EFL Learners’ Attitudes towards Intercultural Communicative Competence

As a requirement of the rapid globalization and the increase in intercultural communication in many parts of our lives, English has gained a new status as the language of international communication. Following the change in the role of English, integrating culture into English Language Teaching (ELT) has gained in importance and teaching only the target language culture has been questioned with the idea of teaching world cultures which is a necessity for intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Although the attitudes of teachers towards teaching ICC have been studied in different countries, the research on the attitudes of learners towards learning ICC is limited in literature, especially in Turkey. In this paper, I will present the attitudes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students towards learning ICC in EFL context. The purpose of the study is to determine whether a) EFL learners support the idea of learning world cultures, b) They are only in favor of learning target language culture, or c) They are opposed to learning values of any foreign culture. The variables such as gender, age, English proficiency level, major and the medium of instruction at their departments will be taken into consideration to see if they affect students’ attitudes towards learning ICC. Approximately 420 EFL learners studying at the preparatory classes of seven different Turkish state universities located in various parts of the country will take part in the study. A questionnaire assessing their attitudes towards learning ICC will be administered to those students. The data to be obtained from the questionnaires will be entered into SPSS and analyzed through quantitative methods by running descriptive statistics and ANOVA. The results of the study are expected to be of benefit to policy makers, course designers and text book writers