E-LEARNING AND EFL TEACHERS’ INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: AN ANALYSIS OF BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES

Nurul Hasanah,Tryanti R Abdulrahman

doi:10.34005/akademika.v10i01.1323

Abstract

This proposed research is aimed to find out to what extent can an online course in intercultural communication influence English language teachers’ intercultural competence and their perception of intercultural communication hence aid in the development of intercultural awareness in an expanding circle university setting. This study is a first step to hold to find out teachers’ intercultural competence after they took online course on language and culture or intercultural communication and explore their perspectives. This study used qualitative method using interview to gain the result. There are three lecturers who are participants of this study. Findings revealed various factors and effect of the online cultural training in developing teachers’ intercultural communicative competence. Several similarities and differences of the participants’ perception and critical evaluation of e-learning and intercultural competence were also found in this study. The advanced development of e-learning platform enables participants to learn many things, share cultural values, having and strengthen their intercultural competence as well as expanding their network for professional development. This study provides benefits and challenges faced by participants during the training. The most common problem they face is internet connection.

Highlights

The emerging trend of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) education in recent years is a movement from a focus on language components such as vocabulary and grammar to a focus on the development of intercultural communicative competence such as the ability to communicate in the target language in real-life situations
As proposed by Byram (1997), intercultural competence requires the development of language proficiency as stated in communicative competence and emphasizes an important ability of intercultural understanding, interpreting, and mediating
In line with the phenomenon above, Indonesians are competing with citizens of other countries in ASEAN Community, ASEAN Free Trade Area, and even globally in which everyone is demanded to use English as an intermediary language among countries that have different cultures

Summary

Introduction

The emerging trend of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) education in recent years is a movement from a focus on language components such as vocabulary and grammar to a focus on the development of intercultural communicative competence such as the ability to communicate in the target language in real-life situations. The most objective of language learning is not characterized immovably in terms of the securing of communicative competence in an outside dialect and presenting an intercultural viewpoint into the EFL setting has gotten to be imperative. To confront the situation above, English teachers need to increase students’ language skills, cultural awareness and intercultural competence (Sun, 2013; Tan, 2016; Wiseman & Koster, 1993). In Indonesia as the setting of this study, English is used as a lingua franca in which it needs more liquid ideas of dialect and culture that must be adopted (Kachru, 2005; Crystal, 2008; Pennycook, 2007; Baker, 2009b). The function of English as an international lingua franca has gone past the conventional ‘native speaker’ English nations and has led to an essential require for a more intercultural approach to ELT that recognize this role for English

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion