Developing Learners’Intercultural Competence in the New Era

Beijing Union University,Beijing,China Email:jiezhen.niu@buu.edu.cn

Han JI①

Beijing Union University,Beijing,China Email:han.ji@buu.edu.cn

[Abstract]In the context of new era,there is an urgent need for talents with international vision and comprehensive intercultural communication ability.Therefore,IC development has become increasingly crucial in foreign language teaching in China.This study aims at finding gaps and solutions by exploring the current situation of students’IC development.The main finding is that cultural awareness as well as cultural confidence need to be strengthened and should become the new focus.Following that,effective strategies for IC development are innovatively proposed from the perspectives of instructors,learners,course materials,and so on.

[Keywords]Intercultural competence;new era;cultural confidence;strategies

Introduction

With the introduction of“One Belt and One Road”initiative,cooperation between China and other countries in the world have become more frequent.As Zhao Weiliang(2016,p.8)points out,under the new normal of developing a higher level of open economy,China needs more international talents with an international perspective,familiar with international rules,and able to participate in international affairs and international competition.So the primary task for universities and colleges is to cultivate more talents who are equipped with remarkable intercultural competence(IC).

To meet the challenges and requirements of the rapidly changing landscape,foreign language teaching reforms have been extensively discussed and experimented.A series of policies concerning IC development has been issued by National Foreign Language Advisory Board(Wang,2016,p.2).In nature,language and culture are closely interrelated and interact with each other.English classroom is one of the most important places for developing college students’intercultural competence．Correspondingly,foreign language teaching should always fully integrate development of language abilities and Intercultural communicative abilities in classes.This study aims at exploring how to improve students’IC development to meet challenges in the new era.

THE CONNOTATION OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN THE NEW ERA

Since Hymes,D.(1972)first put forward the concept of“communicative competence”,experts and scholars at home and abroad have published many works and papers on this topic.British scholar Michael Byram(1997)proposed the concept of“Intercultural Communicative Competence”.He believes that intercultural ability includes sensitivity regarding cultural differences in international communication,understanding of foreign cultures,and the ability to seek common ground while reserving differences in intercultural communication.

Combined with current Chinese situation,professor Sun Youzhong(2016,p.16)explained the core connotation of intercultural competence in the new era as follows:respecting for cultural diversity,having intercultural empathy and critical cultural awareness; mastering basic theoretical knowledge and analytical methods of cross-cultural research;getting familiar with what you have learned about the history and current situation of the target countries;understanding the basic characteristics,similarities and differences of Chinese and foreign cultures;being able to interpret and evaluate different cultural phenomenon,texts and products;being able to communicate appropriately and effectively across cultures;capable of helping people with different cultural backgrounds.

KEY PROBLEMS AND DIFFICULTIES OF LEARNERS’IC DEVELOPMENT

There are some wrong concept and cognitive deviation existing in intercultural teaching(Han,2014,p.106).Although many language teachers have realized the importance of cultural awareness in student IC development at the present stage,combination of language skills and intercultural competence still remains fragmental and unsystematic.Besides,it is difficult for teachers to be aware of the most recent developments in English speaking nations’cultures,including the development in the patterns of sociolinguistic behavior.Another challenge is the limited availability of the latest and most advanced teaching materials and methods that match the new era.As a result,when communicating with individuals from other cultures,students sometimes feel inadequate and unconfident,let alone comparing target culture with native culture in a deep way(Song&Xiao,2009,p.88).

STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP LEARNERS’INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

The ultimate goal of intercultural education is to develop cross-cultural communication skills so that cross-cultural communication can proceed effectively and smoothly.Only by achieving“effectiveness”and“appropriateness”and being able to make speculative judgments about one’s native culture and heterogeneous cultures,can it be truly effective cross-cultural communication.With the fast development of China and changing situation and the world,intercultural teaching should also make adaptation and appropriate adjustments.Transformation has quietly appeared,but it should be an active choice.The author believes that it is necessary to start from the three aspects of teachers,students and course materials,and make changes to achieve the goal of cross-cultural education.

On Instructor’s Side,Teaching Philosophy and Course Design Play a Big Role

First of all,intercultural English teaching should follow five basic principles,namely Critiquing,Reflecting,Exploring,Empathizing and Doing,abbreviated as CREED(Sun,2016,p.16).In other words,in a specific classroom teaching environment,teachers should encourage learners to use cognitive skills to deal with cross-cultural issues,reflect on their own the cross-cultural experiences critically,explore cross-cultural issues independently or cooperatively,and empathize with people from heterogeneous cultures,and create various opportunities for cross-cultural experience.

Secondly,the role of teachers should serve as class facilitators,providers of learning resources,detectors of students' learning effect.Teachers should use inspiring questions to stimulate students’critical and cross-cultural thinking.Teachers should act as organizers to make students become active participants in the classroom through effective topic and task design,and turn the“teacher center”into a“learning center”.Teachers should also use academic output activities,such as classroom presentations based on group research,to maximize students'quality input and effective output.At the same time,teachers should also integrate the acquisition of language skills and the acquisition of professional knowledge in this process.

Thirdly,in the big context of“promoting cultural exchanges and spreading Chinese culture to the world”,integrating local culture into foreign language learning has become a huge task and mission of College English Teaching(CET).In the past,target culture usually took a dominating position while the native counterpart was marginalized.Teachers and students tended to be totally immersed in the target culture and even consciously exclude the“disturbance”of their native language.Now it is time to overthrow this inequality by resuming the equal position of two sides.Native culture can serve as a good starting point and solid foundation for further intercultural exploration.It can help learners better understand about their own cultural root,reaffirm their cultural identity,and form an open and tolerant attitude toward other groups of people(Huang,2017,p.5).In other words,teachers of intercultural education should not only guide students’perception and understanding of foreign cultures,but also cultivate students’emotions towards Chinese culture and students’ability to spread Chinese culture.Intercultural communication is a twoway and interactive process.Successful communication should not be the dumping of one party’s cultural ideology.If College English cross-cultural teaching is still at the stage of learning,understanding and adapting to western culture,it will not meet the needs of reality.At this point,cultural awareness and cultural self-confidence are crucial and need to be strengthened.

