A Case Study Of The Effect Of Short-term Overseas Study Tours On Secondary School Students’ Intercultural Communication Competence

With the advent of accelerating globalization, the cultivation of interculturalcommunication competence is assuming higher levels of importance in secondaryschools. Secondary schools throughout China are grappling with the question: Howcan they prepare their students for today’s complex, interconnected world? Inresponse, the schools are trying to change the teaching methods, to help studentsimprove their ability of intercultural communication to deal with the phenomenon ofglobalization. In some developed areas in China, such as Shanghai and JiangsuProvince, schools and agencies are developing study abroad programs in the form ofshort-term overseas study tours to offer their students the opportunity to experienceanother culture and language firsthand. As a new-born study method mixed withtravel and education, the short-term overseas study tour is growing quickly and iswell known to the teachers and the parents. Many assume that this will automaticallylead to enhanced intercultural understanding and greater proficiency in the hostlanguage. But is this the case?This research focuses on the actual experiences of secondary school studentswho travel from their home environment to a foreign land as part of faculty-led,short-term overseas study tour program. The purpose of this paper is to explore theshort-term study tours’ effect on junior high school students’ interculturalcommunication competence. Under the guidance of some theories on InterculturalCommunication Competence (ICC), theoretical, empirical and case study approachesare applied in the study whose participants are39secondary school students fromWuxi Foreign Language School. Tests and questionnaires on Cultural Intelligence(CQ) before and after the tour are adopted to get the data and statistics. Finally, byusing the statistical software, the research questions of this thesis have been madeclear that a significant impact of short-term overseas study tours on individualmeta-cognitive CQ, cognitive CQ, motivational CQ and behavioral CQ. The study shows that the short-term overseas study tour can promote thecultivation of the intercultural communication competence of secondary schoolstudents.At the same time, the author discovered the existent problems in short-termoverseas study programs, especially in the program designing. This thesis finally putsforward improvement suggestions for short-term overseas study tour programs.