Language and Intercultural Communication

ISSN: 1470-8477 (Print) 1747-759X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmli20

Assessment of intercultural communicative

competence in FL education: A survey on EFL
teachers’ perception and practice in China

Xiaole Gu

To cite this article: Xiaole Gu (2015): Assessment of intercultural communicative competence

in FL education: A survey on EFL teachers’ perception and practice in China, Language and
Intercultural Communication, DOI: 10.1080/14708477.2015.1083575

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2015.1083575

Published online: 03 Nov 2015.

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 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2015.1083575

Assessment of intercultural communicative competence in FL

education: A survey on EFL teachers’ perception and practice
in China
Xiaole Gu
Harbin Institute of Technology, No.92, West Dazhi Str., Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People’s Republic
of China

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The intercultural approach to language teaching, intercultural Intercultural communicative
communicative language teaching, has emerged in response to the language teaching (ICLT);
limitations of communicative language teaching. As a result, the intercultural communicative
competence (ICC); teachers’
ultimate goal of foreign language (FL) education is being shifted
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perception and practice;

from communicative competence to intercultural communicative foreign language assessment
competence (ICC). In China, this calls for an understanding of the
status quo of ICC assessment in FL. The aim of the present study,
which is a part of a nation-wide survey, is to investigate the opinions
and attitudes of teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in
China on assessment of ICC and to gauge how and to what extent
these beliefs are reflected in their classroom implementation. Data
were collected from 1170 Chinese university EFL teachers by means
of a questionnaire. The analysis reveals that, despite a willingness to
assess ICC, the EFL teachers lack a clear conception of ICC. This leads
to confusion about what should be assessed and how to assess it,
and to deficiencies in their attempts to measure students’ ICC in the
classroom. Possible reasons for the deficiencies are explored and
solutions proposed. The findings from this empirical study have
implications for intercultural language teaching in China.

随着跨文化外语教学的推进, 外语教学的终极目标正从培养交际能
力逐步转向培养跨文化交际能力, 这意味着教学过程中教师要对外
语学习者的跨文化交际能力(ICC)进行评估。本文旨在调查中国高
校英语教师对跨文化交际能力测评的认识和实践情况。本研究采
取调查问卷, 对全国39所高校1000余名英语教师的ICC构成认知、
ICC测评的必要性、测评方法、测评目的等方面进行了调查,结果
发现中国高校外语教学中ICC测评还处于起步阶段,相当一部分教
师对ICC的概念和构成认识模糊, 对ICC测评尚未给予足够的重视,
而且测试存在盲目性、偶然性和片面性。作者探寻了导致这些问
题的可能原因, 并提出了可行性建议。

Introduction
Intercultural communicative language teaching (ICLT) has begun to emerge in response to
the limitations of communicative language teaching (CLT). ICLT emphasizes that language is
taught not merely for transfer of information, but for the assertion, negotiation, construction

CONTACT Gu Xiaole wanglingqinggxl@sina.com

© 2015 Taylor & Francis
 2 X. GU

and maintenance of individual and group identities (Corbett, 2003). Students are to become
‘intercultural speakers’ equipped with intercultural communicative competence (ICC),
defined as ‘a complex of abilities needed to perform effectively and appropriately when inter-
acting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself’ (Fantini, 2006,
p. 12). The ultimate goal of foreign language (FL) education is thus being shifted from
communicative competence (CC) to intercultural communicative competence (ICC)
(Corbett, 2003; Lazar, 2003; Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013; Sercu & Bandura, 2005; Zhang, 2007a).
ICLT has been widely promoted in Europe, America and Australia through a series of
initiatives (e.g. Byram & Zarate, 1997; CARLA, 1993–2006; Cloonan, Spencer, & Saunders,
2005; Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003; Prechtl & Lund, 2007). It has recently
been introduced to China by a number of Chinese scholars, who call for a paradigm shift
from CLT to ICLT in Chinese FL teaching (e.g. Song, 2008; Zhang, 2007a). Their discussions
of ICLT conceptual frameworks offer general guidelines for reorientation of Chinese FL
towards cultivating ICC and intercultural citizenship. This shift naturally places more
demands on language teachers, who should not only be interculturally competent them-
selves, but also be equipped with the means of cultivating students’ ICC. How FL teachers
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perceive their mission today and how they strive to fulfill their mission directly affect the out-
comes of language teaching and learning. At this early stage of ICLT development, the
primary task, as pointed out by Zhang (2007a), is to conduct national surveys to gain
clear knowledge of teachers’ perceptions and practices in teaching ICC in FL programmes
in order for solutions to be launched. Yet, there is little empirical research on FL teachers’
perceptions of interculturality and application of the theories to classroom practice.
As ICC becomes more widely recognized as the goal of foreign language education,
assessment of it also becomes a crucial element of classroom activity, for it ‘plays a key
role in helping educators to understand and improve students’ ICC capacities, providing
an empirical basis for tracking development, motivating learning, examining outcomes,
and indicating areas for constructional improvement’ (Sinicrope, Norris, & Watanabe,
2007, p. 59). Scholars in intercultural communication have reached a consensus that
ICC is assessable (Deardorff, 2006), but a review of the literature has shown that there
is little research on how FL teachers in China envisage ICC assessment and on their
general disposition towards it. This points to the urgency of understanding the status
quo of ICC assessment in China’s FL education and of seeking effective ways to assess it.
The present paper thus investigates the beliefs and experiences of Chinese university
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers concerning the assessment of ICC in EFL
education. Data on how university EFL teachers view ICC assessment and what
methods they use were collected through a nation-wide questionnaire survey on university
EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices of ICC teaching.

