A Survey Of Non-English Majors' Intercultural Communicative Competence In Higher Vocational Colleges

As vocational colleges are growing rapidly in China, the vocational education has received increasing attention. This is the case for English teaching in higher vocational colleges as well. In English teaching at higher vocational colleges, the teachers should not only provide the students with the basic English language knowledge, but also help them enhance their intercultural communicative competence. Naturally, it is quite meaningful and necessary to have a study on the non-English majors' intercultural communicative competence (ICC) at higher vocational colleges. However, due to various factors, non-English majors still have some trouble with intercultural communicative competence, though they have learned English for quite a few years before entering the college. Currently, many linguists and scholars have put increasing emphasis on culture teaching during the English language teaching (ELT), which has become an integral part of language teaching. In this thesis, the author first elaborates the definitions of some academic terms concerned in the study, like language, culture, communication, and intercultural communicative competence, and then discusses the inseparable relationship between language, culture and communication, and the significance of fostering the students' intercultural communicative competence as well.The quantitative study is based on two questionnaires and a social-cultural test with the purpose to study the current situations of the students' intercultural communicative competence at Guangxi higher vocational colleges, on the basis of which this thesis focuses on how to cultivate non-English majors' ICC in ELT and provides some tentative pedagogical suggestions.Based on the data analysis of the two questionnaires and the socio-cultural test, the author discovers that non-English majors in Guangxi higher vocational colleges have poor intercultural communicative competence. First, the students generally lack pragmatic knowledge and awareness of intercultural communication. Second, the development of the students'intercultural communicative competence at higher vocational colleges hasn't been stressed in English teaching by the English teachers. Third, most students think that the culture learning in the English teaching classes and the information about cultures in the textbooks are all limited, so that culture teaching should be improved and diversified at higher vocational colleges.The paper consists of six chapters.Chapter One is the introduction of the thesis which gives a brief description of the background, the objective and the significance of the research, and the layout of the thesis as well.Chapter Two is about theoretical foundations. It deals with the definitions of some academic terms concerned in the study, like language, culture, communication and intercultural communicative competence, and explores their relations. At the end of this chapter, the author gives a brief description of current researches on intercultural communication abroad and at home.Chapter Three goes to the quantitative study which is conducted by the author through a socio-cultural test and two questionnaires respectively for the students and the teachers from three higher vocational colleges in Guangxi so as to obtain the objective and relatively reliable information about the current situations of culture teaching in Guangxi higher vocational colleges.Chapter Four deals with data analysis and findings of the research.Chapter Five puts forward five practical pedagogical suggestions for the cultivation of the students'intercultural communicative competence in higher vocational colleges in Guangxi.Chapter Six is the conclusion of the paper, including the limitations of this thesis and several suggestions for future researches.