A Study On Intercultural Language Teaching Beliefs Of College English Teachers In Y University

According to the Guidelines on College English Teaching in 2017,intercultural communication competence(ICC)is one of the core contents,which means that the cultivation of intercultural communication competence has become an important part ofthe college English curriculum.Foreign language teaching has gradually become an important platform and way for colleges and universities to cultivate students' intercultural communication competence.In the class,teachers are the decision-makers and their beliefs are closely related to their teaching behaviors.Even teacher beliefs can affect their teaching plan,classroom decisions,and all classroom behaviors more than their knowledge.Therefore,understanding college English teacher'sintercultural teaching belief is the key to ensuring effective implementation of intercultural English language teaching(IELT).Most of the researches on teacher beliefs are expounded theoretically,and particularly,there is less systematic research on teacher's IELT beliefsystem in specific populations ofspecific regions.This qualitative study adoptedpurposivesampling and convenience sampling principles and recruited 9 full-time college English teachers in Y University as the research participants.9 College English teachers were interviewed and the collected data were first transcribed into text data,categorized,and encoded.Next,the data were managed in NVivo after they had been collected and sorted with labels.Then,the researcher combinedthe content analysis method and parallel comparison method to have a further analysis.The purpose of the study was to construct a preliminary frameworkof the teacher's IELTbelief system for College English teachers.In addition,the obstacles and difficulties encountered in the implementation of IELT and the factors that influenced teacher beliefswere also explored.The findings indicated that the interview responses were diverse on the integration of ICC into college English classes.Eight teachers statedthat they were willing to integrate the ICC cultivation into their teaching.And they also agreed that College English teachers needed to develop the ICC of students.However,not all of them indeed practiced it during their teaching in theclasses.One teacher reported that it was not necessary to cultivate ICC in the College English class.In terms of teachers' required qualificationsto implement IELT,there were three main aspects.The first one was knowledge including systematic intercultural communication competence theories,language ability knowledge and cultural knowledge of the target culture and target country.The second aspect was practical communicationcompetence.It referred to the abilities to use verbal and non-verbal messages,socio-cultural competence,and communication strategies that can make a successful communication with others.The third was that teachers should keepan objective and critical awarenessofteaching.The factors that affectedteacher's IELT implementationgenerally includedtwo aspects.On the one hand,internal factors generally included the English teachers' recognition of the English language,their own experience in learning English,and their experience in teacher education and training.These were the basis and inherent motivation for their beliefs.On the other hand,external factors included national foreign language teaching policies,foreign language examination systems,and national or regional demand for English teachers,as well as the academic environment,abilities or requirements of the students,etc.As a result,this study preliminarily constructs a framework of teacher's IELT belief system and puts forward the qualificationsthat college English teachers need to possess for implementing IELT in China which can provide references for future intercultural training or effectively implement IELT in the class.Besides,intercultural examination issues are less involvedin the foreign language examination system.It is more difficult to evaluatethe ICC of students.Therefore,the proportion of examination exercises can be increased.Besides,it also can be shown that the research on teacher's IELT belief can contribute to the smooth implementation of college English teaching reform,and it can more effectively accomplish the ICC cultivation as the goal of college English courses in the Guidelines on College English Teaching.What's more,it is conducive to improving the effectiveness of classroom teaching and it is helpful to solve the difficulties and problems encountered during the IELT in colleges.