Literature review
Theoretical framework – ICC models
Since ICC is widely recognized as the ultimate goal of ICLT and hence also of assessment, the
central issue of ICLT is how to conceptualize ICC. ICC models have flourished in a variety of
fields to describe ICC in contexts as varied as overseas adjustment, global leadership and
international education (see reviews by Berardo, 2005; Barrett, 2010; Spitzberg & Changnon,
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 3

2009; Wiseman, 2001). These models can be classified into five types: compositional models
(e.g. Hunter, White, & Godbey, 2006), co-orientational models (e.g. Fantini, 2005), develop-
mental model (e.g. Bennett, 1986), adaptational model (e.g. Kim, 1988; Navas et al., 2005)
and causal path models (e.g. Hammer, Wiseman, Rasmussen, & Bruschke, 1998). Some
models emphasize the communicative nature of ICC, while others stress an individual adap-
tation and development in a new culture, and still others focus on empathetic and tolerant
reactions to other cultures.
FL educators have drawn insights from second language acquisition and intercultural
communication, and tried to build up models that integrate culture, communication
and language into a best fit for FL instruction setting. Compared with the ICC models
in other fields, the ones for FL education emphasize the role of linguistic competence in
intercultural communication and interaction between languages and cultures. Two
models that have recently gained influence in FL education are Deardorff (2006) and Lid-
dicoat and Scarino (2013), which emphasize the dynamic nature of intercultural compe-
tence and the influence of internal and external factors on its development. Chinese
scholars have also proposed ICC models applicable for FL education (e.g. Hu & Gao,
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1997; Jia, 1997; Song, 2008; Wang, 2012; Yang & Zhuang, 2007).
The best known and the most cited model in FL education was proposed by Byram
(1997). Byram identifies five factors that affect intercultural communication, namely,
Savoirs (knowledge), Savoir-comprendre (skills of interpreting and relating), Savoir-faire
(skills of discovery and interaction), Savoir-être (attitudes of openness and curiosity),
and savoir s’engager (critical cultural awareness) (1997, p. 34). He argues that these
factors make up intercultural competence, which, together with linguistic competence,
socio-cultural competence and discourse competence, is included in a more general com-
petence: intercultural communicative competence.
This ‘intercultural competence’ is largely absent in FL education and the focus of the
present study. To avoid confusion in terminology, we replace the term intercultural com-
petence with intercultural communicative competence in this study to follow the trend of
most scholars on intercultural communication. Byram’s model serves as the main refer-
ence for design of the questionnaire and evaluation of the participants’ responses in
this study due to its comprehensiveness and applicability.

Language assessment in ICLT

The shift in the theory of language teaching and learning leads to a change in language
assessment. Assessment in ICLT is based on Socio-Cultural Theory in which it is argued
that socio-cultural circumstances play a central role in human cognitive development,
and that the development process of higher mental functioning is the one by which
people internalize or regulate what they learn from social activities through the mediation
of symbolic tools (e.g. languages) (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006). Under this theory, culture is
defined as the context without which a word has no meaning, and is deemed necessary
to achieve a working knowledge of the target language (Seeley, 1994). Assessment thus
emphasizes, ‘experience and meaning-making related to that experience in the context of
language and culture and their positioning’ (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013, p. 125). It
should take into consideration the over-arching goals of ICLT and competences outlined
in ICC models that help learners to participate successfully in intercultural communication.
 4 X. GU

Research on ICC assessment tools has flourished in a variety of contexts (see review by
Sinicrope et al., 2007). Sinicrope et al. (2007) give a comprehensive overview of major
assessment methods that have been utilized in the study of ICC, and classify them into
indirect and direct assessment tools. Examples of the former include the Intercultural Sen-
sitivity Inventory (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992), the Intercultural Sensitivity Index (Olson &
Kroeger, 2001) and the Intercultural Development Inventory (Hammer, Bennett, &
Wiseman, 2003). These tools assess individuals’ abilities to interact and modify their
behaviour in cross-cultural situations via their self-reports or actions. However, the val-
idity of data of this type is often doubted due to the likely influence of social desirability
and the lack of ability of individuals to provide accurate self-assessments (Altshuler,
Sussman, & Kachur, 2003, cited in Sinicrope et al., 2007, p. 27). Direct assessment tech-
niques mainly use performances, portfolios and interviews to elicit an individual’s
ability to display ICC in his or her behaviour (Byram, 1997; Fantini, 2007; Ruben, 1976,
1989). Many scholars advocate to combining direct and indirect techniques and using a
mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to assess ICC (e.g. INCA, 2004; Deardorff,
2006; Fantini, 2005, 2007). The reason is that combining techniques can ‘offer more com-
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plete assessment of (ICC) because they can provide more detailed, nuanced, and indivi-
dualized accounts’ (Sinicrope et al., 2007, p. 28).
In tertiary FL programmes, there are few comprehensive treatments on the assessment
of ICC outcomes. Schulz (2007) proposed five fundamental objectives of cross-cultural
awareness and understanding for college FL programmes. Several FL programmes in
the USA and German have developed their own ICC SLOs (student learning outcomes).
They have mainly used course-embedded assessments (e.g. essays, projects, portfolios,
mid-terms and finals) and programme-specific questionnaires, self-assessments and inter-
views to assess ICC outcomes. Very few of them have adopted commercially available
instruments for assessing ICC (see Sinicrope et al., 2007).
Chinese FL educators have recently joined the discussion of various issues concerning
the assessment of ICC, including theoretical framework for building ICC assessment tools
(Zhong & Fan, 2013), requirements for ICC assessment (Zhang, 2007b), principles and
objectives of ICC assessment (Song, 2008; Wang, 2012) and integration of cultural
testing into language testing (Liu, 2004). These studies mainly draw insights from the
works of Byram (1997, 2005). It is yet to be seen whether there will be any attempt to
apply these objectives, principles and methods in Chinese FL programmes.

