Abstract:
Developing students’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) through foreign
language education is significant in a globalised world (Byram, 1997; Deardorff, 2016;
Dervin, 2010; Fantini, 2006; Sercu, 2002). Most research on the development of ICC has
been conducted at the tertiary level and from teachers’ perspectives; however, little is known
about school-aged students’ ICC development. Most studies have used surveys, interviews,
and reflective tasks to investigate students’ ICC development, but the combination of
different data collection tools is scarce. In the New Zealand context, the Ministry of
Education (2007) has established the development of ICC as one of the objectives for
language learning and teaching. Nevertheless, implementing an intercultural approach for
foreign language teachers in the New Zealand context is still preliminary and immature
(Tolosa et al., 2018). Notably, teachers claimed they lacked support, especially appropriate
tools to enhance students’ ICC (Scarino, 2010). Furthermore, with the increasing number of
students in New Zealand studying Chinese, little empirical research has been conducted to
investigate Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners’ ICC development. To fill these
gaps, this study focuses on investigating the development of CFL learners’ ICC with
classroom pedagogical tools in the New Zealand secondary school context.
Drawing on Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory and Byram’s (1997) ICC
framework, this study adopted a multiple case study design with an intervention in each case
to investigate the roles of different pedagogical tools in CFL learners’ ICC development over
three school terms. The teachers from the three secondary schools respectively conducted the
intervention by implementing three pedagogical tools: role-plays, cultural artefacts, and
videos, combined with reflective tasks. Forty-two CFL learners from three teachers’
classrooms participated in the intervention. To investigate students’ ICC development, the
researcher collected qualitative data from their interviews, surveys, and reflective tasks.
Based on Byram’s ICC framework, the data gathered were triangulated and thematically
analysed.
The findings of this study revealed that students demonstrated an overall complex ICC
developmental process, and such development was holistic, multidimensional, and nonlinear.
Specifically, the findings showed that students’ ICC was developed in all the four ICC
dimensions: attitudes, knowledge, skills, and critical cultural awareness, and such
development was different across the four dimensions and the three cases. Besides, the
findings suggested that different ICC pedagogical tools had distinctive advantages in
mediating specific ICC components. These mediational tools can play an important part in
intercultural language teaching and learning. Furthermore, this study suggested that
implementing ICC pedagogical tools with a reflective stance appeared to give a voice to
students, and the reflection might mediate their ICC development as well.
Overall, this study foregrounds students’ voices through the use of mediational tools
in intercultural language teaching and learning. The current study provides theoretical and
pedagogical insights into developing CFL learners’ ICC at the secondary school level.
Theoretically, this study broadens the understanding of ICC by presenting a detailed and
holistic picture of the process of students’ ICC development over time. It provides new
knowledge about ICC development situated in the CFL learning context. Pedagogically, this
study supports teachers in developing students’ ICC through implementing ICC pedagogical
tools with a reflective stance in the CFL classroom. In brief, the implementation of ICC
pedagogical tools in the current study might shed light on mediating students’ ICC
development in foreign language education.