Exploring the Interplay between Intercultural Competence, Student Motivation, and Psychological Adaptation in Multilingual Classrooms: Mechanisms and Educational Implications in Southeast Asia

Inherently concerned with the personal and cultural development of individuals, intercultural competence can be regarded as an inseparable aspect of Bildung. However, while scholars have acknowledged the affiliation between these two concepts, what remains to be investigated is the extent to which notions of Bildung are incorporated in theoretical models of intercultural competence. This is an important aspect to study because such models constitute the foundation for how intercultural competence is understood as an educational goal. The present article examines Byram’s model of intercultural communicative competence, which has been particularly influential within the field of foreign language didactics. The article investigates how this model corresponds to Bildung theories in its description of the ideal encounter between Self (own culture) and Other (foreign cultures), and discusses the learning processes which may be involved. Relying on the theoretical perspectives of Gadamer, Bakhtin, Ricoeur and Klafki, the article argues that, while central aspects of Bildung are evident in Byram’s model, they are downplayed through its emphasis on harmony and agreement. The article further stresses the importance of regarding conflict, ambiguity and difference not solely as challenging aspects of the intercultural encounter, but as potentially fruitful conditions for profound dialogue between Self and Other.

Scholars generally agree that intercultural competence has cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions. Because of the wide interest in intercultural competence in multiple disciplines, nuanced and varied labels of this concept are prolific. This has caused a measure of confusion, exacerbated by little cross-referencing between disciplines that research intercultural competence. Bradford, Allen, & Beisser recognised this in their attempt to synthesise existing definitions and labels of intercultural competence and concluded that intercultural communication competence and intercultural effectiveness have been used interchangeably in literature. This chapter presents the Process Model of Intercultural Competence, the Integrated Model of Intercultural Communication Competence, the Intercultural Competencies Dimensions Model, the Intercultural Competence Model by Byram, the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity and the Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) Model in more detail. Research in intercultural competence spans over several academic disciplines as well as in applied fields. There are, of course, some challenges to pervasive and effective development of intercultural competence across multiple levels of society.

The article proposes a model of intercultural communicative competence. The need for further reflection on this topic derives from two facts: existing models are not built on Dell Hymes’ model of communicative competence (cc), although they use Hymes’ term ‘cc’ is used; our discussion in this essay starts from a definition of cc in Hymes’ tradition and studies what changes are needed to make it fit to describe intercultural cc; most models are, in fact, not ‘models’. According to the theory of models, models aim at being universal, based on formal logic rather than empirical evidence, and this is extremely important in ICC studies where empirical research is always partial. The result is a new instrument to analyse, describe and teach ICC.

Sooner or later, countries like Poland will have to welcome immigrants from the Middle East and successfully communicate with the immigrants from different cultural backgrounds. I would like to argue that critical cultural awareness proves to be a cornerstone of the model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram, 1997) and should be considered a prerequisite for developing the rest of the components comprising the model. The main aim of the present research paper is to investigate, analyse and discuss Polish EFL teachers' beliefs on the idea of including critical cultural awareness, a crucial component of intercultural competence, in the EFL lessons, teachers' teaching practices with reference to developing particular elements of intercultural competence in the EFL lessons and the possible discrepancies between their beliefs and practices. A questionnaire administered to 125 Polish EFL teachers and a case study of three practitioners, who were observed, interviewed and confronted in a focus-group discussion, were used to collect the relevant data. The results of my research study suggest that a lot of Polish EFL teachers declare that they consider Byram's intercultural communicative competence model (Byram 1997) relevant to foreign language teaching and learning in the present-day and seem to be willing to implement it in their lessons, yet many of those teachers appear not to prioritize intercultural competence in their teaching practice. This apparent discrepancy between language teachers' beliefs and their practices may stem from teachers' lack of sufficient intercultural training during their professional education. A need for implementing critical cultural awareness into the pre-service teacher trainings was identified. Keywords: intercultural competence, critical cultural awareness, EFL teaching and learning

Understanding the interrelations between cultural empathy, intercultural communication competence, and the psychosocial adjustment of international students in Canada: A longitudinal examination

BACKGROUND:Personality types of learners have determining role in their achievements. Many researchers concentrate on noncognitive moderators such as personality traits to trace the barriers in learning. This study attempts to find out what kinds of personality types enable learners to be more competent in intercultural context.METHODS:To conduct the study 236 students were randomly selected from Ardestan and Khorasgan Universities. Two questionnaires were used to collect the data. The first one was a researcher's made questionnaire to assess learners' intercultural competence; based on Bennett's Intercultural communicative Model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC); and intercultural competence assessment Model of ICC, consisting four behavioral dimensions, tolerance for ambiguity, flexibility, respect for otherness, and interaction. The second questionnaire wasMyers-Briggs Type Indicator to identify learner's personality type. The means, standard deviations, t-scores, and significance levels of behavioral dimensions were calculated to interpret the data.RESULTS:The analysis of the results revealed that greater general competence in cultural adjustment is associated with greater extroversion personality. Students with thinking and judging personalities were more tolerant for ambiguities of foreign cultures than those with feeling and perceiving personality types. The data of respect for otherness were very similar to tolerance for ambiguity, and students with sensing personality preference were more competent in interacting with foreign cultures than intuitive ones.CONCLUSION:The findings indicated the personality types play opportunity or threat roles for FL learners in intercultural understanding. Therefore, to promote efficiency in education, it is vital to explore the learners' cognitive and noncognitive health conditions.