Research on FL teachers’ perceptions and practices in ICLT

ICLT places new demands on today’s language teachers and also highlights the impor-
tance of gaining an insight into how they themselves perceive their teaching mission
today, as well as the factors influencing their professional decisions. A number of large-
scale surveys, including both quantitative and qualitative, have been conducted in the
past decade in regard to teachers’ perceptions and practices of ICLT. The findings of
these studies vary from country to country. It was found that FL teachers in countries
such as Bulgaria, Britain, France, Germany and Mexico were highly aware of the inter-
relationship between language and culture and were active in incorporating language
and culture in practice, but lacked models and resources for materials development and
professional learning (Aleksandrowicz-Pedich, Draghicescu, Issaiass, & Sabec, 2003;
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 5

Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003; Sercu et al. 2005). In countries such as
Finland, Sweden and Turkey, ICC teaching was reported to play no more than a subsidiary
role and seemed not to move beyond the cultural approach and traditional information-
transfer pedagogy (e.g. Atay, Kurt, Çamlibel, Ersin, & Kaslioglu, 2009; Byram & Risager,
1999; Larzén-Östermark, 2008; Sercu et al., 2005).
Unfortunately, none of these empirical studies inquired into teachers’ views on asses-
sing ICC and to what extent their assessment practices are interculturally oriented. In
addition, there have not been any large-scale investigations of FL teachers’ beliefs and
practices in ICLT in China that can provide empirical evidence for ICLT development,
and hence we turn now to the project which has attempted to do this.

Methods
Introduction to the project
This study is part of a nation-wide project ‘University English teachers’ perception of ICC
and their teaching practices in China’ funded by China’s Foundation of Social Sciences.
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The project was designed as the initial phase of a future study of ICC teaching in EFL class-
rooms. Its purposes include finding out how EFL teachers in China’s universities concep-
tualize ICC; what dimensions of ICC they have taught and/or assessed in their EFL classes;
how they have incorporated ICC into EFL teaching; what materials and methods they have
adopted in teaching and assessing ICC and how teachers’ personal profiles have affected
their perceptions and practices of ICLT. To achieve these purposes, a nation-wide survey
was conducted by means of a web-based questionnaire, posted on the website: http://www.
chinacafic.org:8080/wenjuan/. It is composed of three sections:
Section 1: Teachers’ profile: their age, gender, academic qualifications, years of teaching,
overseas experiences, ICC training experiences;
Section 2: Teachers’ perception of ICC: their understanding of the definition of ICC and its
components, of the nature of FL teaching, of the role of teaching and assessing
ICC, and of the relationship between ICC teaching and language teaching;
Section 3: Their teaching practices of ICC: the aspects of ICC addressed in EFL classes, the
textbooks used, the methods adopted and activities conducted to enhance stu-
dents’ ICC development; aspects of ICC assessed, assessment methods used.
The survey resembles that of Sercu et al. (2005) in scope and methodology. The question-
naire was written in both English and Chinese to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding or
ambiguity. It was composed of mainly closed questions, but allowed room for participants
to provide answers falling outside the given categories. The reason for the preference for
closed over open-ended questions is its advantage in comparing data in a large sample,
examining interrelationships between factors, and making generalization about the
overall trends. In addition, Chinese interviewees generally show a preference for closed
questions due to their reluctance to voice their opinions. This type of questions may help
reduce their fear of saying something ‘wrong’.

Participants
The participants were EFL teachers from 39 universities in China, sampled through the
probability proportional to size sampling method from 780 Chinese universities that
 6 X. GU

are registered in the Ministry of Education. To guarantee their representativeness, these

universities were chosen from the seven geographical regions across China (North
China, Northeast China, Northwest China, East China, South China, Southwest China
and Central China), covering universities of various categories, including
comprehensive universities, and universities of different specialties (e.g. engineering, edu-
cation, medicine, foreign language, business and agriculture), and of various levels
(national, provincial and municipal). After the lists of teachers in English departments
of these 39 universities were obtained, 30 English teachers were randomly selected from
each of these universities, making a total of 1170 participants. These teachers taught a
wide range of students, including English majors, non-English-major undergraduates
and postgraduates, and a wide range of English courses. They were informed of the
research purpose, the questionnaire website and the deadline (1 March 2012). Thanks
to the support and cooperation of these participants, 1044 valid responses were eventually
collected.
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Research questions
Due to the complexity and multi-purpose nature of this survey, its results and findings
on various aspects cannot be addressed in depth within one paper. Therefore, they are
reported in a series of research papers. The present paper focuses on the findings
related to ICC assessment, with Item 1 in Part 2, Items 7–13 in Part 3 of the question-
naire as the target of investigation, aiming to establish teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and
practices of ICC assessment in EFL classes. These items address the following research
questions:
. Is it necessary to assess students’ ICC in a college comprehensive English test?
. How widely has students’ ICC been assessed by college English teachers in China?
. What do these teachers think are the components of ICC?
. What aspects of ICC have they assessed?
. What methods have they adopted to assess their students’ ICC?
Questionnaire data were entered into a Microsoft Excel 2003 database through the
website, and then converted into SPSS format data file for statistical analysis with SPSS
version 18. Qualitative data were also transferred for further analysis. Apart from
frequency and percentage calculation, the Chi-square test and nonparametric correlation
were used in the analysis.

