AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN CLASSES OF AMERICAN CULTURE AT HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES: EFL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS

Abstract

Intercultural competence is an essential component that language learners need to acquire in order to communicate well. This paper presents an analysis of the data collected in an investigation into students’ perception and opinions on teaching intercultural competence to EFL students in classes of American culture at Hue University of Foreign Languages. Data were collected from 120 EFL students by means of a questionnaire over the course of two months in 2016. The findings have revealed that the students were aware of the important role of culture in enhancing their intercultural competence regardless of their incomprehensive perception of the correlation between language and culture. Furthermore, despite limited number of techniques, a combination of multicultural and intercultural approaches was deployed by teachers in the classes