Intercultural Competence in an EFL Context

Abstract

With the trend of globalization and the popularity of Communicative Language Teaching, the definition of learners' ”competence” has evolved from language competence to communicative competence, to cultural competence, to intercultural competence to intercultural communicative competence (Moran, 2001). Intercultural communicative competence refers to the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, regardless of the cultures involved (Samovar et al. 1998; Lusting and Koester 1999). However, in an EFL country like Taiwan where learners in the English class are mostly mono-cultural and mono-lingual, how to deal with cross-cultural issues and provide cross-cultural communicative competence training has been a challenge to language educators. This paper focuses on how to teach intercultural communicative competence in an EFL context. The paper starts with the goal of intercultural communicative competence from discussing the meaning of ”culture” in intercultural communicative competence. Then the content and teaching methods integrated with the concept of life-long learning and learner autonomy are discussed.