Teaching English as a global language for intercultural communication in higher education

Abstract EN

With the development of globalization and internationalization, teaching English language, as lingua franca has been shifted from developing communicative competence to intercultural communicative competence.

In this aspect, this research paper aims to study the perceptions of students and teachers concerning using English language as a global language for intercultural communication.

It bridges the gap between student’s perceptions and teachers’ practices to help them design activities that prepare EFL learners to communicate with English as a global language for intercultural communication.

60 high and university students shared in a survey that evaluates students’ motives for learning English as a global Language.

Moreover, 30 high school and university English teachers shared also in another survey that evaluates their practices in teaching English for Intercultural education.

Then a comparative analysis between both views was done.

The results of the research paper revealed that students mostly learn English to get better job, and they need to learn the basic words and expressions to communicate.

Students also are equipped with intercultural skills as most of them affirm that learning another language is related to learning its culture.

On the other hand, the perceptions of English language teachers revealed that their main aim is to help the students communicate effectively.

They also asserted the role of intercultural communication is to help learners have good conversation with nonnative speakers.

Therefore, this research paper affirmed the differences in attitudes between the students and teachers’ perception which creates a problem in real practice of teaching English.

Accordingly, the results of this research raise awareness of EFL teachers and curriculum designers to design intercommunicative tasks that help EFL learners achieve appropriate communication in the intercultural context.