Reliability assessment of the questionnaire

To assess the reliability of the quantitative aspects of the questionnaire, 30 English teachers
from Harbin Institute of Technology were selected to do a pilot study. The participants
completed the questionnaire twice, and between the two measurements there was a
period of two weeks. It was found that the two measurements had a Pearson product-
moment coefficient of .79 at the p < .01 level, with values ranging from r = .56 to r = .94.
The r values for Items 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 in Part 3 were, respectively, r = .94, .92,
.90, .82, .62, .79 and .56 (Appendix 1: Table A1). This indicates that the questionnaire
has a high test–retest reliability.
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 7

Analysis of results
This section analyzes and discusses the results and findings of the research questions pro-
posed in the ‘Research questions’ section.

Necessity of ICC assessment

The respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement to the statement ‘It is
necessary to assess students’ ICC in a comprehensive language test’. In all, 885 of the
1078 respondents answered this question.
A Chi-square test shows that the participants’ views vary significantly (p < .05)
(Appendix 1: Table A2). The respondents showing partial or strong agreement
(57.2% and 28.0%) far outnumbered those expressing partial or strong disagreement
(1.7% and 0.1%) (Appendix 2: Figure A1). There were also 13.0% of the respondents
who were not sure of the necessity of testing students’ ICC. The result indicates that
the overwhelming majority of the respondents were aware of the importance of asses-
sing students’ ICC in EFL class and agree language and culture can be assessed integra-
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tively. However, the fact that most respondents chose partial agreement rather than
strong agreement seems to imply that the urgency to add intercultural dimension to
a language test has not been acknowledged.

Experience of ICC assessment

The respondents were asked if they had ever assessed students’ ICC. Among the 884
respondents, only half had such experience (Appendix 1: Table A3). Those who had
not assessed ICC were asked a follow-up question whether they would do so in the
future. It was found that the respondents willing to assess students’ ICC in the future
(68.9%) greatly outnumbered those without such an intention (31.1%) (Appendix 1:
Table A4). This suggests that assessment in EFL classes is undergoing a shift from measur-
ing merely students’ language skill to measuring their ICC.
To further examine whether the participants’ practices of ICC assessment were influ-
enced by their attitude toward ICC assessment, a bivariate correlation test was conducted.
The result shows that there was a weak positive correlation between these two factors
(p < .01, r = .131) (Appendix 1: Table A5). This indicates that those considering it
necessary to assess ICC were more likely to put it into practice, while those without
such beliefs were more unlikely to do so. However, it is worth noting that some partici-
pants who acknowledged the importance of ICC assessment had failed to carry it out,
while some who held the opposite view had done so. This contradiction reveals the res-
pondents’ confusion and hesitation about ICC assessment.

Perception of ICC components

Since effective teaching and assessment of ICC is based on a clear knowledge of the ICC
construct, the respondents were asked to list at least three components that they
considered as the most important in the construct of ICC apart from intercultural
knowledge. The knowledge dimension was already provided in the question statement
 8 X. GU

because we assumed that this dimension is generally accepted as a legitimate ICC com-
ponent and we hoped to elicit more valuable answers from the respondents. A total of
2974 entries were collected. Four project members codified the entries in line with
Byram’s descriptions of ICC components. These entries were categorized into two
general types: ICC composing factors and ICC influencing factors. Table A6 (Appendix
1) shows the classification, as well as the number and percentage of the respondents
choosing each subcategory.
Entries about ICC composing factors fall into five dimensions (namely, knowledge,
skill, attitude, awareness and language). Even though it was made clear that the knowledge
dimension need not be mentioned, the vast majority of the respondents still listed knowl-
edge as the most important ICC dimension, the percentages of which (31.1%) far exceeded
those of the other listed dimensions. Knowledge of History, Geography and Religion
accounted for the highest percentage (14.1%), followed by Customs and Traditions
(6.8%), and Culture Differences (6.2%) and Values (3.9%). About 18% of respondents
even filled all the three blanks with knowledge-related items. This indicates that cultural
knowledge, especially cultural facts, was treated as an equivalent to ICC by many EFL
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teachers and the cultural approach to EFL teaching, which regards culture as identifiable
factual knowledge, was deeply rooted in the respondents’ minds.
The skill-related items were coded as cognitive abilities (e.g. abilities to internalize, to
interpret, to perceive differences, to analyse, to learn and to understand), ability to interact
and socialize (e.g. abilities to communicate, to convey information, to establish and
maintain relations, to socialize and to deal with intercultural conflicts), ability to
operate (e.g. abilities to apply knowledge, to use strategies and to follow rules) and
ability to adapt (e.g. abilities to accept new things, to adapt to the new environment
and ability to be flexible). They took up 29.4% of the total entries. This suggests a high
prominence given to skills. A smaller percentage (10.7%) of participants listed attitude-
related entries (e.g. respect and open attitude and tolerance of other cultures, readiness
to step into other cultures and to accept other cultures, objective evaluation of self and
other cultures pride in self-culture). They were coded as open-mindedness, affection,
motivation and empathy. Entries related to Intercultural Sensitivity and Awareness of
Identity (e.g. awareness of one’s own culture and identity, of cultural differences and of
contextual differences) were given by only 4.1% of the respondents. In addition, possibly
due to their EFL teaching background, some respondents listed language skill (verbal and
non-verbal skill) as a necessary ICC dimension (7.6%). To indicate participants’ special
attention to this aspect, it is recognized as an independent category in Table A6.
One sixth of the entries fell outside the scope of Byram’s model. They are external
factors that indirectly influence the effect of intercultural communication. These factors
are termed here as ICC influencing factors, further classified into personal traits, experi-
ences, environment, teaching and others, which, respectively, took up 7.8%, 3.3%, 3.2%,
0.7% and 1.6% of the total entries.
Surprisingly, about one-tenth of participants did not provide any responses to this
question. The main reason for opting out, as explicitly reported by some of these partici-
pants on the questionnaire, is that they were not familiar with the concept of ICC and did
not know what it was composed of. This reveals the deficiency in knowledge of ICC by a
great many university teachers and calls for training in this aspect.
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 9

