A Comparative Study on the Intercultural Communicative Competence of Non-English–major EFL Learners in Different Context

1. A Comparative Study on the Intercultural Communicative Competence of Non-English–major EFL Learners in Different Contexts By Wang Yanping (王艳萍）

2. The Background of Developing ICC 1. Introduction • globalization and internationalization • frequent intercultural communication • English as a lingua franca

3. Wang Zhenya (1994), Zhong Hua (2001) and Wang Fei (2005) conducted some surveys among the English/ non-English-major students and found that the coefficient of correlation between the students’ ICC and their language proficiency was quite low and their competence is quite unsatisfactory. • Will the external context of intercultural communication affect the development of their ICC?And this empirical study is conducted to seek the answer to this question.

4. Purpose of the study: 1. to investigate the status quo of EFL learners’ ICC of the non-English majors. 2. to find out whetherthe context is an influential factor for cultivating non-English majors’ ICC in the higher education by comparison. 3. to reveal some possible problems of the non-English majors’ ICC development in the university. 4. to make some suggestions for non-English majors’ ICC development.

5. Theoretic Foundation • Intercultural Communicative Competence Byram’s model (1997) of ICC: four dimensions critical cultural awareness, attitude, skills & knowledge

6. Three context dimensions are taken into consideration in this model • Between people of different languages and countries where one is a native speaker of the language used; • Between people of different languages and countries where the language used is a lingua franca; • And between people of the same country but different languages, one of whom is a native speaker of the language used (Byram 1997:22)

7. Attitudes: attitudes of curiosity and openness, of readiness to suspend disbelief and judgment with respect to others’ meanings, beliefs and behaviors; furthermore, there also needs a willingness to suspend belief in one’s own meanings and behaviors, and to analyze them from the viewpoint of the others with whom one is engaging. • Knowledge: knowledge about social groups and their cultures in one’s own country, and similar knowledge of the interlocutors’ country on the one hand; knowledge of the processes of interaction at individual and societal levels on the other hand.

8. Skills: (two levels) one is skills of interpreting and relating which refer to ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents from one’s own, and in establishing relationships, the individual will discover both common ground, easily translated concepts and connotations, and dysfunctions; the other involves the ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction. • Critical cultural awareness: an ability to identify and evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries, to interact, mediate and negotiate in intercultural exchanges in accordance with explicit criteria by drawing upon one’s knowledge, skills and attitudes. (Byram 1997)

9. Research questions • General questions: (1) What is the status quo of non-English-major EFL learners’ ICC in these two different contexts? (2) Does the external context of intercultural communication influence the development of non-English-major EFL learners’ ICC? • Sub-questions: (1) What are the potential problems of the EFL learners’ ICC at present? (2) Are there any differences of non-English majors’ ICC between these two kinds of context? (3) If the differences of the non-English majors’ ICC between these two contexts are significant, what are they? If not, what are the possible reasons for that?

10. The Operational Definition of “Context” In this study, context denotes the probability for the EFL learners of non-English majors at university to be exposed to the foreigners or encounter the people from different cultures in the social setting especially out of their campus.

11. 2. The Research Methodology (1) Designing Questionnaire theoretical base: Bryam’s (1997) ICC model form: Fantini’s questionnaire (2000) —Assessing Intercultural Competence: A YOGA Form. construction: personal data, ICC assessment, intercultural cases (2) Participants The participants were non-English majors (to be exactly, they exclude all other foreign language majors) from two parallel universities in Guangdong and Guangxi. They were assigned to two groups: group1, 107 students from GX; group2, 86 students from GD. These two universities were chosen because except for the different contexts of the intercultural communication, they have much in common. (3) Data Collection Procedures the respondents are required to finish the questionnaire within 25mins.

12. 3. Data Analysis and Results Statistical Methods: independent samples T-test, One-way Anova and post hoc test of Scheffe (the sig. level was 0.05) 3.1 Comparison Between Groups 3.1.1Comparison of ICC Mean Scores • Table 3.1.1 Group Statistics of Competence Scores • Table 3.1.2 Independent Samples Test

13. 3.1.2 The Comparisons in Four Dimensions • Table3.1.3 Group Statistics of the Scores in Four Dimensions • Table 3.1.4 Independent Samples T-Test

14. 3.1.3 Comparison between Intercultural Interaction Cases • Table 3.1.5 Group Statistics • Table 3.1.6 Independent Samples Test

15. 3.2 ICC Internal Factor Comparison within Group • 3.2.1 Factor Comparison within group one • Group1: 1.00 awareness: 18.1262 • 2.00 attitude: 18.0542 • 3.00 skills: 17.6290 • 4.00 knowledge: 13.7271 • the comparisons between four dimensions of ICC with One-way Anova and post hoc of Scheffe: the differences between knowledge and other three are significant, sig.= .00

16. 3.2 ICC Internal Factor Comparison within Group • 3.2.2 Factor Comparison within group two • Group2: 1.00 awareness: 17.0349 • 2.00 attitude: 18.3779 • 3.00 skills: 17.43.2 • 4.00 knowledge: 14.6279 • the comparisons between four dimensions of ICC with One-way Anova and post hoc of Scheffe: the differences between knowledge and other three are significant, sig.= .00

17. 4 Discussion and Conclusion 4.1. Major Findings • (1) Generally speaking, the present average level of the non-English majors’ ICC is not high in these two universities without regarding to the external contexts of intercultural interaction. • (2) There isn’t very significant difference in the non-English majors’ ICC status quo between these two different contexts of intercultural communication. Therefore, it can be concluded that the external context of intercultural communication may not exert much influence on their ICC development. • (3) The non-English majors’ ICC construct of the four dimensions in these two contexts are similar to each other. (positive and active awareness and attitude but some skills and even inadequate culture knowledge)

18. 4.2. Reason Analysis (1) the frequency of contacting with the foreigners (2) the students’ attitude to EFL learning (3) EFL learners’ own concept of oral English level (4) the inadequacy of culture knowledge

19. Comparison of Other Aspects Concerning with ICC Comparison of Intercultural Communication Experience Table 4.6.1 Frequency of Contacting with the People from Other Cultures

20. Table 4.6.2 The Purpose of Studying English

21. Table 4.6.5 Respondents’ Self-concept about Their Level of Oral English:

22. 5. Conclusion Pedagogical Implications for ICC Cultivating in EFL Teaching (1) more intercultural communication experiences (2) more knowledge about culture (3) intercultural communication should be set as a required or an optional course (4) revise the previous syllabus of college English especially the purposes of teaching and learning

23. Weakness of the Study 1. the representativeness of the study 2. inherent setbacks of the questionnaire

24. Thank you for your attention!