presented through their final products or projects. The integration of these AI-generated visual avatars provides learners with access to different cultural contexts through a simulation of culturally thematic situations (e.g., dining etiquette in Algeria vs. the United Kingdom, greetings, festivals, or daily routines). Learners are required not only to learn about these products, practices or behaviours but they are encouraged to interpret, respond, and reflect on these interactions and contrast them with their own cultural norms. Thus, the current paper addresses two important questions: how does the implementation of prompt-based visual avatars provide simulative intercultural vivid scenarios? To what extent does the implementation of prompt-based visual avatars increase students’ intercultural knowledge in EFL classes? Accordingly, the study hypothesizes that prompt-based visual avatars will provide immersive simulated intercultural scenarios and will enhance students’ intercultural knowledge in EFL classes.