A look into teachers' perceptions towards intercultural competence in Turkish EFL context

As a result of globalization, different communities have come closer and new terms have been originated. One of these terms is intercultural communicative competence which is considered necessary for people from different cultures and communities to communicate with each other effectively. One of the fields that rendered improvement of intercultural communicative competence vital has been foreign language education. Considering the important role the teachers play in improving this competence, the aim of this study is specified as to explore the teachers' perceptions regarding intercultural communicative competence. In addition, within the scope of this study, it is also aimed to investigate whether there are any differences in their perceptions according to the factors such as the department they graduated, the education level they teach at, and the experience they have. The study was carried out with the participation of 215 teachers who work at schools in cities located in southern Turkey. The data were collected through a questionnaire and Kruskal-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests were employed for data analyses. The findings obtained revealed that the teachers hold positive opinions towards intercultural communicative competence; however, they seem to miss some points in terms of grasping the real nature of the concept of intercultural communicative competence. The findings of this study are discussed through comparison with the other relevant studies existing in the literature.