The concept of intercultural competence attempts to outline a set of characteristics that is essential in order for people to communicate adequately and competently in a globalized world. Intercultural competence is arguably more important than ever before because of rising nationalism, xenophobia, and extreme polarization in societies across the world. The chapter begins by outlining different conceptualizations of culture since our understanding of intercultural competence hinges on our understanding of culture. Culture has for long been defined as shared values but increasingly has come to mean contested sites of ideological struggles between different positionalities of power. Different intercultural competence models are outlined next, emphasizing Byram's intercultural communicative competence model, which argues that foreign language learning should be an essential component. The most important characteristics of different models are summed up in the European Council's Framework for Democratic Culture, which is outlined. Then, the chapter discusses some of the problems inherent in the intercultural competence concept, including the conceptualization of culture as shared equally valued meanings, ignoring power differences between different cultural groups, excluding non‐Western scholars from developing ideas about intercultural competence, and excluding disenfranchised marginalized groups from the intercultural narrative on which the intercultural competence concept is built. Finally, the chapter presents recent critique from intercultural communication scholars that our thinking about intercultural competence needs to move from a largely theoretical endeavor to include a social action component.

Purpose –– This chapter shows the connection between the reality of intercultural communication training and its importance to the development of intercultural communication competence, symbolised by the Rainbow Model of Intercultural Communication Competence. Methodology/approach –– 405 useable questionnaires (response rate=19.4%) were used from 56 German MNEs in a convenience sample of companies in the high-tech industry that are suppliers for the automotive, aviation, optical and chemical industry. Findings –– German MNCs provide traditional intercultural communication training sparingly to expatriates, but with adjustments depending on the target country. Only 41% of training recipients deemed the training helpful for their mission. Non-traditional training methods are administered more consistently. Practical implications –– The Rainbow Model of Intercultural Communication Competence should guide the implementation of customised intercultural communication training efforts. Social implications –– Assisting expatriates in their development of intercultural communication competence via intercultural communication training fulfils the social responsibility of multinational enterprises. Originality/value of chapter –– This chapter provides guidance to human resource specialists in the international arena to design and implement customisable intercultural communication training programmes for expatriates.

Intercultural Competence, as the ability to communicate effectively with individuals from different cultural backgrounds, has become a fundamental element of language education in today’s globalized world. This study investigates the manifestations of intercultural competence in EFL classrooms, based on teachers’ perspectives, strategies, and difficulties. Byram’s model of Intercultural Communicative Competence serves as a central framework for this study. A descriptive approach was implemented, using questionnaires and interviews with EFL teachers at Salahaddin University. The findings indicate a strong consensus among teachers regarding the importance of integrating cultural learning alongside language instruction. Teachers believe that encouraging intercultural competence helps students become more confident, open, and prepared for global communication, as well as improving their language proficiency. Teachers actively incorporate strategies such as authentic materials, group discussions, and digital tools to foster students’ intercultural skills, though integration varies by subject. The study concludes by emphasizing the need for curriculum reforms, targeted teacher training, improved resources, and institutional support to strengthen intercultural education. The findings offer valuable insights for curriculum developers and educators, aiming to better prepare students for communication in multicultural settings.

This chapter explores how literary reading may contribute to a reconceptualization of intercultural competence as an educational goal through a focus on conflict, ambiguity and imagination. According to hermeneutic theory and the reader reception tradition of literary theory, the process of interpreting a text is a dialogical, negotiative experience that leads to a gradual expansion of the reader’s perspective. From this viewpoint, the reading of Foreign Language (FL) literature may be regarded as a form of intercultural communication. With a basis in Byram’s model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and the concept of the ‘intercultural speaker’, the chapter focuses on what distinguishes reading from real-time communication in order to define the qualities of a profoundly engaged, analytical and imaginative ‘intercultural reader’. A descriptive model of ‘the intercultural reader’s’ engagement with FL literature is proposed. This model shows how the text interpretation process may operate at three, interlinked levels of communication, each of which involves the ‘intercultural reader’s’ emotions as well as her cognition. At all three levels, she considers the effects of the narrative style and structure of the text as well as the cultural, social and historical subject positions of text(s) and reader(s). Furthermore, the chapter shows how the text interpretation process may take place across notions of time and place, involving varying degrees of critical and abstract thinking. It also provides a practical example of how the fostering of such ‘intercultural readers’ may take place in the FL classroom. In doing so, the chapter sheds light on aspects of the reader-FL text relationship on which Byram’s model of ICC, as well as other theoretical perspectives on reading and intercultural competence, are unclear. Finally, it brings attention to the complexities of intercultural communication and the need to promote young individuals’ ability to handle conflict and ambivalence in a constructive, creative manner.