On Learners’Side,Knowledge,Skill and Attitude Are Indispensable

Besides the verbal and nonverbal communication knowledge,accumulation of cultural knowledge is the top priority.Like an iceberg,only a small part of culture is visible.A greater part of culture is hidden under the water,such as values,preferences,customs and habits,and so on.Venturing into different cultures without preparation can be just as dangerous as a ship attempting to navigate in icy waters without charts,hoping to be lucky enough to avoid hitting an iceberg(Zhuang&Sussman,2016,p.23).That’s why learners should be familiar with the history and current situation of the target culture,and understand the basic characteristics of both native and foreign cultures.In fact,if there is no comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the history and current situation of the target country,it is impossible to truly understand the beliefs,values,lifestyles and behaviors of the individuals from diverse cultures,let alone to conduct deep cross-cultural communication.Equally important,students must better understand their own culture,and identify the similarities and differences between home culture and foreign cultures.

Seize opportunities to hone the intercultural communication skills.Intercultural communication refers to the communication between people who have different language and cultural backgrounds.Because of their different ecological and social environment,people from different linguistic environment have different language habits,cultures and customs as well.Naturally,people like to use their own words to explain each other’s words in communication,which may cause inaccurate inferences about each other’s intention and result in misunderstanding,conflict and obstacles.Therefore,learners need to master some social and cultural skills and apply them to the reality of communication.In today’s world,modern information technologies provide boundless possibilities for learners.Some international social networking websites and apps are quality assistance for students to break the limitation of traditional textbooks and get exposure to authentic language and cultural resources.In addition,some video conference software such as Zoom and Skype can also provide real-time video and audio communication with people from other countries which makes long-distance talk feels like“face-to-face”chatting(Zong,2019,p.382).Students could take advantage of these opportunities to practice their skills to become competent cross-cultural communicators.

Open-mindedness is a welcoming attitude for developing intercultural competence.In intercultural encounters,people may undergo many frustrating experiences.One of the biggest barriers is the assumption of similarities.The assumption makes people believe that there are many universals among people from different cultural backgrounds,and affect people's mutual understanding and communication.In fact,in spite of the apparent similarities of cultures,there are differences invisible to learners’eyes.For this reason,contacts only will not necessarily lead to better understanding.The improvement comes from first-hand experience,an investigative and nonjudgmental attitude,and tolerance for ambiguity.Only by learning to reflect on our own values and assumptions can we have better intercultural communication.(Lan&Sun,2015,p.98)Besides,individuals also face other barriers,such as non-verbal misinterpretations,prejudice and stereotypes,tendency to evaluate,and high anxiety.Nonverbal misunderstanding may happen in what we see,hear,feel or even what we smell.Prejudice and stereotypes,as a human strategy to cope with the unknown world,can be over-generalized.The tendency to evaluate keeps one from thinking from the perspective of other people.In order to overcome these barriers,one can learn about them,and learn to expect and face differences.In a word,with positive and open attitude,learners can become competent intercultural communicators.

Textbooks Should Be Compiled by First-class Experts

Intercultural teaching is not equivalent to the introduction of cultural knowledge.Textbooks should not be a simple patchwork of cultural fragments,but should be guided by promoting language learning and cross-cultural competence,integrated with language teaching to form an organic whole.Today’s cross-cultural teaching must not only cultivate students to understand cultural differences,but also train students’critical thinking abilities,so as to achieve an objective grasp of their respective cultural characteristics.In other words,it is very important to establish a cultural view of equality,cultivating students’cross-cultural awareness and cultural confidence.Therefore,textbooks must be adjusted and changed accordingly.

Enrich cultural knowledge in the textbooks,especially Chinese culture.The cross-cultural perspective should be connected with Chinese culture to enhance students'knowledge of Chinese culture and critical cultural awareness.

Introduce more novel works to improve the timeliness of teaching materials.Textbook content can partly be replaced with more pieces of latest articles,so that students can learn more about the frontier viewpoints and events in the world,and avoid being out of touch with partners of target culture in knowledge and concepts.

Design more exercises and activities to explore cultural issues.When designing exercises,they are advised not only to explore the text content and practice language skills,but also design a special section to explore as many cultural issues as possible.

Add exercises and activities that simulate real communication.Textbook compilers can supplement more communicative exercises and activities,such as speeches,debates,group discussions,situational performances,etc.,to create more opportunities for students to exercise their English communicative skills.

To improve students’story-telling ability,textbook compilers should add exercises and activities related to stories.For example,activities can be personal narrative activities such as sharing personal experiences,expressing opinions and attitudes,and entertaining audiences.The specific form can be speech,debate,group discussion,etc.,which also meets the needs of communication skills.

CONCLUSION

To achieve effective and smooth intercultural communication,learners should al ways bear in mind to listen,respect and reflect,be equipped with the ability of metacognition,mediation and adaptability.To meet the challenges and requirements of the new era,instructors need to reexamine their teaching curriculum and adjust their teaching content to take both the native and target cultures as resources of language teaching.At the same time,instructors should strive to create more opportunities for students to experience and practice their communicative skills.Foreign language teaching should be continuously reformed and improved in terms of teaching philosophy,teaching content and teaching methods,so that students’cross-cultural communication skills can be gradually enhanced.