Intercultural competence as an aspect of the communicative ...

The ‘common sense’ notion that foreign language learning and travel abroad
could create ‘tolerance of otherness’ has its roots in the ‘notion of all human experience
having, at some fundamental level, common ground’ (Byram 1989: 57). However, if
students set out with the positive impression that ‘people are the same wherever you go’,
the meeting of cultures can create resistance and prejudice because learners would
invariably notice differences where a similarity was expected. What should be analysed
and where similarities should be pursued is how global concepts – respect for elders,
gender roles, or expression of humour for example, are differently transformed and
adapted in different cultures. If learners remain on a superficial level of only being
acquainted with other cultures without reflecting on their experience, even when they
‘report a positive experience, [it] doesn’t guarantee that they have learned much about the
new environment or that they have had a particularly deep experience’ (Shaules 2007: 83-
84).
Research question 3
In order to see whether the English language students differed in their answers
from the students of other departments at the University of Niš, these answers were
compared. The research hypothesis was that the English language students would have
scored better in the GPI questionnaire. While some authors claim that language
instruction is not enough for intercultural competence and higher sensitivity (Byram
1997), the expectation was that some difference would be seen in the results (not only due
to the intense language practice and being immersed in language and some cultural
elements on a daily basis, but due to their assumed motivation to study English). The
analysis showed that statistically significant differences between the English language
students and the students of other departments on four variables: Identity, Responsibility,
Well-Being and Global citizenship. However, the values means of the English language
students were actually lower than or the same as the means of other students. Since the
GPI authors claim that the higher the mean the clearer the sign of intercultural sensitivity,
the results supported the line of thinking that language instruction on its own did not give
any visible results in terms of intercultural competence and sensitivity.
The qualitative part of the study also confirmed this. In order to gain a better
understanding of the group, three students of the English language were interviewed,
whose backgrounds and contacts with foreign cultures were quite different. Two out of
three interviewees had only superficial contact with other cultures, while one spent an
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