To What Extent Lebanese University Students Consider Themselves as Intercultural Communicators

Abstract

Globalization has removed all constrained borders and distances among countries, governments, and business corporations. With this fundamental change, there has been an increasing demand for intercultural competent communicators to secure success in the 21st century marketplace. However, some universities in Lebanon, if not all, seem not to have IC as a part of their curricula, or if they do, it is not emphasized. As such, students may not become aware of the importance of developing intercultural communication skills. That’s why the researchers aimed to (1) investigate the extent to which students in private Lebanese universities are aware of the importance of IC, (2) whether they consider themselves as culturally competent speakers, and (3) the strategies they follow to develop their intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Using a mixed-methods design, the researchers surveyed 190 participants conveniently sampled from different private Lebanese universities and conducted two focus groups of 5 participants each. The collected data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The derived conclusions from both analyses were triangulated. The findings revealed that the majority of the participants were aware of the importance of ICC, more than half of the participants considered themselves intercultural speakers, and the strategies that helped them the most in developing their ICC were interactions with people from other cultures, different types of media, and international friends among others. The researchers recommend more attention be given to IC in higher education institutions and further research be conducted in the area of IC using an intercultural communicative competence tool.



Author Information
Najwa Saba 'Ayon, Rafik Hariri University, Lebanon
Grasiella Harb, Rafik Hariri University, Lebanon

Paper Information
Conference: PCE2022
Stream: Challenging & Preserving: Culture

This paper is part of the PCE2022 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
'Ayon N., & Harb G. (2022) To What Extent Lebanese University Students Consider Themselves as Intercultural Communicators ISSN: 2758-0962 The Paris Conference on Education 2022: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2022.18
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2022.18


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon