Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in ELT Classrooms

The current study’s aim is to investigate the Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in ELT classrooms at Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU). For this purpose. The students’ ICC levels were identified by using the adapted version of Fantini’s (2007) questionnaire, and their attitudes towards promotion of ICC in ELT classrooms were found out through five open-ended questions. Then, the instructors’ attitudes about ICC and their practices of promotion of ICC were examined through instructor interviews, and the course policy sheets were analyzed accordingly. The research study was designed as a mixed method approach case study with a sample of 127 students and 10 instructors from the Foreign Language Education Department (FLED) at EMU. The study employed triangulation approach to collect the data. The study collected data from various sources such as: 1) Student questionnaire 2) Instructor interviews 3) ELTE course policy sheets. The results of the study reveal that the ELT students of EMU have a fairly average of ICC level. According to the findings, the ELT students and instructors believe that ICC is significant in ELT and they show positive attitudes accordingly. Thus, in order to foster ICC, the instructors attempt to include some classroom activities and tasks that help students to gain intercultural awareness and competence. Furthermore, around 1/3 of the course policy sheets do address ICC which can be considered acceptable. Based on these results, ICC is promoted in ELT classrooms at EMU. Finally, the results may offer a clear feedback to the instructors about students’ ICC levels. This study may also raise the awareness of both students and instructors regarding the importance of ICC in ELT. Further studies can be conducted to expand the scope of the research in this field. Keywords: Intercultural Communicative Competence, English Language Teaching, Culture.