An Investigation Into The Influences Of College English Teachers’ Foreign Sojourn Experience On Their Intercultural Sensitivity

Recently, although there are more and more researches focusing on the measurement of the intercultural sensitivity(ICS),the studies of the ICS of Chinese college English teachers are quite few, which often take the undergraduates and the postgraduates as the subjects, including English majors or non-English majors. However, the fact is that the college English teachers and college students are of the same value in the teaching-learning process on the basis of the interwoven relationship between language and culture. Therefore, the college English teachers are selected as the participants in this study, the aim of which is to explore the effects that different length of foreign sojourn experience(FSE) may have on the college English teachers’ intercultural sensitivity, on each aspect of their ICS and on their ICS as a whole. According to the research results, some advice and suggestions are presented for the enhancement of college English teachers’ ICS.The present study used Chen and Starosta’s Intercultural Sensitivity Scale(ISS) as the instrument to investigate the intercultural sensitivity of the participants. Among all the 70 participants, 40 of them were English teachers from Hubei University of Technology while the other 30 participants were English teachers from Hubei University of Technology Engineering and Technology College. Besides Chen and Starosta’s Intercultural Sensitivity Scale, a questionnaire designed by the author was used to collect the length of the participants’ foreign sojourn experience. After the needed data was collected through these two questionnaires, SPSS 19.0 was applied to calculate and analyze the correlation between the college English teachers’ ICS and their LFSE.It is found that there is a weak positive relationship between the length of English teachers’ foreign sojourn experience and their ICS level. Among the five sub-factors of intercultural sensitivity, the improvements of four of them(Interaction Engagement, Interaction Confidence, Interaction Enjoyment, and Interaction Attentiveness) are positively related to their length of foreign sojourn experience while the Respect for Cultural Differences is the only sub-factor which is not related to the length of foreign sojourn experience. Moreover, the foreign sojourn experience of 6 to 9 months is not only effective in improving the college English teachers’ general intercultural sensitivity but also is the most effective length of time in cultivating both their Interaction Engagement and Interaction Enjoyment. Then, the foreign sojourn experience of 3 to 6 months is also be found as the “certain period of time” which is crucial in improving the college English teachers’ Interaction Confidence. Besides these major findings, it is also found that the participants in this study enjoyed a high degree of intercultural sensitivity and they also got high scores on Respect for Cultural Differences although it is found to be irrelevant to their length of foreign sojourn experience. In addition, the correlation between the college English teachers’ ICS level and their length of foreign sojourn experience is not linear and the foreign sojourn experience of over 9 months seems to be a turning point in the improvement of college English teachers’ intercultural sensitivity.Based on the findings, some suggestions and advice are offered about the enhancement of college English teachers’ intercultural sensitivity: 1. To those college English teachers who are going to have a long-term(over 9 months) foreign sojourn experience, they may benefit a lot in their general intercultural sensitivity(except the Respect for Cultural Differences). 2. To those college English teachers who are going to have a medium-term(6 to 9 months) foreign sojourn experience, their general intercultural sensitivity may develop as well as their Interaction Engagement and Interaction Enjoyment. However, after a foreign sojourn experience of 6 to 9 months, those college English teachers may still need a further training to improve their Respect for Cultural Differences, Interaction Confidence, and Interaction Attentiveness. 3. To those college English teachers who are going to a have short-term(less than 6 months) foreign sojourn experience, despite of the fact that they may have a relatively great improvement in their Interaction Confidence after 3 months of foreign experience, they may still need further trainings to improve their overall intercultural sensitivity. 4. To all college English teachers they would better choose to have a 6-9 months foreign sojourn experience to improve their ICS economically and effectively.