EFL Graduate Students' Intercultural Language Learning and Intercultural Competence

Abstract

Being able to function appropriately and effectively in multicultural situations is one of the must-have skills for the 21st-century citizens. Particularly, in the ambience of the international education in which the English language is employed as a mean of instruction, students should be fluent in the English language as well as interculturally competent. This chapter presents a study exploring EFL graduate students' perceptions of intercultural language learning and their level of IC at a multicultural higher education institution in Thailand. A cohort of 91 EFL graduate students of different nationalities (Cambodia, China, Thailand, and Vietnam) participated in answering the questionnaires. The findings revealed that EFL graduate students perceived the intercultural language learning positively and had a high level of IC. Additionally, a positive correlation between participants' perceptions of intercultural language learning and their level of IC. Nevertheless, they perceived the intercultural language learning similarly and possessed a similar level of IC regardless of nationalities.