Intercultural Communicators: The Case of Lebanese University Students

Abstract

In this globalized world, graduating students with intercultural communicative competence (ICC) becomes essential (Saba ‘Ayon & Harb, 2022; Winstead, 2021). Concerned about the Lebanese graduates, the researchers in this follow-up study aimed to investigate the extent to which Lebanese private university students have the knowledge, attitudes, skills and critical cultural awareness of an intercultural speaker as per Byram’s (1997) multidimensional model of ICC. Using a mixed-methods design, the researchers employed an online self-completion questionnaire emailed to 190 conveniently selected private university students in Lebanon and three focus groups to collect their quantitative and qualitative data. The researchers analyzed the collected data quantitatively and qualitatively. Conclusions of both types of analyses were triangulated. Major findings reveal that most of the respondents rank high on four components, namely knowledge, attitude, skills of interpreting and relating and critical cultural awareness, and moderate on one component of Byram’s ICC model, which is the skills of discovery and interaction. Major recommendations were made, among which was incorporating ICC within the Lebanese educational system.