An Investigation Into Intercultural Communication Competence And Intercultural Sensitivity Among Chinese High School Students

In recent years, among Chinese scholars there has been a shift of emphasis fromhow to effectively study English knowledge to how to successfully make anintercultural communication. As is known, English, as one of foreign language, is nolonger just being treated as learning object, and the Chinese learners are not satisfiedwith mastering this language in written form, they not only want to communicate withforeigners fluently but also want to convey their thoughts as well as their opinions oninternational events with the help of it. Therefore, communicating with foreignersfluently and improving communication level are in urgent need. At the same time, basedon Chen and Starosta’s theory, intercultural communication competence is comprised ofthe following three parts: intercultural awareness, intercultural sensitivity andintercultural skills; among these three elements, the core factor is interculturalsensitivity which connects the intercultural communication competence andintercultural skills. Therefore, only Chinese learners have a right feeling about foreignculture can they inspire their relevant culture awareness, thus they can effectively actcommunicating behavior with the help of appropriate intercultural skills. So the scholarsat home and abroad have a conscious to think that studying on intercultural sensitivity isthe first step to improve intercultural communication competence. Today many Chinesescholars have devoted to studying on how to improve intercultural communicationcompetence in Chinese context. However, many of their studies focused on studyingpeople in colleges such as English majors or non-English majors, only few surveys onintercultural communication competence as well as intercultural sensitivity amongChinese high school students.With the help of Zhang Ailin’s intercultural communication competence test andChen Guoming and Starosta’s intercultural sensitivity scale, through evaluating the levelof120students of a high school in Zhengzhou, this thesis attempted to know the students’ current situation of intercultural communication competence as well asinteraction confidence, interaction attentiveness including time and energy, interculturalengagement, interaction enjoyment and attitude to people from different cultures. SPSS11.5was employed to fulfill the statistic work in the thesis. In the meanwhile, this thesisdiscussed whether it is workable to improve their intercultural communicationcompetence through enhancing their intercultural sensitivity. Then through using theSPSS11.5, this thesis analyzed their correlation between these two terms. The resultsshowed that the participants’ scores on intercultural communication competence andintercultural sensitivity were in an average level and the two items had a positivecorrelation. So Chinese learners can raise their intercultural communication competenceby means of increasing their intercultural sensitivity. At last, this thesis offered somepractical suggestions.