Objectives of ICC assessment

In order to investigate how the respondents perceived the objectives of ICC assessment,
we asked those with ICC assessment experiences what aspect(s) of ICC they had
attempted to measure, and those without such experiences what aspect(s) they would
assess in future. Nine possible aspects representing the four commonly agreed ICC
dimensions by scholars (knowledge, skill, attitude and awareness) were listed in a
random order for them to choose. They were also encouraged to provide any aspect(s)
which fell outside the list. The given items appear in Table A7 (Appendix 1) in a des-
cending order of preference of the participants with ICC assessment experience. From
the responses of 417 (47.2%) participants who had assessed students’ ICC, we found
that cultural facts (Item 1), value (Item 6) and language cultural connotations of
English-speaking countries (Item 2) were most frequently assessed (77.1%, 70.3% and
65.5%), respectively. However, two items which are concerned with the culture of
non-English-speaking countries, Items 5 and 7, were assessed by only a small portion
of respondents (23.4% and 22.9%). Only two respondents reported having assessed
aspects other than the given ones: ‘ability to deal with problems occurring in intercul-
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tural communication’, and ‘knowledge and understanding of their own culture, including
thinking patterns, values, and beliefs’. The 322 (36.4%) respondents who had no ICC
assessment experiences but would do so in the future were asked what aspects of
ICC should be assessed. The results were similar to those gained from respondents
with ICC assessing experiences.
The findings on ICC components and assessment objectives reveal that, despite wide-
spread recognition by university EFL teachers in China of the necessity to incorporate ICC
into EFL assessment and their willingness to do so, their perceptions of what ICC is
composed of and thus what ICC components should be assessed were still inadequate.
In addition, there were contradictions between their perceptions and practices of ICC
teaching and assessment. Although many of the respondents recognized skill as an
equally important dimension as knowledge, the knowledge dimension was given sole pri-
ority in their practice. They emphasized especially knowledge of cultural facts and values
in English-speaking countries. These are the elements which are easily identified, quanti-
fied and displayed, and facilitate the assessment of ‘shallow learning’ (Corbett, 2003,
p. 196). The skill dimension, such as abilities to analyse and interpret their own and
target culture, to deal with cultural conflicts and to operate knowledge, attitudes and
skills, had rarely been incorporated into assessment objectives by these teachers. Attitude
and awareness dimensions were placed in a much lower position when ICC was perceived
and assessed. Attitude-related assessment objectives listed by Byram (1997), such as stu-
dents’ understanding and tolerance of the values of other cultures, their curiosity and
openness, and readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about their
own, were unpopular in teachers’ assessment agenda.
The findings also reveal that very few teachers would assess students’ knowledge
and understanding of the values and communicative patterns prevalent in non-English-
speaking countries. The culture most teachers emphasized in their ICC teaching and
assessment was mainly that of English-speaking countries, especially mainstream
English-speaking countries, while cultures of other countries, which are an equally impor-
tant, indispensable part of the World Culture, were considered as non-standard and thus
 10 X. GU

ignored. This indicates their limited view of the English language and culture: English is a
possession of the countries where English is spoken as the native language, and the culture
of mainstream English-speaking countries is the model to look up to.

ICC assessment methods

The respondents were provided with a list of possible ICC assessment methods, including
paper test (composed of multiple choice questions, true-or-false questions, matching, trans-
lation, short answer questions and case studies), oral presentation, role play and projects.
They were asked to choose one or several methods that they had adopted or would adopt.
They were also asked to provide any other methods that they used but were not in the list.
The majority of the 417 respondents who had assessed students’ ICC showed prefer-
ence for oral presentation, role play and paper test. The percentages of respondents
who reported having used these methods were 52.5%, 51.5%, and 45.3%, while the percen-
tage of respondents who used projects to assess students was much lower (23.7%) (Appen-
dix 1: Table A8). Among all the listed methods in the paper test, ‘true or false’ claimed the
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highest percentage (24.2%), while multiple choice questions were the least preferred
(9.4%). In addition, only 4.8% of the respondents reported having used methods other
than the ones listed in the questionnaire. These included essay writing, group discussion
and field study. The respondents who had never assessed students’ ICC but would do so in
the future preferred role play, paper test and oral presentation to projects. Very few other
methods were mentioned. This result was very similar to that gained from the respondents
with ICC assessment experience.
The findings suggest that the ICC assessment methods adopted by the respondents
included both quantitative and qualitative methods. However, the qualitative methods were
limited to the traditional methods such as oral presentations, role plays and case studies,
whereas alternate methods such as problem-solving tasks, interviews and portfolios were
seldom adopted. In addition, meta-cognitive methods, which involve learners’ self-evaluation
and self-monitoring, such as self-reports, self-reflection diaries, evaluation forms and
surveys, had never been used by any respondents, indicating that learners’ knowledge
about their own competences was excluded from the assessment process. It was also found
that the paper test was still the most popular mode of assessment among English teachers.

