Development Of Intercultural Communicative Competence In English Language Teaching

In the more and more globalizing world, intercultural communication has become a necessity. Successful intercultural communication is critical to the development of individuals, cooperation of people from different cultures and even to the peaceful coexistence of nations. However, it seems that English teaching as a foreign language (EFL) in China does not focus on the development of intercultural communicative competence to some extent and failures and obstacles of intercultural communication have been avoided effectively. Therefore, developing intercultural communicative competence is imperative in order to overcome the conflicts caused by different cultures.Intercultural communicative competence refers to the ability to effectively and appropriately communication between or among people from different cultures. The concept is proposed on the basis of communicative competence, which is defined in terms of appropriateness and effectiveness in specific context. The thesis reviews the basic theory of intercultural communication, and components of the intercultural communicative competence on four dimensions. They are grammatical competence,sociolinguistic competence,discourse competence,and strategic competence.The thesis also explores the obstacles to the effective communication and current situation of EFL teaching in China,and then analyzes the obstacles of language difference, complexity of ICC, stereotypes, ethnocentrism and cultural shock. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of obstacles—obstacles with people and obstacles with setting in intercultural communication.The thesis employs and modifies Scollon and Scollon's pedagogical model to propose a model for EFL teaching in China. Scollon and Scollon's four questions are broad enough to apply to different contexts, while the subsidiary ones created by the study can be supplemented...