ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the Model of Cultural Understanding can be used to select, design or develop reading materials. It shows that cultural understanding is related to the skills involved in approaching otherness, namely observing, describing, analysing, comparing and contrasting, perspective-taking, decentring, criticality and reflexivity. The chapter presents an analysis, which shows the ways in which a text can be seen to illustrate the different levels in the model, and the kind of reflection and critical perspective that can be expected from student readers. It illustrates the multiple, simultaneous and complex readings that a single text can open up. The chapter reflects the complexity involved in cultural understanding within a text as well as in attempts to analyse it using the model. Finally, the chapter notes that the Model of Cultural Understanding is used to capture how any text, short or long, operates at different levels simultaneously.