Discussion: exploration of causes and solutions

The results of the survey indicate that most of the surveyed Chinese university EFL
teachers hold a positive attitude towards ICC assessment, regarding ICC as a necessary
part of EFL curriculum and, thus, should be incorporated into foreign language tests.
However, the fact that those who actually assessed ICC take up less than half of the
total respondents suggests that they still consider linguistic competence as the priority
of language assessment, while ICC remains an auxiliary of language learning and is of
secondary status. In addition, the respondents’ understanding of ICC remains insufficient
and even inaccurate. Many equate intercultural teaching with cultural teaching in which
culture is treated as a static, fixed body of knowledge of the cultures associated with
English-speaking countries. This mis-guided conception is also reflected in assessment
practices where various dimensions of ICC are treated unequally. English culture is
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 11

perceived to be synonymous with the cultures of mainstream English-speaking countries,

while cultures of non-English-speaking countries are ignored.
These findings seem to indicate that the ideology that shapes Chinese EFL teachers’
assessment of learners’ language ability continues to be the CLT approach rather than
ICLT. The reorientation of EFL teaching means that we need not only to rethink our
goal and how we design and implement language courses, but also to consider how we
develop, measure and monitor the development of students’ ICC. Most important of all
however, we should understand and overcome the fundamental constraints that continue
to hamper intercultural oriented assessment.

Lack of insight into ICC and language learning

Liddicoat and Scarino (2013) point out that the starting point for assessment, according to
the ecological conception of assessment, is ‘the conceptualization of what is to be assessed,
namely, the construct’ (p. 128). Unfortunately, misconceptions of ICC construct greatly
hamper Chinese EFL teachers’ assessment. ICC, for many Chinese EFL teachers, is
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merely specific knowledge and sociopragmatic norms of mainstream English-speaking

countries, which are seen as the standard to conform to and the means to facilitate the
development of language skills and interactive abilities. This orientation defines language
teaching and assessing in most EFL classrooms in China.
ICC teaching does not simply involve familiarizing learners with facts, figures or behav-
iour patterns in the target country, but also reflection of cultural identities, cultural
changes and meta-awareness of cultures. Communication in an additional language
means entering a new world of meanings without leaving behind one’s own world, cap-
tured in the first language or languages (Kramsch, 1998). In line with this, an intercultural
orientation, according to Liddicoat and Scarino (2013), sees the understanding of language
as a reciprocal process of interpretation of the language and the person, understanding of
culture as the lens through which people mutually interpret and communicate meaning,
and understanding of learning as learners becoming aware of how they themselves inter-
pret their world through their own language and culture (p. 46). This hermeneutic
approach means that ICC assessment should serve to evaluate and foster learners’ abilities
to understand culture not only as information about diverse people and their practices. It
should also be seen as the contextual framework that people use to exchange meaning in
communication with others and through which they understand their social world.
Based on this understanding, assessment from an intercultural perspective should start
with conceptual clarification, that is understanding the nature of ICC construct. Teachers
will then be able to prioritize specific aspects of ICC based on the overall mission, goals
and purpose of the course or programme. This being done, they can set measurable objec-
tives to be assessed, write outcomes statements related to each prioritized aspect and
decide on the evidence to reveal the outcomes.

Lack of available resources for material development

Compared with traditional language assessment materials, which are well established and
available in many test banks, ready-made resources for interculturally oriented assessment
are in short supply. EFL teachers often have to design assessment materials themselves.
 12 X. GU

Although there are a number of ICC assessment tools or instruments available (see Fantini,
2006), many of them are not applicable to EFL contexts in that they more or less neglect
linguistic competence and interaction between languages and cultures. This is because
the designers of these models are mostly from the fields of communication and are more
concerned with what personal attributes, attitudes and skills can lead to effective communi-
cation than with what turns a language learner into a competent intercultural speaker. In
addition, many of these assessment methods are scales or questionnaires, and are mostly
of a quantitative nature.
The lack of ready-made assessment materials also results in the lack of a variety of
assessment methods, and teachers often have to resort to traditional methods to assess
ICC. In Chinese cultural contexts, test papers are the most familiar form of evaluating
students’ term performance. However, this kind of assessment, which is mainly summative
in nature, tends to focus on learners’ knowledge of cultural facts and their understanding
of certain cultural phenomena, but neglects the process of students’ active involvement
and self-assessment in learning.
This points to the need to develop ready-made ICC assessment materials. These
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materials should encompass various forms of assessment, including not only traditional
tasks such as paper tests and essay writing, but more recent developments such as
problem-solving tasks, communicative pair-work tasks, role play, case studies and portfo-
lio (Byram, 2005; Deardorff, 2006). Researchers have identified some common features of
alternate assessing paradigm in line with a socio-cultural view of language learning: both
formal and informal, formative and summative, process and product oriented, dynamic
rather than static (Black & Wiliam, 1998 Deardorff, 2006; Gipps, 1999; Scarino, 2007;
Shepard, 2005). Assessing learners’ ICC requires eliciting performance and making con-
sidered judgments on their comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation
and application to determine how well they are progressing, areas for improvement and
ways of assisting them to make further progress.

