On The Application Of Intercultural Sensitizer To English Classes For Junior College Students

With the rapid development of economic globalization and communication technology, intercultural communication has been increasing greatly. Since English is becoming an international language, cultivating students'intercultural communication competence (ICC) in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) becomes increasingly important. This thesis incorporates the Intercultural Sensitizer (ICS), a commonly used intercultural training method, into college FLT classroom teaching aiming at improving junior college students'ICC and enabling them to adapt to the multicultural world.The author first reviews the three different stages of FLT with its focus on linguistic competence, communicative competence and intercultural communicative competence (ICC), and points out the importance of developing ICC in FLT. Then, the theories related to ICC are introduced. She then gives a detailed description of ICS, which lays a theoretical foundation for the design of the intercultural learning activities.This research adopts an experimental methodology. 95 students participated: 60 from the medical care major constituting the experimental group, and 35 students from the economic management major making up the control group. Based on an analysis of the course syllabus and textbooks, the teacher and students'needs, the author designs four intercultural learning activities incorporating ICS into English classes. A pre-test and post-test using the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) are conducted to measure students'ICC. In addition, teachers and some students are interviewed to assess the ICS method.The data collected from the two tests are analyzed with SPSS. The result indicates that the two groups are not significantly different before the test, but they are significantly different after the test with the treatment group scoring higher than the control group. What is more, the interviews show that both the teacher and 90% of the students highly praise the ICS. It is thus concluded that incorporating ICS into English classes is effective and useful in improving junior college students'ICC. Furthermore, the data also indicate that ISS is valid and reliable in the Chinese context.The author suggests that English teachers should be very creative in applying ICT methods to their classroom activities so as to cultivate students'ICC.