| Nowadays,with the development of globalization,the tradition English abilities are unable to meet the need of intercultural communication,intercultural competence becomes part and parcel of modern English abilities.It is essential to cultivate the Chinese college students' intercultural competence.Hu Wenzhong(1999),a famous intercultural communication researcher in China,states that the best way to improve one's IC is to contact with native speakers and experience the host cultures in person.Based on Byram's IC model and Kormos&Csizer's intercultural contact theory,this paper,by means of quantitative and qualitative research,aims to survey the current situation of Chinese college students' IC and their major types of intercultural contact in a case study of NUC,then to explore if there is a correlation between intercultural contact and IC.And the questionnaire used in this research contains two parts,the first part is CCSICI based on the Wu Weiping and Peng Renzhong's study(2016)and the second part is CCSICO based on Wu Weiping et.al's study(2013),both of them have a good reliability and validity.Last,the data collected from the questionnaires are put into SPSS 22.0 for the descriptive analysis and correlation analysis.The results of the study show that:(1)the present IC level of Chinese college students stands at the medium level,among which attitudes are actually at high level,while foreign cultural knowledge is at low level.(2)the most popular method used by Chinese college students is indirect contact,among which multi-media and courses is the most frequently used way by Chinese college students.However the direct contact is seldom used,among which domestic intercultural communication activities are experienced frequently.(3)indirect contact(cultural products and multi-media and courses)has significant positive effects on all six components of IC.The direct contact through domestic social media(QQ typing chat)and domestic intercultural communication activities(Foreign Festivals Celebration Activities)have positive effects on native cultural knowledge.While the direct contact through foreign social media(Skype voice and video)and domestic social media like(Wechat video)have negativeeffects on native cultural knowledge.Besides,four pathways of direct contact have positive effects on foreign cultural knowledge.Direct contact through domestic social media(QQ typing and QQ voice)and domestic intercultural communication activities(Foreign Festivals Celebration Activities,cultural lectures held by foreigners,taking English courses held by foreign teachers in training institution and communicating with foreign teachers in college English courses)as well as foreign intercultural communication activities(winter international camp,international academic conference,international volunteers activity)have significant positive effects on intercultural communication skills.Direct contact through domestic social media(QQ typing,QQ voice,Wechat typing),all aspects of domestic intercultural communication activities and all aspects of foreign intercultural communication activities have positive effects on intercultural cognitive skills.And the last,direct contact through domestic social media(QQ typing and QQ voice)and domestic intercultural communication activities(Foreign Festivals Celebration Activities,taking English courses held by foreign teachers in training institution and communicating with foreign teachers)and foreign intercultural communication activities(winter international camp,international academic conference,international volunteers activity)have positive effects on Chinese college students' intercultural awareness.The results of this study may be helpful for teachers to gain a clear understanding of the Chinese college students' IC level,also they will prompt school to design more suitable English courses to develop the students' IC.At the same time,the findings may help the students to see their weakness and change their learning methods to improve their IC. |
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