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Wang, Liang
(2008).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0000fd44
Abstract
It is widely promoted that an intercultural approach be adopted to develop learners’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in foreign language education (FLE) and suggested that the use of Internet technologies might greatly increase the opportunities of enhancing learners’ ICC. While academic institutions are exploring such potential benefits, researchers caution that technology alone is insufficient and simply throwing students into networked surfing and encountering does not necessarily lead to intercultural learning and ICC development. This suggests that a new balance must be found between technology and pedagogy.
This research reports a survey of Chinese college teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of classroom instruction in intercultural activities, especially with Internet mediation. Data were collected by means of Internet questionnaire including semi-structured questions with respect to setting, input, task tools, classroom activities, assessment, and problems which are central to the kind of task-based approach that facilitates intercultural teaching and learning. The findings suggest that while the importance of developing ICC has been recognized, language skills and cultural knowledge are still the focus of the class. Textbooks remain the predominant resource and tool for information input and Internet information tools are used in support of expanding the knowledge sources. However, communication tools are much less used. The findings do not reveal how activities were undertaken with Internet tools due to insufficient data but a general positive attitude towards classroom instruction with technology mediation was identified. The problems lie in technical support, pedagogical framework and time constraints. Implications were made in theory and practice for pedagogical development in ICFLE in China.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
