Designing An Intercultural Training Program For Short-term Internaitonal Students

In China,many universities and organizations provide various short-term study tours or student programs to attract international students to come to China and experience Chinese culture.These short-term international student programs share one objective in common,which is helping international students to develop their intercultural communication competence,while few programs provide specialized and targeted intercultural training(ICT)modules.Therefore,it is crucially important and necessary to design an intercultural training module for short-term international student program.The study subjects of this thesis are 23 international students who participated in 2016 “Immersion Hub” short-term program by Shanghai Open University.The purpose of this thesis is to develop an intercultural training program for those participants and to help them adapt the study and life in Shanghai.Research questions of this thesis range from intercultural training needs,intercultural training design content to intercultural training program evaluation.This thesis first reviews related theories of intercultural training,intercultural communication competence and intercultural sensitivity,then chooses the appropriate assessment instrument.Before the initiation of “Immersion Hub” program,the author used needs analysis questionnaires combining interviews to investigate participants' needs and expectations for this intercultural training program.Based on the needs analysis,a four-day intercultural training program was formulated applying various training methods and training activities to help international students to learn and adapt Chinese culture.During the training process,the author adopted reaction questionnaires,Intercultural Sensitivity Inventory(ICSI),observation and interviews to evaluate international students' satisfaction and their intercultural sensitivity development.Results show that most participants were satisfied with this intercultural training program,factors like perceived trainer performance and the perceived usefulness of training are positively related to participants' overall satisfaction with the training program.Besides,according to international students' pre and post scores of ICSI,there is a considerable increase in participants' intercultural sensitivity after this intercultural training program.