Exploring a Pedagogy for Understanding and Developing Chinese EFL Students’ Intercultural Communicative Competence

Abstract

This chapter explores how Byram’s (1997) intercultural communicative competence (ICC) framework can inform the development of an intercultural communication course delivered within English language education in a Chinese university. The theoretical concept of ICC represents a comprehensive set of criteria that provides a useful basis for designing intercultural language learning curricula and associated learning objectives in a systematic way. At the same time, the incorporation of such a theoretical concept into the language curriculum within the Chinese EFL context also presents a challenge to teachers, particularly given the exam-oriented education system and the traditional focus on grammatical knowledge and skills. In this chapter, we report on an exploratory action research study which aimed to investigate how the integration of intercultural dimensions into an English as Foreign Language (EFL) syllabus can provide Chinese university students with opportunities to develop their ICC. This involved the first author, Qin, in the development and implementation of a 6-week sequence of intercultural teaching for undergraduate English language students across multiple majors in a Chinese university. The study reveals the emergence of complementary themes to the five savoirs in Byram’s (1997) ICC framework, and recommends further development and implementation of contextualised intercultural pedagogies that integrate culturally appropriate teaching materials, and creative student-centred learning strategies. In the next sections, we first provide an overview of ICC in English language teaching in the Chinese context, and then present the details of the study and the Intercultural English Course (IEC).