Investigation of ELT students
Hismanoglu, M. (2011). Investigation of ELT students' intercultural communicative competence in relation to linguistic proficiency, overseas experience and formal instruction. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 35(6), 805-817.
"An investigation of ELT students' intercultural communicative competence in relation to linguistic proficiency, overseas experience and formal instruction" is an article written by Murat Hismanoglu and published in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations in the August 2011 issue. The chosen article discusses the relationship between intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and language teaching. In this paper, I summarize the article, review as well as comment on selected aspects and suggestions to the issue raised.
Summary of the Article
According to the author the article, Hismanoglu, over the past several decades, in the process of globalization, humans have interacted with the rest of the world in a wide variety of fields and realized how important intercultural communication is for foreign language teaching. Hismanoglu provided an investigation of the intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among ELT students in connection with linguistic ability, experience of people who study and work in English-speaking nations (e.g. Britain, the USA and Australia) and instructions in ICC in the context of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) / teaching English as a second language (TESL). The findings of the article shed light on the three main questions: 1) how has linguistic proficiency influenced the learning of intercultural communicative competence; 2) how has overseas experience influenced the learning of intercultural communicative competence; and 3) how has formal education influenced the learning of intercultural communicative competence?
To answer these questions, the researcher conducted a quantitative research study with 35 ELT students of European University of Lefke (EUL) involved in. They were randomly selected. Thirteen were females and twenty-two were males. Their average age was 20, from 18 to 22. Six students used to go abroad while the rest of them did not. Of the six students with overseas experience, three of them had formal education in regard to the ICC. Ten students got ICC formal instruction, whereas twenty- five students did not take formal education regarding the ICC.
Accordingly, the questionnaire instrument with two sections of data collection was employed. The first part consists of a set of demographic questions about students' native language, gender, linguistic proficiency, year of education, overseas experience and formal education. Subsequently, the students were administered the given eight different communicative situations to respond in the second stage. The instrument content and validity were developed and evaluated by the board of several intellectual expertise. Previously, the students took a KPDS exam (Proficiency Exam for Academics) for testing vocabulary, grammar, translation, and reading literacy. Based on the scores on the exam, the researcher grouped the participants into high proficiency (the score of 60 and above) and low proficiency (below 60).
After the data collection conducted, the data received from the survey have been changed for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, version 16.0) analysis through the process of coding. The patterns of personal information and the intercultural communication competence part were obtained by the descriptive statistics. The t-tests with numeric uncontrolled samples were used to investigate the significant differences in linguistic proficiency, overseas experience and formal education in ICC learning.
For the overall, the results of the study answer the research questions and hypotheses mentioned. First, the acceptable responses of thirty-five participants generally outweigh the unacceptable responses to the given dissimilar eight communicative situations that illustrate the ICC success of ELT students. Second, the high linguistic proficiency group of students acquires better ICC. Third, the students with overseas experience outstandingly master the ICC. Finally, the formal education fosters the ICC acquisition of the students. The conclusion includes the summary of the research findings and recommendations for language teachers in teaching ICC.
Critique of the Article
I found the article a number of interesting knowledge that fulfills my "terra incognita" (Beatty, 2010) in the cognitive map with respect to the intercultural communicative competence. The author has sufficiently established the significance of the research and yet several inevitable weaknesses which are presented in every part.
To begin with, the title of the article and abstract follow the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2009). It is informative and completely clear that indicates the relationship between "ELT students' ICC" as an independent variable and "linguistic proficiency, overseas experience and formal instruction" as dependent variables. The title also avoids abbreviations, irony, puns, and humor (Hartley, 2008); however, its length is more than 12 words beyond the APA recommendation. The abstract describes the key points of the research, including the purpose statement, research questions, participants, methods, results, data analysis, and conclusions. Besides the abstract, the author marks down 'keywords' which would make it easier for readers to reach this article.
In the introduction, the problem statement clearly indicates the persuasive context for the study that needs considerable attention. It may be described as "a paucity of literature" (Sakuragi, 2008) that needs to be filled. The dominant purpose of the article is to explore what extend the ICC level of ELT students is affected by distinctive variants such as linguistic knowledge, living in an English speaking country and instruction in ICC. The literature review is relevant and supplies reasons and significance of the study. The author does a good job of expounding some of the terms like communicative competence (CC) and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) from explicit citations and references that followed the APA structure guidelines.
In the section on research methods, Hatch and Lazaraton (1991) recommend a basic requirement that "the sample should include 30 or more people" (Dörnyei, 2003). The investigator described the sample size (i.e., 35 students) and their characteristics that are appropriate for the method of research represented. The samples are not contrived and real students in the real school satisfy the reliability and validity. In addition, the study follows a descriptive research design that is "cross-sectional" comparing different population groups at a specific point in time (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2007) in order to provide readers a general picture of the research design and procedures. For instruments in the data collection, the research survey encompasses two-pronged approach, including demographic questions about the background of students and the given eight different communicative situations. Notwithstanding, the rationales behind the choice of piloting instruments in this study were not referred. Without any rewards mentioned in the study, the test-takers for linguistic proficiency exam may not give enough effort to it, so the test scores were not totally plausible.
During the data analysis procedures, the researcher utilized the software SPSS that Dörnyei (2003) describes as "a unique and powerful qualitative data analysis module". Moreover, descriptive statistics, "a tidy way of presenting the data" to save time and space (Dörnyei, 2003), were calculated for demographic information. Nevertheless, a dearth of ability to identify the cause of the problems makes descriptive statistics the risk of losing important details. The performance of students in the KPDS exam and the communicative situations cannot be achieved by employing quantitative measures only; correspondingly, qualitative issues should be measured by interviewing or observation techniques. With regard to these two of qualitative research methods, McNamara (1999) points out interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a participant's experience whilst Good and Brophy (1974) identifies "one role of observational research is to describe what takes place in classrooms" that dissects the sophisticated challenges of learners in reality.
The result section states the findings arranged in a logical sequence without bias or interpretation in accordance with the principles of the quantitative methods. The findings of the study revealed a significant difference between the ICC levels of the subjects and their linguistic knowledge, overseas experience, and formal instruction. The results of given eight communicative situations were organically presented. All tables and figures were appropriately used. However, the subject only relies on 35 ELT students of the European University of Lefke. The findings are merely generalized to students of EUL, but they cannot represent all university students in the European. The data would be more realistic if the study was conducted in various kinds of scenarios and the intimation of the theory and practice could derive to the other part of the world.
Personally, I totally agree with the author's point of view which was promoted in the article because Asian students, especially Vietnamese, have also encountered the similar challenges of "learning about culture shock through personal and traumatic experience" instead of ICC acquisition in foreign language classes. Hismanoglu's study also raises other issues that suggest further research opportunities. Westrick (2004) argues that female students have more intercultural sensitivity than male students; therefore, gender seems to be a vital variable in a potential study of the ICC. I recommend further research to explore the gendered ICC disparity and a larger or non- educational/other domain groups of samples may be needed to confirm the consistency and replication of the study.
In conclusion, the study covers three main factors affecting the ICC of 35 ELT students in EUL that address the research questions. The article was published in 2011 and during over the last six years, despite several changes in the educational aspect, the ICC development in foreign language teaching has occurred. From the light of the findings, the article contains a thorough and useful explanation as well as supporting information to enhance the understanding of the ICC in TESL and TEFL contexts and offers recommendations for language teachers to integrate ICC in their course.
