Pre-Service International Chinese Language Teachers’ Cognition Of Intercultural Teaching Competence

In the context of teaching Chinese as a second language,teachers and students engage in communicative activities in an intercultural classroom context,which requires teachers not only to have intercultural communication skills,but also to integrate this ability into intercultural classroom contexts to form intercultural teaching competence.Most current studies and official documents only look at intercultural communication competence in isolation,and do not pay enough attention to the construction of intercultural teaching competency frameworks and the development of intercultural teaching competencies.Teacher cognition dominates their teaching decisions and teaching behaviors,and pre-service teachers’ cognition of intercultural teaching ability affects their teaching ability development and future teaching practice.In view of this,it is necessary to re-examine the integration of intercultural communication ability and international Chinese teaching,so as to construct an analysis framework for intercultural teaching competence(ITC)of international Chinese language teachers,and study the cognition of intercultural teaching ability of pre-service international Chinese language teachers,so as to put forward teaching enlightenment for the development and training of pre-service international Chinese language teachers.Firstly,using the speculative research method,on the basis of reviewing the knowledge and ability structure of international Chinese language teachers and the research related to intercultural communication ability,drawing on the intercultural teaching ability model(ITC)constructed by foreign scholars,and combining with the current reality of international Chinese language teaching,the core elements of ITC of international Chinese language teachers composed of four dimensions of awareness,attitude,knowledge and skills are constructed,and the specific elements contained in each dimension are described.Awareness includes multi-cultural awareness,cultural consciousness,and critical cultural awareness.Attitude includes open,curious,tolerate,respect and Cultural Relativism.Knowledge includes language ontology knowledge,supporting knowledge,culture and national conditions Intercultural knowledge,learners and environmental knowledge.Skill includes teaching skills,cross cultural skills,technology in education.Then,based on the framework of ITC constructed,pre-service international Chinese language teachers’ cognition of ITC was analyzed and explored.A semi-structured interview was conducted with pre-service international Chinese language teachers from a comprehensive university.The number of times they mentioned the core elements of ITC was counted in order to understand their knowledge and thoughts on ITC and its core elements.At last,factors causing cognitive differences among pre-service international Chinese language teachers were explored.It is found that some pre-service international Chinese teachers do not yet have an explicit understanding of the intercultural teaching situation and ITC.Most perceive it as a cultural teaching situation or intercultural knowledge teaching situation and put the emphasis of ITC in cultural teaching and dealing with intercultural conflict.Secondly,the understanding of the core elements of ITC is incomplete,and some core elements such as multicultural awareness,critical cultural awareness,curiosity,information technology in education,and ethnorelativism are ignored.Based on the interview data,the factors that affect the cognitive differences of pre-service international Chinese language teachers include learning experience,overseas experience,teaching experience and training experience.Learning experience includes four sub-factors: learning education,postgraduate examination preparation,listening to academic lectures and literature reading.Teaching experience includes international Chinese teaching experience and non-international Chinese teaching experience.This research has enlightenment for the research and cultivation of ITC.In theory,the analysis framework of the core elements of ITC of international Chinese language teachers constructed in this study is conducive to expanding the current research on teachers’ knowledge structure.In terms of teaching practice,understanding the current status of pre-service international Chinese language teachers’ cognition of ITC can help promote their reflection and cultivate the ITC of pre-service teachers,so that they can be competent for international Chinese education in the future intercultural context.