Effects of an intercultural communication course in developing intercultural sensitivity

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to see whether intercultural communication, an elective course, taught through case analyses in the department of English language teaching is effective on the level of students’ intercultural sensitivity. For this purpose, we conducted the study based on the explanatory sequential design. The participants were senior students (teacher candidates) in English Language teaching department in Pamukkale University in Turkey. The participants were in two elective courses: intercultural communication and sociolinguistics. The data were collected through intercultural sensitivity scale quantitatively and group focused interviews with students and instructors qualitatively. The quantitative data were analyzed by means of ANOVA for mixed measures to compare the means of two groups. In addition, qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis in terms of emerging codes and themes. Our results indicated that the contribution of intercultural communication course to the development of intercultural sensitivity among students was significant. Both the students and the instructor revealed in the interviews that the activities carried out throughout the semester contributed a lot to increase their awareness towards intercultural communication components and to the development of their intercultural sensitivity.