Teachers’ Practices about Intercultural Communicative Competence in Teaching English Language

Abstract

Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) becomes essential part in the language curriculum because it brings meaningful and communicative concept in English language teaching. The important elements of ICC that should be recognized by teachers are knowledge, attitudes, skill of interpreting and relating, skill of discovery and interaction, and cultural awareness when they teach English in their classroom. To find ICC mindfulness among teachers, this study investigated teachers’ practices about ICC in teaching English language. Qualitative method was employed in this study to obtain deeper understanding in natural setting. Thus, classroom observation and interview were used as means of collecting data. The subject of the research is two English teachers under the same foundation of one of private senior high school in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. The result of this study indicated both teachers used most of components of ICC in their teaching practice. As the result, T1 used skill of interpreting and relating as the highest element found . In contrast, T2 had two highest elements in his teaching, they are knowledge and skill of interpreting and relating. In conclusion, both T1 and T2 bring ICC practice in their English classroom because they apply most of elements of intercultural communicative competence.