Abstract
Equipping students with intercultural competence (hereafter IC) is a critical aim of English foreign language classrooms nowadays, and EFL teachers have emerged as essential players for accomplishing this. These teachers should essentially be competent in their intercultural skills so that they can pass these on to their students in order to foster interculturally competent language learners. However, teachers' perceptions regarding IC remain uncertain, particularly in the Turkish context. Thus, before asking teachers to apply methods and strategies so that they can enhance students’ IC in the classroom, it is vital that we investigate what they understand about IC. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to reveal middle and high school teachers’ understanding of the IC phenomenon and their description of the characteristics of an interculturally competent foreign language learner and teacher. In addition, teachers’ perceptions regarding their own and their learners’ IC were also explored in this study. The participants were 30 middle and high school English language teachers teaching at state schools in Turkey. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data. MAXQDA was exploited in order to analyse the data, primarily to code, categorize, and systematize the findings. The results indicated that the teachers considered IC to be the ability to communicate with people from various cultures effectively, having knowledge about one’s own, target, and other cultures, and developing positive attitudes toward other cultures and societies. They also emphasized the inseparability of language and culture and the importance of English as an international language. The teachers also indicated why they viewed themselves and their learners as interculturally competent or incompetent, which could provide insight into where to start intercultural learning and teaching in foreign language classrooms and how to train EFL teachers about different dimensions of IC.
Highlights
Definition of ICConsidering all the various perspectives in different sub-disciplines of intercultural communication, intercultural competence has been identified by many terms such as intercultural sensitivity, global competence, cultural proficiency, cultural intelligence, cross-cultural effectiveness, cross-cultural relations, cross-cultural adaptation, and so forth
State school teachers working at middle and high schools were taken into consideration as the private institutions and universities would have totally different student profiles, curricula, and materials and this would not fit the homogeneity of a phenomenological study
The interviews revealed similar concepts in the definition of IC and interculturally competent English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and teachers; while describing an interculturally competent teacher, participants emphasized teaching skills to integrate IC in their classes, which will be examined in the following sub-sections more thoroughly
Summary
Definition of ICConsidering all the various perspectives in different sub-disciplines of intercultural communication, intercultural competence has been identified by many terms such as intercultural sensitivity, global competence, cultural proficiency, cultural intelligence, cross-cultural effectiveness, cross-cultural relations, cross-cultural adaptation, and so forth. Despite the lack of consensus on the concept, it is widely accepted among researchers and practitioners that intercultural competence is the primary dexterity to be able to live and work with people from different cultures (Hammer, 2015). Rathje (2007) defines IC as the general culture competency necessary in interactions between people from various societies encountering foreignness in order to produce culture by gaining familiarity and cohesion among the individuals. Fantini (2009) and Bennett and Bennett (2004) define IC as the complex competences that are needed in the effective and appropriate interaction among linguistically and culturally different people. INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN THE EYES OF ENGLISH TEACHERS ability to manage the interaction between people who are divergent in terms of ‘affective, cognitive, and behavioural orientations to the world’ (p.7) Rathje (2007) defines IC as the general culture competency necessary in interactions between people from various societies encountering foreignness in order to produce culture by gaining familiarity and cohesion among the individuals. Fantini (2009) and Bennett and Bennett (2004) define IC as the complex competences that are needed in the effective and appropriate interaction among linguistically and culturally different people. Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) emphasize the interaction aspect and describe IC as the Research Article
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