An Investigation Of Non-english Majors’ Intercultural Communicative Competence In Higher Vocational Colleges

With the accelerating process of the world and economic globalization, cultural exchanges between China and the countries around the world are closer in recent years. To some extent, cross-cultural communications become quite common in our life. And China needs more English talents who have a high level of communication competence in cross-cultural communications. Therefore, it is extremely important to cultivate intercultural communication competence(ICC) and learn to interact appropriately and effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds.This study aimed at exploring the current situation of non-English majors’ ICC in higher vocational colleges. It attempted to answer the three research questions:(1) What is the current ICC level of non-English majors in higher vocational colleges?(2) Are there any significant differences in ICC between high English proficiency students and low English proficiency students?(3) Are there any significant differences in ICC between art and science students? The study used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. 146 higher vocational college students in Jiangxi Technology University were investigated in the quantitative study. And in the qualitative study, 5 English teachers and 20 students were interviewed respectively.The results of this study reveal that:(1) The current ICC level of non-English majors in high vocational colleges is weak in general.(2) High vocational college students’ ICC develops unevenly. Students’ non-verbal communication competence is weaker than their verbal communication competence; Students’ big “C” cultural competence is weaker than their small “c” cultural competence.(3) There are significant differences in ICC between high English proficiency students and low English proficiency students. Except for the aspect of non-verbal ICC, high proficiency students perform better than those low proficiency students in ICC.(4) There is no significant difference in ICC between art and science students except for the aspect of big “C” culture and both art and science students’ ICC is weak.On the basis of the findings mentioned above, some implications for the cultivation of high vocational college students’ ICC can be offered as follows:(1) teachers should integrate culture teaching into language teaching in English language teaching;(2) teachers should put the pragmatic knowledge in the tests as one of the objectives of language learning;(3) teachers should develop intercultural communicative competence in high vocational colleges, such as attending lectures, training courses, professional seminars and so on;(4) teachers should encourage students to take part in extra-class communicative activities, such as assigning speech contests, attending English corner, reading British and American literary works, etc;(5) teachers should enrich the learning materials and improve teaching method.