Intercultural Competence in a Foreign Language Classroom

Identifier:  TFG:4380

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG4380

Authors:  Martra Sanromà, Thais

Abstract:
Intercultural competence could be defined as the ability to successfully interact with someone with a completely different background. The reason for this is because language is part of culture. The aim of this thesis is to find the role of intercultural competence in the process of learning English as a foreign language. The hypothesis was that people with a higher knowledge about culture of their target language have higher foreign language skills in that language. It was tested across 17 university students in various bachelor programs, none of which were enrolled in the English degree program. The participants completed two different tests, one on language and one on culture and the results have been compared to whether participants with higher skills of English obtain higher grades in their culture test as well. The results suggest that this is the case for most participants, therefore we can determine that there is a tendency of this happening.