Teachers’ beliefs and students’ experiences regarding intercultural communicative competence teaching and learning

Abstract

The article is based on the preliminary results of an ongoing research project that seeks to explore intercultural communicative competence of language teachers and university students. The article reports teachers’ beliefs and students’ experiences concerning intercultural communicative competence teaching and learning, gained by means of questionnaires. As Likert-type scales use fixed choice response formats and are designed to measure attitudes and opinions, they were used in the measurement of students’ statements that were asked to be evaluated in a survey, carried out in three different periods (steps). Teachers’ beliefs result from a long questionnaire, focused on data about how teachers perceive the cultural dimension of English language teaching and learning. The conclusions are based on data collected in a five-year study that need further investigation in the currently run project. Several recommendations for pre-service and in-service teacher training are commented on in the end. Keywords: teaching English, learning English, acquiring target culture, intercultural communicative competence