Developing intercultural competence plays an essential part in language learning. This resonates with Halliday’s (1978) apt observation that culture provides meaning to language-in-use. Intercultural competence is a complex concept, including dimensions such as attitudes, knowledge, skills, and awareness (Byram, 2009). Cultivating students’ intercultural competence has become one of the objectives of language teaching, and a range of courses has been designed and conducted for preparing students to take an active part in the global world. As more college students are willing to work in multinational corporations or study abroad, language teachers play an important role in providing students with more opportunities to enhance their intercultural knowledge and skills.Based on Byram’s (1997) intercultural competence model and guided by the intercultural language teaching approach proposed by Liddicoat (2003; 2013), the researcher developed a course that seeks to cultivate students’ intercultural competence in four dimensions, attitudes, knowledge, skills, and awareness. One class of second-year English major students took part in the 12-week course with another class as the control group. During the course, students experienced a process which involved noticing, comparing, and reflecting through various intercultural activities. This study employed a range of methods including questionnaire, interview, and reflective journals, and it was found that students’ intercultural competence was improved, and the course showed significantly positive influence on the cultivation of students’ attitudes, facilitation of cultural knowledge acquisition, and the development of intercultural skills and awareness. Further analysis led to identification and detailed discussion of a range of aspects of the four dimensions of intercultural competence such as willingness to explore otherness and enriched knowledge of value systems and various intercultural skills.The study has shown an example

A growing body of research has examined the relations of dispositions toward information and communication technology (ICT) to intercultural competence among university students. However, there is little research exploring the associations between ICT-related dispositions and intercultural competence among adolescent students. The mechanism of such relationships also remains unknown. Therefore, from a self-determination theory perspective, this study investigated the relationships of perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness in ICT usage with global competence--intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes--among 17,055 15-year-old students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan in PISA 2018. Results of Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling (MSEM) analyses indicated that perceived autonomy in ICT use, perceived competence in ICT use and perceived relatedness in ICT use all positively affected intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes. Further, the results of the study revealed that the use of social media was a partial mediator in the relationship between perceived autonomy/competence in ICT use and intercultural knowledge/skills; and between perceived relatedness/competence in ICT use and intercultural attitudes. Our findings emphasized the importance of satisfying students' ICT-related needs and acknowledged the role of the use of social media in cultivating their global competence. Implications for teachers, schools and parents were discussed. Copyright © 2023 Springer.

The present study seeks to explore the long-term impact of an overseas immersion programme on pre-service teachers’ professional learning in Hong Kong. In-depth interviews with 11 pre-service teachers about their immersion experiences and post-immersion learning revealed their professional gains and challenges brought by their exposure to different cultures and educational systems in foreign countries. In particular, they reported on the sustained influences of immersion on their cultural awareness and pedagogical thinking in their current classroom teaching practice. The paper concludes with suggestions for the improvement of immersion programmes as an important component of current pre-service teacher education. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited.

This research linked 47 Hong Kong and 35 Canadian teacher candidates in a new participatory culture project within the theoretical framework of new media literacies. This paper reports the qualitative data with quantitative descriptions of participants' social interactivity within the cross-border communities of practice. Besides the constraints of the designated online forum, findings relate that participants' engagement in the new participatory culture contributed to their knowledge- and awareness-building of harnessing online participation, new media technologies, and cultural/linguistic diversity in education. The paper concludes with implications of cultivating communities of practice buttressed by new media literacies for teacher professional development.

This paper presents an ethnographic case study of advanced second language (L2) students from Hong Kong who took part in a short-term sojourn in England after 14 weeks of preparation. While abroad, they lived with a host family, took literary/cultural studies courses, visited cultural sites, participated in debriefing sessions, and conducted ethnographic projects. Data consisted of interviews, an intercultural reflections journal, surveys, field notes, ethnographic conversations and a diary. The Intercultural Development Inventory measured their intercultural sensitivity on entry, after the pre-sojourn preparation, and post-sojourn. The findings supported the primary assumption that underpins the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity: 'as one's experience of cultural difference becomes more complex and sophisticated, one's competence in intercultural relations increases'.
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