The Effect Of Cultural-schema-construction Model On College English Learners’ Intercultural Sensitivity

With the booming of Communicative Approach in China’s English classes since 1990 s, more researchers shifted their focus on the relationship between language and culture, and the research in this field flourished with abundant products. As a new sphere in the intercultural communication study, the research of intercultural sensitivity stresses the close connection between individual’s intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competence development, with the focus on people’s sensitivity and responses towards culture differences. The going deeper of research in this field brings about measurement instruments of high reliability and validity to examine and evaluate individual’s overall level of intercultural sensitivity as well as its internal factors. Scholars in this field also come into consensus that intercultural sensitivity, as a positive drive for intercultural communication competence, can be learned and improved by culture learning and related intercultural communication experience accumulation. Yet very few researchers at home devote to the empirical studies on the influential factors of intercultural sensitivity and effective ways to promote it significantly, while most domestic surveys concentrate on the current level of college students’ intercultural sensitivity, which is desperately needed for promotion.This present study sets out to explore the effective approach to promote learners’ intercultural sensitivity for non-English majors in college English classes by integrating the cultural schema theory into instruction curriculum. Achievements of cultural schema construction model are drawn on because it yields the enhancement of learners’ perception of cultural differences, which is regarded as the remarkable predictor as well as channel for intercultural sensitivity improvement. This research investigated 96 non-English majors in Yunnan Normal University with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The systematic instruction based on cultural schema construction model were provided for the 47 students in the experiment group during the 18-week teaching experiment while another 49 students in the control group were under traditional guidance. Data collection and analysis of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale were conducted in both pre-test and post-test and an interview was given to students chosen from the experiment group.Results has shown the effectiveness of this cultural-schema-construction-based instruction model. Data analysis of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale by SPSS11.0 indicates that this instruction model is effective in promoting learner’s overall level of intercultural sensitivity together with its three internal factors, namely Interaction Engagement, Respect for Cultural Differences, and Interaction Confidence. Among all, Respect for Cultural Differences is the mostly promoted. From the interview, it has been found that students benefit in various aspects under the learner-centered instruction, ranging from the cultural knowledge, culture and linguistic competence, to learning autonomy. Based on the research findings, some feasible suggestions for intercultural sensitivity cultivation and culture teaching improvement were proposed tentatively. It is hoped that some useful implications for future studies on intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication could be brought from this study, and relevant empirical studies could be generated with more attention paid to this field.