The Explanatory Power of Intercultural Communicative Competence among EFL Teacher Candidates

Authors : Ömer EREN

Pages : 29-38

Doi:10.12984/egeefd.1191598

View : 27 | Download : 6

Publication Date : 2023-03-27

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :While intercultural communicative competence has gained considerable attention in teachers’ professional development, contributions from teacher candidates have usually been underestimated. The traditional bound between language and culture has become less solid thanks to the advancements in transfer of languages and people, which has created a significant need to use language properly in international encounters. Therefore, acknowledging cultural values of different nations has become a primary aim while learning a foreign language. Teacher candidates could benefit from demanded intercultural skills and these skills have the potential to enrich their identity in social, academic, and professional lives. The current study intends to explain whether demographic variables of gender, study year, bi/multilingualism, living in another city, and study abroad experience have a predictive power on intercultural communicative competence. Several multiple regressions were used to analyse 199 teacher candidates’ previous intercultural experiences and findings suggest that number of languages explained the variance in intercultural communicative competence, and compared to bilingual individuals, multilinguals had higher intercultural communicative competence. Study abroad experience and living in another city also predicted the variance. However, gender difference did not yield significant results.
Keywords : Kültürlerarası yeterlilik, Çok dillilik, Yurtdışında okuma, Öğretmen eğitimi

ORIGINAL ARTICLE URL