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e's own views, readjusting one's scheme structures. In a foreign language learning context one should not be surprised when tolerance and understanding are not immediate results of learning a foreign language and encountering a foreign culture. Sometimes the opposite is the short-term result: learners see the other culture in stereotyped ways. Stereotyping is not necessarily negative if we see it as a simplification in order to cope with complex and unfamiliar situations. In some ways it resembles the processes of 'overgeneralization' or 'strategy of second-language learning' which we find in Selinker's interlanguage theory (1972: 217-19) and can be interpreted as a stage in a continuous process of developing awareness of the foreign culture. Through textbook tasks one can help make these attitudes conscious and visible in order to provide opportunity to talk about them. Questions and tasks that focus on attitude and understanding can form the basis for what I choose to call 'authentic dialogue' in the foreign language classroom. 'Authentic dialogue' must here be understood as dialogue which has no predetermined answers, it is open-ended and will itself produce possible answers. In that light even stereotyped views can open up for an enhanced understanding of the foreign culture. This type of classroom dialogue does not control the learner's knowledge, but uses the learner's understanding as classroom material. Thus the individual's interpretation and understanding of aspects of the foreign culture is taken into account. Textbooks have an important role to play in such a change of focus from teacher to learner. By providing texts and tasks which open up for the individual's interpretation and then using this in social dialogue in the classroom, the learner is given the opportunity to enter into a dialogue with the foreign culture. Understanding 'the other' It is a fallacy to believe that we can reach a point where we will be able to understand 'the other' completely. We do not even understand ourselves and our own culture to such an extent. But in the foreign language classroom it is important to open up for a variety of encounters with the foreign culture and provide possibilities for reflecting individually and in a social context upon these encounters. This also means reflecting upon the multiplicity of meaning that exists in any culture and which can be made potentially available through various types of texts. Textbooks and teachers can assist this process, which Ricoeur calls a process of reflection, which 'extends our existence' and helps us show the learners a way to a 'savoir être' which is based upon understanding: 'le mode de cet être qui existe en comprenant' (1969:11). For textbook writers the question is how can we provide the best possible grounds for the learners to gain knowledge and awareness of the foreign culture as well as their own in order to 'develop as human beings' or in Ricoeur's words: 'extend their existence'. When discussing what to teach at the beginning of this article, I argued that there was a missing link between knowledge of the foreign culture and procedural socio-cultural skills. I believe that what is lacking is communication and interaction, a dialectic dialogue between two or more subjects interpreting and negotiating meaning. Ricoeur (Kvalsvik 1985) argues that only through interaction with others, and not through introspection, can we experience our own identity. In a context of dia