Preparing Students with Intercultural Competence: Challenges and Solutions

Proceedings of The 4th Global Conference on Education and Teaching

Year: 2023

DOI:

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Preparing Students with Intercultural Competence: Challenges and Solutions

Thi Phuong LAN Nguyen

ABSTRACT: 

The English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) in Vietnam is proving developed significantly to meet the national requirements of integrating in the internationalized and globalized era. Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has placed great investments in developing not only curriculum, pedagogy, assessments but also teaching materials and educational human resources. ELTE undergraduates show confidence of entering the domestic teaching contexts while appear to be challenged in places where require cultural and intercultural skills. This paper is to explore ELTE curriculum’s preparation for students with this essential knowledge and skills. A mix-method study with a survey, interviews and content analysis was conducted across the representatives of ELTE programs in Vietnam. The significant findings show a poor preparation for both knowledge and skills of cultures and intercultural competencies. These shortcomings are considered to be from the limited numbers of courses and credit hours providing students with this essential skill. They are also perceived as a result of the students’ reluctance of cultural courses during the program while they placed much focus on English proficiency skills, which they think the most important to become teachers of English after graduation. The paper offers recommendations to revise curricula and to provide educators with more professional development programs to achieve the best preparation for students to be culturally competent. These findings and recommendations are not only helpful to students, lecturers but also to other stakeholders involved. The findings can also be applicable to neighbor countries who share similar ELTE conditions and inspiration of developing this industry.

keywords:  competent, culture, English Language Teacher Education, knowledge, skills