The Cultivation Of Intercultural Communication Competence In ELT

During the long history of foreign language teaching and learning, the entire educators focused just on one same question: how they could have the learners learn and use the target language effectively. Such a great deal of different theories and techniques had been employed in different period of time. With the development of the theories on language learning and teaching, they began to realize that develop sole linguistic skills of learners cannot achieve the goal.Since the 1950's, the trend of research has shifted from the exploration of developing teaching techniques to the cultivation of learners' Intercultural Communication Competence. Nowadays the Globalization influences every corner of the world and the intercultural communication is almost unavoidable for everyone. Acquiring Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) in ELT has aroused the educators and experts' concerns and interests. Researches in foreign language teaching and learning have indicated that good command of language could not certainly ensure effective communication between different cultures. Intercultural Communication Competence indeed plays a critical role. Therefore, how to improve Intercultural Communication Competence becomes an important issue in ELT context. The ultimate goal of language education should be to facilitate the language learners' Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC). Researches on this issue constitute an important inquiry in current foreign language teaching. Plenty of studies, conducted both in theory and in practice, focus on outcomes and the realization of intercultural communication. However, there are few researches on how to improve ICC among foreign language learners. The cultivation of Chinese learners' ICC in ELT is only in the threshold, which till has a long way to go.This thesis focuses on how to cultivate learners' ICC in ELT and provides some tentative suggestions. It consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduction gives a general account of the imperatives of cultivating ICC from international, domestic and the personal dimension; states the brief history and current problems of ELT in China. To give a theoretical support to this thesis, chapter two literature review and theoretical considerations makes an exploration to some significant terms which will facilitate the understanding of cultivation of ICC, i.e. Multiculturalism, Cultural Relativism, Globalization; and introduces the concepts which are the key elements of ICC, including culture, communication, and their relationships. Chapter three, as the theoretical basis of the cultivation of ICC, demonstrates the understanding of intercultural communication competence. While the main part of this thesis chapter four, the most practical part, puts...