Intercultural competence has acquired an important role in the foreign language classroom. However, we must also come to terms with assessing this highly complex construct if we consider it as a superordinate learning objective. Therefore the components of intercultural communicative competence that go beyond knowledge, especially attitudes, deserve closer attention. On the basis of Byram’s (1997) model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), an attempt has been made to trace the development of attitudes as part of ICC in computer-mediated intercultural communication. Data was drawn from three e-mail projects that took place between 2001 and 2002. Three different upper-secondary classes at a vocational school in Mainz, Germany (n=64) exchanged e-mails with two groups of US-American undergraduate students in Ohio (n=57) and one group of undergraduate students of English from Tokyo (n=30). Preliminary findings from a telecollaborative seminar with US-American undergraduate teacher students at a German teacher training institution were used to support the data. The main question addressed in the paper is whether attitudinal components of ICC can be measured quantitatively in telecollaborative environments. To do this, specifications and implementation of learning objectives for attitudes as put forward by Byram (1997) are applied to different instruments within the framework of the e-mail projects, including a triangulation of instruments. Instruments include e-mails, critical incidents, essays and interaction journals. When data was ambiguous or incomplete, follow-up interviews were conducted with pupils. Results of the study suggest that it is not possible to measure attitudes with the instruments described, but that they can help teachers to describe evidences of attitudes in interaction and trace developments to provide a basis for feedback.

This paper proposes a prototypic assessment tool for intercultural communicative competence. Because traditional discourse completion tasks (DCTs) focus on illocutionary competence rather than sociolinguistic competence, a modified version of a DCT was created to target sociolinguistic competence. The modified DCT employs speech acts as prompts and asks respondents to write about a situation in which a given speech act would be appropriate. This new tool is named a reverse discourse completion task (R-DCT). The task was given to learners of Turkish as a second language. Data from 12 participants were analyzed for their provision of sociopragmatic factors such as power, distance and imposition and also with respect to whether the situation was relevant to a given speech act. Responses from the participants show that R-DCTs can be used to assess intercultural competence as they help reveal respondents’ knowledge of sociolinguistic context in which a given speech act may be appropriate. By removing the need for comparison with native speaker data and the limitations that emerge from the lack of linguistic formula at respondents’ disposal, R-DCT is a promising elicitation task to assess sociolinguistic competence, an integral part of Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence.

With the continuous change of the world situation, English is becoming more and more important as an international language. With the full coverage of globalization, there are more and more exchanges between different cultures, and the cultivation of cross-cultural communicative competence of foreign language talents has become increasingly prominent. With the continuous increase of foreign exchange, there is a growing demand for foreign language talents with certain intercultural communicative competence. In recent years, the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence has become the focus of foreign language teaching in China. Therefore, this paper makes an in-depth study on the cultivation model of intercultural communicative competence in China. This study mainly conducts literature survey and questionnaire survey on the current situation of the cultivation model of cross-cultural communication ability in China, analyzes its advantages and disadvantages in detail, summarizes its shortcomings, and then puts forward relevant suggestions on the cultivation model of cross-cultural communication ability in China on the basis of the analysis and research, so as to provide a reference for the further development of China's cross-cultural communication ability training model Some references.

In the twenty-first century, the teaching and learning of foreign languages (FL) has shifted towards providing English as a foreign language (EFL) learner with the necessary skills in a cross-cultural encounter widely known as intercultural competence. Based on the notion that one's intercultural savvy depends on having a clear conception of what intercultural competence involves, the study aimed to explore Thai students’ interpretations of intercultural competence (IC). The study was carried out through interviews with 20 Thai undergraduate students from two Thai universities in Bangkok. All participants took part in both one-on-one and group interviews. The study used Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). The findings show that the participants had little understanding of the concepts underlying IC, and how students perceived IC was essentially influenced by their intercultural learning experiences in their classrooms. Overall, the findings of this study offered a wide range of recommendations, specifically regarding classroom practices for intercultural learning.

In the present era of internationalisation, fostering Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) through digital education is essential particularly for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in Malaysia’s multicultural context. This aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicator 4.4.1, which focuses on skills for a digital world. This study examines the perceived impact of digital literacy on intercultural communicative competence among ESL learners in higher education. By employing a qualitative approach, data were collected from a sample of eleven participants through open-ended questionnaires and were then analysed thematically. Findings revealed that communication tools were the most preferred digital literacy tools for cross-cultural interaction and cultural awareness as conceptualized in Byram’s ICC model. Participants reported positive experiences in using digital platforms to improve their intercultural competencies. The study also highlighted that fostering learners’ digital literacy is crucial for promoting cultural tolerance, improving communication skills, and facilitating knowledge exchange. This research hopes to contribute to the existing literature and offer insights for educators in implementing digital tools to enhance students' intercultural communication skills in the ESL classroom pedagogy for global citizenship.