Foreign Teacherss Intercultural Competencies as Perceived by Administrators and Teachers in Eastern Thailand

Abstract

The objectives of this study were: 1) To determine the level of intercultural competencies of foreign teachers as perceived by Thai school administrators and teachers in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.2) To investigate the significant differences in the level of intercultural competencies of foreign teachers as perceived by the respondents when grouped according to gender, age, academic qualifications, position, and years of teaching experience.Purposive sampling was used to select 252 Thai school administrators and teachers. The research instrument was a questionnaire developed by the European Wergeland Centre and modified to suit the objectives of the study.The statistics used were mean, s.d., s.e. mean, C.V., t-test, One-Way ANOVA, and Scheffe test.The findings were:1) The level of intercultural competencies of foreign teachers was high as perceived by Thai school administrators and teachers. 2 ) Attitudes was perceived to be of the highest level while knowledge was lowest.3) When analyzed by demographic profile, there was significant difference in age group but gender, academic qualifications, position, and years of teaching experience have no significant difference on the level of intercultural competencies of foreign teachers. There was no significant difference either between the perceptions of Thai school administrators and teachers.Since the component of knowledge was perceived to be the lowest level among the intercultural competencies of foreign teachers, it is recommended that knowledge on interaction, social practices, roles of social and political actors and world views of belief systems be integrated in teacher education curricula of ASEAN countries.