Developing Students' Intercultural Communication Competence In English Language Education

With China's entering WTO, the open door and reform policy has opened up a new phase in Chinese history. We have moved from an internal view of catching up with other nations to an international need for cooperating with the world. Thus the Chinese tertiary education must meet this challenge, providing graduates with a high level of intercultural communication competence (ICC).On the other hand, it is not until the late 1970s that language educators began to recognize that English language education has to integrate the teaching of related culture with the teaching of language, so as to promote students'ICC—the final aim of English language teaching (ELT). As we know, the ICC is a very complicated and also a dynamic system, accordingly, it will bring a large amount of difficulties for its cultivation. Furthermore, the ways to develop students'ICC in ELT is still in its infancy, far from a systematic one. Thus, this thesis intends to seek an effective way to develop college students'ICC in ELT, as well as provides some methods and strategies. In the final, students are advised to internalize their learned cultural knowledge, so as to develop cultural creativity, cope with the diverse and unpredictable intercultural settings.