Conceptualization Of Intercultural Competence According To International Students At A Chinese University

Urbanization,international employment,immigration,study exchange programs,and ease of foreign travel facilitate daily contact between people of different cultural backgrounds.Due to this emergence,graduates from universities,besides good academic credentials,must also be able to communicate effective and appropriate with people from other cultural backgrounds.So,it has become a necessary task today for foreign language educators and administrators to develop students’ intercultural competence(IC),and also one of the important tasks to achieve the goal of developing students’ “intercultural and global competence” proposed by Ministry of Education(MOE)in its Quality Standards for Higher Education of International Students in China(Trial edition).Intercultural competence can be defined as communicating effectively and appropriately across people from different cultural backgrounds.Studies on intercultural competence is one of the key topics in intercultural communication studies and intercultural foreign language education.It is well established that intercultural competence is a prerequisite for effectively managing cultural diversity at any intercultural setting.Scholars from different fields have conceptualized intercultural competence in varied ways;however,it is still unclear how the recipients(the students)understand this notion.This study explores how study abroad students in the Chinese educational context conceptualize cultural diversity in relation to intercultural competence,how they perceive components of IC in the Chinese context and lastly what the differences from and similarities with the conceptualizations of the leading scholars are.Given the explorative nature of the research questions,a qualitative method was adopted to address the three questions.Twenty study abroad students from different cultures attending a multicultural university in China responded to open-ended interview questions.A qualitative thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews was employed to identify students’ perceptions of cultural diversity on campus,and components of the ability required to communicate in the Chinese educational context.Then the study compares and contrasts the findings in this study with those in the Deardorff(2006)model.Regarding the perception of cultural diversity,the findings show that students understand cultural diversity from three main different angles,that is,as the existence of multiple cultures,the difference in language,difference in culture.Cultural diversity was expressed weakly with some students and consequently there was no need to manage it but rather increase knowledge on it.Results also presented some problems brought by cultural diversity for students on campus included language,religion and failure of their voices to be heard.In dealing with cultural diversity,students made use of gestures such as sign language to communicate and they also used Chinese language as the “common language” to communicate within themselves and with the hosts.Secondly,participants’ primary responses frequently reflected dimensions of knowledge,external outcomes and attitudes as the most essential intercultural competence development while aspects of intercultural skills and internal outcomes were weakly reflected.Lastly,students’ conceptualizations were to a certain level in line with that of Deardorff but however proved to be lacking in some important dimensions;thus,the need for intercultural development is called for.The study has implications for intercultural competence research and teaching in two ways.Theoretically,the study contributed to IC literature from students’ perspectives in conceptualizing IC.The current study was expected to shed light on the existing knowledge of intercultural educators with firsthand empirical data on study abroad students’ conceptualization of intercultural competence.Pedagogically,the study’s findings are essential for directing foreign language teachers’ or intercultural education administrators’ efforts to develop students’ intercultural competence better and prepare them with the skills they need to succeed in a diverse cultural academic and working environment.