Lack of administrative support

The unsatisfactory state of ICC teaching and assessing is also due to the lack of adminis-
trative encouragement, support or imperatives in China that motivate teachers to
implement intercultural oriented assessment. Here, the movements in language teaching
are usually bottom-up. Discussions and practices of ICLT still remain the concern of indi-
vidual authors (Zhang, 2007a). It is often language educators who notice the urgency to
change, conduct experiments in new approaches and report their findings through
published papers. The national administrators then hear their bit-by-bit calls and cau-
tiously adjust the national English education guidelines accordingly. This process is
thus usually slow, passive and delayed.
Although the cultural dimension has been made one of the objectives of college EFL
teaching, it remains secondary and incomplete, as reflected in the National College
English Curriculum Guidelines (CECG):
The objective of College English is to develop students’ ability to use English in a well-rounded
way, especially in listening and speaking, so that in their future studies and careers as well as
social interactions they will be able to communicate effectively, and at the same time enhance
their ability to study independently and improve their general cultural awareness so as to meet
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 13

the needs of China’s social development and international exchanges. (Committee of China
Foreign Languages Education Association, 2005, p. 2)

What is emphasized here is language use and communicative ability, while cultural
awareness is put in an inferior position. The expected learning outcomes stipulated in
the CECG do not reveal any intercultural stance, either. The CECG prescribes the learning
outcomes for five language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading, writing and trans-
lating, with the aim of developing students’ near-native communicative skills. None of the
outcomes are concerned with ICC. Even worse, there is almost no statement on assess-
ment apart from recognizing the importance of both formative and summative assess-
ments. This ambiguous stance towards ICLT and inattention to assessment by the
national guidelines has become one of the major hindrances for EFL teachers’ slow adap-
tation of their teaching and assessing to intercultural communicative context.

Implications
The findings of this empirical study may have several pedagogical implications. First,
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official policies, as voiced in national curricular guidelines, play an important role in

developing teachers’ implicit theories. For that reason, new guidelines should be
launched which should clearly reflect the intercultural stance of language teaching.
Second, training in assessment from an intercultural perspective should be provided.
Special emphasis should be put on developing of teacher trainees’ ICC so that they
have a correct conceptualization of ICLT and ICC, principles for assessing intercultural
dimension of languages and ways to design intercultural oriented curriculum and
develop assessing materials.
However, individual teachers are the ones responsible for what kind of FL teaching the
students receive. ICC assessment involves not only the design and implementation of
multi-forms of assessment instruments, but also the increase of the work load for teachers,
since ICC assessment methods are mainly of qualitative and subjective nature. This
requires teachers to be fully responsible and highly professional. Since teachers’ con-
ceptions and beliefs determine which aspects are practically implemented in their class-
rooms, they can monitor how their own beliefs and practices change through activities
such as journal writing, case studies and other methods for reflective analysis.

Limitations
It should be acknowledged that the results of the present study share the limitations of any
questionnaire survey. Although a large-scale quantitative study seems to be the best meth-
odological choice for generalizing findings to all Chinese university EFL teachers, it was
relatively easy for the respondents to give desirable answers rather than answers which
fully reflect reality. Therefore, the results should be interpreted in the light of this possi-
bility. This may imply that the intercultural dimension is even less well represented in
EFL classes than our data suggest. In addition, since assessment is just one of the issues
addressed in our survey, together with ICC teaching and EFL textbooks, the number of
questions on assessment was limited so as to limit the length of the questionnaire. As a
result, the depth of inquiry was sacrificed to some degree for the breadth. Issues such as
frequency of ICC assessment, assessment methods on various ICC dimensions and
 14 X. GU

reasons for preference for certain assessment aspects or methods were not pursued.
Method triangulation involving, for example, interviews, video observations and teachers’
diaries might have contributed to more reliable findings.
To address the limitations, we have begun to examine national college EFL tests, and EFL
curricula and test samples of a number of universities to investigate more deeply the status
quo of ICC assessment in China. Future studies will explore further the underlying reasons
for EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices in ICLT by adopting more qualitative methods.

Conclusion
The aim of this study was to shed light on the perceptions and practices of ICC assessment
by university EFL teachers in China. The findings of our survey have revealed that the status
quo of ICC assessment in Chinese EFL programmes is far from satisfactory. CLT remains
dominant in language assessment since most respondents tend to view ICC as a fixed and
stable body of cultural facts associated with the target language area. Despite willingness to
assess the intercultural dimension, EFL teachers’ lack of a clear conceptualization of ICC
leads to their confusion about what should be assessed and how to assess it, and hence to
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deficiency in real actions to measure their students’ ICC. The education council’s hesitation
and ambiguous stance in intercultural language teaching and assessing and lack of admin-
istrative support result in teachers’ inconsistency in taking an intercultural orientation to
teaching and assessing language. Teachers do not seem to go beyond the traditional assess-
ment paradigm due to the lack of resources for materials development.
FL teachers are faced with enormous challenges in the attempt to assess students’ ICC.
However, that cannot be their excuse to give up this critical task since curriculum design
and evaluation procedures are like two sides of the same coin, with assessment being an
inevitable follow-up to teaching and learning. It is of prime importance for FL teachers
to understand reasons to assess ICC and aspects to be assessed, and then explore more
ways to assess ICC. It is our hope that the survey and discussions here will arouse more
awareness of the role of ICC assessment and generate more valuable research in this
respect.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This work is supported by China’s Social Science Foundation [grant number 10BYY037], Social
Science Research Program of China Ministry of Education [grant number 11YJC740076], Heilong-
jiang Social Science Foundation [grant number 13C018], Social Science Foundation of Harbin Insti-
tute of Technology [grant number HIT. HSS. 2009004], Graduate Education Reform Program of
Harbin Institute of Technology [grant number JGYJ-201529].

