A Survey On The Curriculum Design Of Cultivating Intercultural Communication Competence In The Science And Engineering Universities

With the percolation of cross communication between different countries, theimportant role of intercultural communication competence （ICC）is being graduallyrecognized. But in reality, problems existed in the curriculum design on cultivatingstudents’ ICC in the science and engineering universities result in deficiency of students’ICC to some extent. Scholars at home and abroad, however, seldom took the threeelements of "science and engineering universities","intercultural communicationcompetence" and "curriculum design" into considerationtogether. The paper is initiated tomake a survey of the selective curricula offered by the science and engineeringuniversities to cultivate students’ ICC, conclude core curricula and core contents andreveal problems existed in the core curricula to bear on the effects of curricula design onthe core curricula and promote students’ ICC in the science and engineering universities.200students and30professors in five prestigious science and engineeringuniversities nationwide are sampled to voice their opinions on the design of curricula tocultivate students’ ICC in the science and engineering universities.The investigation results elucidate that there are47curricula offered in the fivescience and engineering universities to cultivate students’ ICC from four aspects:38curricula cultivate knowledge,2curricula cultivate skill,5curricula cultivate attitude and2curricula cultivate awareness. Although much effort has been made to cultivate students’ICC in the science and engineering universities, the reality is far from completion whentaking students’ needs on curricula in cultivating ICC into consideration. Curricula oncultivating students’ skill in ICC offered bythe science and engineering universities revealno consistence with students’ needs. Among47curricula,6core curricula are proved to becore curricula: Corporate Culture, British-American Society and Culture, Language andCulture are regarded as core curricula to cultivate students’ ICC in knowledge.English-Chinese Translation Practice and Skill is considered as a core curriculum in cultivating student’ ICC in skill. A Study and Evaluation of National Classics is deemedas a core curriculum to cultivate students’ ICC in attitude. A Comparison of Chinese andForeign Literature is listed as a core curriculum to cultivate students’ ICC in awareness.New findings are then unveiled as that there exist different problems o n the core curriculaamong five science and engineering universities in the following aspects: teaching time,teaching place, teaching duration, teaching objective, teaching mode, teaching contents,teaching methods, credits distribution, degree of utility and assessment methods.These findings of the research have led the author to a conclusion that the corecurricula and core contents should be popularized in the science and engineeringuniversities nationwide and the problems in the core curricula should be improved in thefuture.