EFL teachers' intercultural communicative competence and their related in-class practices

English has become an international language in today's world, and it has been used as a global means of communication not only in the inner circle countries, such as the UK and the USA but also in the outer and the expanding circle countries, such as India and Türkiye. Hence, intercultural communicative competence plays a crucial role in successful and intelligible communication in English as a foreign language education, so English language teachers are required to be interculturally competent to raise competent students. Thus, the current study attempts to investigate EFL teachers' intercultural communicative competence and their related in-class practices. The study also aims to explore whether there is a significant difference in teachers' intercultural communicative competence practices regarding their educational backgrounds and experiences of abroad. A mixed methods explanatory sequential research design was adopted within the scope of the study; quantitative data were collected through a likert-scale ICC questionnaire, while qualitative data were gathered via vignette-based interviews. 67 Turkish EFL teachers working at private middle schools involved in the questionnaire to reveal how often they practice ICC, and 14 of those teachers participated in the vignette-based interviews to reveal their in-class ICC practices. The data elicited via the questionnaire were analyzed through descriptive statistics and an Independent Sample T-test using SPSS; in addition, findings of the last item (item 20) in the questionnaire were analyzed by using inductive content analysis. On the other hand, the data gathered from the vignette-based interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results of the quantitative data revealed that Turkish EFL teachers frequently integrated culture teaching activities related to values and attitudes more than the culture teaching activities related to their own experiences and culture teaching practices that take time and effort. Moreover, findings did not illustrate a statistically significant difference in teachers' ICC practices concerning their experiences of abroad whereas there was a statistically significant difference in teachers' ICC practices regarding their educational backgrounds. According to interview findings, some teachers integrated ICC practices, such as comparing different aspects of foreign cultures, planning extra lessons and materials for culture teaching, and showing videos or pictures about foreign cultures in their lessons. However, there were still some other teachers who did not incorporate ICC practices in their lessons and depended on the native cultures of English (i.e., British). Exploring these ICC practices can support the previous studies and contribute to the literature on intercultural communicative competence. Following the results, the study concludes with pedagogical implications and suggestions for futher research.