| With the rapid rise of globalization,communication and interaction between different social cultures become common.Thus,people have participated in various intercultural experience(ICE)activities.At the same time,as the Belt and Road Initiative develops further,China has more economic and cultural exchanges with the countries along the Belt and Road,which consequently places greater demands for colleges and universities on training talents equipped with great intercultural competence(ICC).College students have been regarded as the subject of learning and experiencing multi-culture,and their ICC has been brought into focus by scholars.However,since the outbreak of COVID-19 hindered cultural and academic exchanges between countries severely,it has been affected accordingly that college students acquire intercultural experience.In terms of the above situation,integrating the quantitative questionnaire survey and the qualitative semi-structured interview,this study firstly constructs the scale of Chinese college students’ intercultural experience in the post-pandemic era to explore main factors of Chinese college students’ intercultural experience.Then,it adopts the scale of Chinese college students’ intercultural competence to investigate the importance of different dimensions of Chinese college students’ intercultural competence.Besides,path analysis has been conducted through structural equation models in this study to examine the effects of Chinese college students’ intercultural experience on their intercultural competence.The key findings of this study are as follows:(1)Chinese college students’ intercultural experience is comprised of 6 principal factors,namely academic experience,entertainment experience,cultural and sports activity experience,food and drinking experience,social experience and sensory experience.According to the results of path analysis,it has been found that cultural and sports activity experience is the most important of all 6 principal factors;social experience and entertainment experience are relatively more important;food and drinking experience,academic experience and sensory experience are of general importance.Chinese college students’ intercultural experience could be well predicted and explained by the 6 principal factors.(2)Chinese college students’ intercultural competence is comprised of 6principal dimensions,namely knowledge of self,knowledge of others,attitudes,intercultural cognitive skills,intercultural communicative skills and awareness.In terms of the results of path analysis,it has been found that,among the 6 dimensions of intercultural competence,Chinese college students’ intercultural communication skills and intercultural cognitive skills are the strongest;awareness is relatively stronger;attitudes are of general strength;knowledge of self and knowledge of others are relatively weak.(3)According to the results of path analysis,it could be found that there is a relatively significant correlation between Chinese college students’ intercultural experience and their intercultural competence.The degree of the importance of diverse intercultural experience to six dimensions of intercultural competence is different.Specifically,entertainment experience has significant effects on intercultural communication skills,intercultural cognitive skills,intercultural awareness and intercultural attitudes;cultural and sports activity experience has significant negative effects on intercultural attitudes;food and drinking experience has significant effects on intercultural communication skills,intercultural awareness and knowledge of self;social experience has significant effects on intercultural communication skills,intercultural cognitive skills and knowledge of others;sensory experience has significant effects on intercultural cognitive skills,intercultural awareness,intercultural attitudes and knowledge of others.However,academic experience has no significant effect on Chinese college students’ intercultural competence.Besides,based on the above findings,this study also gives suggestions for colleges reflecting on intercultural foreign language teaching and nailing down key points of intercultural foreign language teaching,and for the education department improving intercultural foreign language education policies in the post-pandemic era according to the result of semi-structured interview. |
PDF Full Text Request