What are the attitudes of intervention-class students toward the intervention of systematically integrating the teaching of ICC into the EFL curriculum and classroom?
This question concerned the intervention-class students‘ attitudes toward the intervention. The data from the pre- and post-intervention questionnaire, students‘ reflective journals and interview indicated positive attitudes toward the intervention of systematically integrating the
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teaching and learning of ICC into EFL curriculum and classroom. Almost all the students appeared to identify with the importance of learning and teaching ICC in the EFL classroom, which seemed to be consistent with the culture and ICC literature. They also felt it aroused their interest and increased their learning motivation. These will be discussed with reference to assumptions about culture and ICC learning and teaching in the relevant literature.
Importance of ICC learning and teaching in EFL classroom
The students‘ attitudes towards the intervention, which emerged in the data, were found to be congruent with ICC in foreign language teaching in the relevant literature. It was consistent with culture and ICC theorists, who view ICC as abilities required to perform effectively and appropriately when interacting with people who are both linguistically and culturally different from oneself (Fantini, 2009), and advocates (e.g., Byram, 1997, 2008) of ICC teaching in foreign languages education.
The intervention-class students in this study, as Table 4.16 in Chapter 4 indicated, seemed to believe that culture knowledge of the target language would help them improve their ability to communicate with native speakers. The interview and students‘ reflective journals data showed that the students generally appeared to have realized the importance of cultural awareness, attitudes towards different cultures, knowledge about intercultural phenomena such as culture shock, cultural adjustment, pragmatics, intercultural skills or behaviour and so on. This belief was evident in the way the students talked about their awareness of the importance of ICC. ICC learning and teaching, in Student 4, 3 and 1‘s words, was very important, useful, practical and advantageous to their English learning because they believed that ICC knowledge could make it easier for them to understand and communicate smoothly and construct a good relationship with people from different cultures and thus avoid cultural conflict. It helped widen their sphere of knowledge and it had the potential to support their English language learning. For example, they believed that ICC learning enabled them to learn about the development history and humanistic background of English language and to enlarge their vocabulary related to various aspects of foreign culture. It also trained their listening and other language skills. The students seemed to believe that English language learning could also benefit from culture and ICC teaching and learning. The students‘ positive attitudes toward ICC learning and teaching in the English classroom, to a large extent, might be understood as consistent with theories of culture and ICC teaching/learning in the literature. It lends practical evidence and support to culture and ICC
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theorists who assert that language and culture are closely related to each other, so language learning and learning about target cultures cannot realistically be separated (Kramsch 1993; Valdes 1986), and that the acquisition of a foreign language is the acquisition of the cultural practices and beliefs this language embodies, so that teaching for linguistic competence cannot be separated from teaching for intercultural competence (Byram, 1997). However, in the relevant literature, it seemed that there was little systematic inquiry done through practitioner research in systematically planning and integrating ICC learning/teaching into the EFL classroom in China.
Learning motivation and positive attitudes toward aspects of ICC learning/teaching
The discussion above indicated students‘ awareness of the importance of ICC and significant factors which led to their positive attitudes toward ICC teaching/learning. The interview and students‘ reflective journals data also showed that they seemed to be interested in learning Western culture and motivated to learn about ICC because, as a majority of students stated when interviewed, that culture and ICC learning were important, interesting, useful and practical. This seems to be in line with the theories of motivation in second language learning which regard motivation in second language learning as the attempt and desire to learn a language and positive attitudes towards learning it (Dörnyei, 1994) and positive attitudes toward the L2 community and a desire to communicate with and become similar to valued members of that community (Gardner & Lambert, 1972). The ICC intervention provided a basis for students developing positive attitudes.
Post- questionnaire findings showed that after the intervention more students stated that they were interested and engaged in their English class and enjoyed learning English in class. There were positive changes in students‘ attitudes to English learning. This was, I believe, in part because culture and ICC teaching were integrated into the English classroom, which could be further supported by some students‘ statements in the interview that they wanted very much to learn or even eager to learn because culture and ICC learning were important and interesting to them.It seemed that culture and ICC learning/teaching stimulated students‘ interest and motivation to learn English. Secondly, positive changes could also be seen in students‘ attitudes to the teaching resources used in the intervention. The students indicated that the materials used in class were highly relevant to target language culture and ICC. They expressed their interest and willingness to learn about English culture and ICC rather than from the textbook used in their previous English class, which mainly focused on language
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skills such as listening, reading and writing. Thirdly, the questionnaire-based findings also indicated that more students after the intervention showed positive attitudes toward the teaching approaches used in the intervention. They seemed to prefer the instructional approach used in their intervention English class to the previous traditional one. In the intervention English class, as they commented, they were more encouraged than in their previous English class to communicate in English and given more opportunities to practise English, which motivated them more to learn. Fourthly, although some students expressed their fear of attending class because, as they explained in the interview at the end of intervention, they were afraid of making mistakes when speaking English in class, the pre- and post- questionnaire data showed that both before and after the intervention most students expressed their willingness and desire to spend more time in the future learning English and as much as possible about the target culture and ICC. This might imply that most of them were aware of the importance of learning the target language culture and ICC, and they were interested and motivated to learn them. In fact, ample evidence was found in other qualitative data from interviews, and students‘ and teacher‘s reflective journals to indicate students‘ positive attitudes toward aspects of ICC learning/teaching. These will be discussed in Section 5.5.1. which addresses the connection between ICC learning/teaching and students‘ learning motivation.
These findings connect with Dornyei‘s (1990) conceptualization of motivation in foreign language learning, which identifies related dimensions of a broadly conceived integrative motivational subsystem. The findings of this study showed the dimensions of the motivational subsystem, that is, the students‘ interest in English and culture, and their desire to broaden their views and seek new stimuli and challenges related to ICC learning.
However, the other central argument I would like to put forward as a result of this study is that the intervention class students expressed positive attitudes toward the ICC intervention and were willing and motivated to learn English culture and ICC, not only because it was important, useful and practical, but also because culture and ICC learning itself was likely to be attractive and interesting to them as they seemed to quite enjoy the process of learning culture and ICC. Culture and ICC learning has the potential, then, to enhance students‘ motivation for learning English language, which will be discussed in detail in Section 5.5. This relates to the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in motivation theories in the literature (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Dornyei, 1994; Bandura & Schunk, 1981). The students‘ awareness of importance, usefulness and practicality of ICC learning as extrinsic
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motivation stimulated them to learn. Meanwhile their enjoyment and interest in ICC learning as intrinsic motivation energised their learning too. In designing the intervention I also drew on the theories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to energise my students‘ learning. I focused on ways of arousing their curiosity and interest, that is, I put my emphasis on intrinsic motivation since it is a central motivator of the educational process. However, in order to enhance intrinsic motivation further, extrinsic motivations/rewards such as tests, appropriate use of praise, proximal subgoals like tasks of preview and review, were also applied. All these, I suggest, contributed to their positive attitudes toward the intervention of ICC learning.