An Analysis On Cultivating The Intercultural Communicative Competence Of Business English Majors Of Higher Vocational Schools

With the rapid development of economic globalization, international exchangesare becoming increasingly frequent, which leads to a pressing social need for talentedpersonnel who have a strong intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Howcan business English teaching at higher vocational schools meet the needs of oursocial and economic development? How can we enable the students at highervocational schools to enhance their intercultural communicative awareness (ICA) andcompetence? Both English teachers and business English teaching should answerthese questions. Business English contains rich business cultures as a type of ESP(English for special purpose). Business English teaching finally aims at cultivatingstudents’ ICC in business situations.The thesis first briefly reviews the history of intercultural communication, andsurveys, researches on intercultural communication in the teaching of foreignlanguages at home and abroad. The thesis then expounds the purpose and significanceof the research.Next, this thesis briefly compares the different modes of thoughts, differentspeech acts and different non-speech acts between the East and the West. Thesedifferences have brought a lot of obstacles to our intercultural communication. Yet,we should admit the culture diversities and adopt a correct attitude to it.In the business English teaching of higher vocational schools, the students areexpected to broaden their cultural horizons, raise their ICA, and strengthen their ICC.There, however, exist various problems in the current business English teaching. Butthe writer finds that there are very few studies on the English teaching at highervocational schools, and even fewer studies on the relationship between vocationalbusiness English teaching and intercultural communication. Through twoquestionnaires in the Wuxi Higher Vocational School of Tourism and Commerce, thewriter finds out the students’ current ICC and understands their attitude to businessEnglish cultural teaching. The analysis shows the urgent needs for cultural teaching.Then, goals, principles, contents and strategies of cultivating ICC are put forward to explain how to develop students’ language competence as well as communicativecompetence, which eventually improve their ICC. Then the aim of foreign languageteaching will be realized.The thesis is expected to help English teachers, including the writer, to reflect ourown views on cultures and to clearly understand our own roles in English teaching sothat we may strive to cultivate our students’ ICA and to enhance their ICC, thusenabling them to become talents to meet the requirements of our society.