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Intercultural Competence: An Investigation into Iranian EFL Learners’ Knowledge, Strategies, and Attitudes

Roodi, Farhad | 2014

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 45835 (31)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Languages and Linguistics Center
  6. Advisor(s): Tajeddin, Ziadden; Alemi, Minoo
  7. Abstract:
  8. Understanding others has long been a goal of language teaching yet remaining in the background of educational practices (Liddicoat, 2012). However, the recognition of importance of intercultural competence and its integration into language teaching and learning has grown due to globalization, increased mobility, and technological development. The existing challenge in the language-teaching domain is the integration of culture and language. The benefits and significance of developing interculturally competent learners are not covert to anybody; however, the important consideration of teaching culture is the necessity of amalgamating language and culture in an interculturally oriented language education (Bayram, 1991). The incentive to conduct this study was the gap of teaching culture in language classrooms. This study investigated learners’ opinions on the presentation of English-speaking countries’ (ESC) culture and he tried to explore the cultural knowledge scope of Iranian EFL learners and examined the strategies they used to acquire intercultural communicative competence. As many as 261 male and female EFL learners in intermediate and upper-intermediate levels were chosen. The researcher used a mixed design to conduct this study: three questionnaires for the quantative part and interviews for the qualitative part. The questionnaires were adopted from Sercu (2004). The result showed the total inclination of Iranian EFL learners toward cultural understanding. However, their knowledge scope was not proportionate with their language proficiency. Analyzing the strategies, the researcher found that all the strategies were common to Iranian EFL learners. The participants of this study corroborated the importance of culture teaching and considered culture as important as English language itself. The results, firstly, remind language teachers and textbook publishers of the necessity of cultural information in the views of language learners. Second, they emphasized the role of classmates in the development intercultural communicative competence. It can be concluded that culture teaching is a requirement for language classrooms, which facilitates language learning, makes learners tolerant of the target culture, and results in the realization of the learners’ own culture. Language teachers and textbook publishers will benefit most by considering the outcomes of this study. Much more effort is required in order to apply and perform culture teaching in the real language classrooms
  9. Keywords:
  10. Attitudes ; Intercultural Competence ; Cultural Knowledge ; Learning Strategies ; Culture Teaching

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