A Study On The Cultivation Of Intercultural Communicative Competence For Mongolian English Majors In Inner Mongolian Universities

In order to explore the Mongolian English Majors’ current level of ICC,and find out their perceptions on current culture learning and teaching, theauthor first reviews the various definitions of ICC and models of ICC becausethere are no consensus definitions and ICC models. Without a clarified ICC, itis difficult to discuss ICC assessments and its pedagogical implications tolanguage teaching and learning.115Mongolian English majors from Inner Mongolia Normal Universityand Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities, participated in theinvestigation. In order to make the investigation more comprehensive, bothquantitative and qualitative methods were employed. The questionnaire,which is based on Wen Qiufang’ ICC model, was used as an instrument of thestudy to explore the overall level of ICC for Mongolian English majors. WangZhenya’s Sociocultural Test was from the dimensions of verbal andnon-verbal communication which may indicate their pragmatic competence.In order to know their perceptions on culture teaching and learning, the authorinterviewed10volunteer students from Inner Mongolia Normal University.Finally the collected data were analyzed with the help of the statisticalsoftware SPSS16.0for Windows.The findings of the study are reported as follows:To begin with, Mongolian English Majors’ ICC in MongolianUniversities has remained at the all right level. However, it displays anunbalanced distribution in terms of communicative competence andIntercultural competence. Communicative Competence is better thanIntercultural Competence. Among the three components of CommunicativeCompetence, the selected Mongolian English Majors’ linguistic competenceis better than their pragmatic and strategy competence. Their flexibility inhandling cultural differences is not satisfactory. Secondly, According to the findings of the Sociocultural Test, MongolianEnglish Majors do better in Verbal communication rather than non-verbalcommunication.Thirdly, known the relationship between language and culture, they have apositive attitude towards culture learning. Most of the students would like tolearn culture knowledge through different ways.Finally, the teachers have a positive attitude towards culture teaching.They think culture teaching is an important component of the EFL class.However, instructing culture knowledge is not systematic, and the major wayto teach is a direct explanation. Furthermore, the teachers do not attach greatattention to the non-verbal communications.After revealing various problems which the students encountered inintercultural communication, the thesis has put forward some practicalsuggestions for improving their intercultural awareness and cultivating theirICC at the macro and micro levels. At the macro levels, curriculum design,ways of assessing ICC and teaching methods, etc. are discussed while at themicro levels, the role of teachers and students are mentioned.This thesis has provided new empirical data to support the research on thecultivating the ICC for Mongolian English Majors. What is more, thesuggestions will be helpful to improve the culture teaching, raise MongolianEnglish Majors’ intercultural awareness, and develop their ICC.