Notes on contributor
Gu Xiaole is an associate professor in School of Foreign languages, Harbin Institute of Technology,
China. She holds a doctoral degree in linguistics and applied linguistics. Her research interest
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 15

includes intercultural communication, intercultural language teaching and intercultural prag-

matics. She is an active researcher in the field of intercultural communication and has published
a number of papers on related issues. She is hosting and participating in a number of state-level
and provincial-level projects on intercultural language teaching.

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Appendix 1
Table A1. Test–retest reliability of the concerned
questions items.
R
Question items p < .01
Item 7 .94
Item 8 .92
Item 9 .90
Item 10 .82
Item 11 .62
Item 12 .79
Item 13 .56
 18 X. GU

Table A2. Chi-square test of necessity of ICC assessment.

Agreement to ICC assessment
Chi-square 973.793a
Df 4
Asymp. Sig. .000
a
0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 174.0.

Table A3. Experiences of ICC assessment.

Observed number of respondents %
Teachers having assessed ICC before 417 47.2
Teachers having not assessed ICC before 467 52.8
Total 884 100

Table A4. Willingness to assess ICC in the future.

Observed number of respondents %
Teachers with intention to assess ICC in the future 322 68.9
Teachers with no intention to assess ICC in the future 145 31.1
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Total 467 100

Table A5. Correlation between necessity recognition and experiences of ICC assessment.
Necessity of ICC assessment Experiences of ICC assessment
Necessity of ICC assessment Pearson Correlation 1 .131**
Sig. (two-tailed) .000
N 869 869
Experiences of ICC assessment Pearson Correlation .131** 1
Sig. (two-tailed) .000
N 869 869
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).

Table A6. Perception of ICC components.

Dimension Subcategory Frequency Percent
ICC composing factors Knowledge Knowledge of history, geography, 420 924 14.1 31.3
(2478/271.70%) religion, etc.
Customs and tradition 203 6.8
Cultural difference 184 6.2
values 117 3.9
Skill Cognitive ability 235 883 7.9 29.7
Ability to interact and socialize 434 14.6
Ability to operate 80 2.7
Adaptability 134 4.5
Attitude Open-mindedness 131 323 4.4 10.7
Affection 85 2.9
Motivation 66 2.2
Empathy 42 1.4
Awareness Intercultural sensitivity 108 124 3.6 4.1
Awareness of identity 16 0.5
Language Verbal ability 142 226 4.8 7.6
Non-verbal skills 84 2.8
ICC influencing factors Personal traits 233 496 7.8 16.7
(496/54.40%) Experiences 99 3.3
Environment 94 3.1
Teaching 47 1.6
Others 23 0.7
Total 2974 100 100
 LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 19

Table A7. Aspects of ICC measured (to be measured) by the participants.

Assessed To be assessed
Number of Number of
Items Aspects of ICC assessed responses % responses %
1 Students’ knowledge of the cultural facts of the 319 77.1(1)a 280 86.4(1)
English-speaking countries
6 Students’ knowledge of the values of the English- 291 70.3(2) 257 79.3(2)
speaking countries
2 Students’ interpretation of the cultural meaning of 271 65.5(3) 194 59.9(6)
certain words or phrases
10 Students’ perception of the differences between their 256 61.8(4) 232 71.6(3)
own culture and the target culture
4 Students’ understanding of the communicative 222 53.6(5) 218 67.3(4)
patterns prevalent in English-speaking countries
3 Students’ understanding of the cultural meaning of 198 47.8(6) 180 55.6(7)
non-verbal languages
9 Students’ ability to express their own culture and 188 45.4(7) 210 64.8(5)
present their cultural identity in English
8 Students’ understanding and tolerance of the values of 177 42.8(8) 159 49.1(8)
alien cultures
7 Students’ knowledge of the values of the non-English- 97 23.4(9) 77 23.8(9)
speaking countries
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5 Students’ understanding of the communicative 95 22.9(10) 76 23.5(10)

patterns prevalent in non-English-speaking countries
11 Other objectives 2 0.5(11) 4 1.2(11)
Total 2116 511.1 1887 582.4
Note: The numbers in brackets indicate the ranked preference for the corresponding ICC aspects.

Table A8. Assessment methods used (to be used).

Assessed Not assessed
Number of Number of
Methods respondents Percentage respondents Percentage
Paper test MCQ 39 189 9.4 45.3 63 155 19.6 48.1
True or false 101 24.2 63 19.6
Matching 72 17.3 35 10.9
Translation 70 16.8 24 7.4
Short answer questions 62 14.9 50 15.5
Case studies 51 12.2 67 20.8
Oral presentation 219 52.5 139 43.2
Role play 216 52.5 187 58.1
Project 99 23.7 95 29.5
Other methods 20 4.8 13 4.0
 20 X. GU

Appendix 2
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Figure A1. Necessity of ICC assessment.