Intercultural Competence in Internationalization Context: Some Recommendations for Tertiary-Level Foreign Language Teaching

In the context of globalization, the internationalization of higher education is an unavoidable tendency. This endeavor, in one way or another, highlights the need for intercultural competence which plays an influential role in students’ development and acquisition of sociolinguistic skills. To explain, native speakers of different cultures communicate and interpret a language behavior in various ways due to discrepancies in values and customs. As a result, many foreign language learners have encountered obstacles in real-life communicative situations with foreigners despite their in-depth study and rich linguistic knowledge. It is, thus, crucial for them to be trained with intercultural competence on a regular basis so as to facilitate successful interaction and avoid unexpected cultural misunderstandings. This paper aims to provide a theoretical overview of intercultural competence as well as suggest some recommendations to integrate it into foreign language teaching and learning at tertiary level.