An Investigation Of The Intercultural Communication Competence Of Senior High School Students

As the process of economic globalization continues to accelerate,exchanges between countries around the world are becoming more frequent,and more and more talents with world consciousness,deep understanding of foreign cultures,and high intercultural communication competence(abbreviated as ICC)are needed.The Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standards(experimental)issued by the Ministry of Education in China in 2003 regards the ICC of senior high school students as an important part of their comprehensive abilities.It emphasizes that English teaching should not only focus on cultivating students' language knowledge and language skills,but also necessary to focus on cultivating students' ICC.Since then,the status of intercultural teaching in language teaching has been recognized.Moreover,ICC received increasing attention in recent years.Faced with this situation,the author took students in Grade Two of Changchun No.1 Senior High School as subjects to conduct an investigation on the ICC of senior high school students,aiming to find out the factors affecting ICC of them and propose feasibility suggestions.There are two main research questions in this study.First,what is the level of intercultural communication competence of students in this school? Second,what are the factors influencing the intercultural communication competence of them? In order to find out the answers of these two questions,the author conducted a ICC test for 130 students in the Grade two of Changchun No.1 Senior High School.10 students and 4teachers conducted interviews.The results show that student's sensitivity of cultural differences is not high and the ICC of them is low.The reasons why students' ICC is low are: Students lack of intercultural knowledge,and they are less sensitive to the differences between Chinese and western cultures;The concept of “score first” restricts the formation and development of the intercultural communication awareness of students;Teachers ignore the cultural teaching and intercultural contents in senior high school English teaching materials have not been utilized fully and effectively;The impact of negative transfer of mother tongue culture.For the analysis and discussion of tests and interviews results,in order to improve students' ICC,the author puts forward the following suggestions from the perspective of teachers and students.For teachers: Teachers should change their mind,strengthen the study of intercultural knowledge and improve their ICC;Schools and other relevant education departments should provide more intercultural training opportunities for teachers;Teachers should make full use of intercultural knowledge in teaching materials for cultural teaching;Teachers should guide students to compare the differences between Chinese and Western cultures and reduce the impact of negative transfer of mother tongue culture;Teachers should make full use of multimedia technology,enrich classroom activities,and create intercultural communication situations.For students: Students should learn to treat different cultures with an inclusive,fair and open attitude and form a correct understanding of foreign cultures;Students should increase their intercultural knowledge and improve their ICC through various methods after class;Students should learn to put intercultural knowledge gained into intercultural communication practice and exercise their ICC in practice;Students should learn to use the “cultural empathy” strategy to reduce the impact of negative transfer of mother tongue culture.The significance of this study is to find out the ICC of senior high school and students through tests and interviews in order to reveal the factors affecting the ICC of them,and suggest on improving the ICC of them.In addition,another important significance is to make teachers realize that using language to communicate is the ultimate goal of foreign language learning and the importance of improving themselves ICC and cultivating ICC of students.