A Study on Intercultural Communicative Competence of EFL Adult Learners

The goal of the present study is to examine EFL adult learners’ intercultural communicative competence (IC) and its relation to their English language proficiency (LP). Data was collected from one-hundred twelve university students (N=112) and sixty-two in-service Korean English teachers (N=62). The participants were asked to diagnose their own levels of IC and LP through the questionnaires whose reliability and validity were confirmed by the factor analysis. The major findings from analyses were as follows; 1) participants’ openness and willingness to learn about other cultures were found to be in a higher level than the other three factors of IC, such as knowledge of intercultural context strategies, acceptance in intercultural situations, and the importance of IC, 2) the group difference between the university student and the teacher group was found to be statistically significant in the three IC factors, with a lower score of the student group, and 3) correlational, and regression analyses showed significant correlations between IC and LP of the participants. Pedagogical implications and suggestions are discussed for better implementing the IC program into a classroom.