Intercultural competence as an aspect of the communicative ...

prevent students from gaining true intercultural competence. Finally, Jurasek (1995),
Robinson-Stuart and Nocon (1996) claim that the only learning that can take place in the
classroom will be along the cognitive lines, and that it will be only ‘cognitive boundary
crossing’ (Robinson-Stuart, Nocon 1996: 43) without any reflection on learners’ attitudes.
Some authors, like Herzog (2003) for example, claim that ICC must be based in a
particular knowledge of one culture. Herzog believes that generalised intercultural
competence is a just as hollow a concept as non-specific foreign language competence.
Such views would then equate ICC with and narrow it down to specific cultural
competence, and would be in a contrast to observations that individuals who have
experienced foreign environments would be better equipped to navigate through other
unfamiliar situations (as cited in Rathje 2007).
DeVoss et al. (2002) offer a discussion on possible challenges that teaching
intercultural competence may face. These are: focusing on the characteristics of students’
own cultures, replacing notions of cultural stereotypes (positive and negative) with more
fluid, dynamic understandings of tendencies, avoiding limiting the guidelines for good
intercultural communication to guidelines for good technical communication in general,
developing a more sophisticated sense of the design considerations necessary for
intercultural communication, encouraging students to move intercultural communication
beyond the classroom (p. 76).
Another challenge is the age of learners when they are ready to be engaged in
intercultural training so that they benefit from it. Byram et al. (1994) analysed available
research and concluded that while learners differ in their ability to mediate between
cultures and decentre from their own and feel empathy with others, teenage years – from
12 years and older, are the years when it can be expected that learners can do tasks that
involve intercultural issues.
It is impossible to equip students with all possible intercultural competence that
would last them a lifetime. Therefore, the acquisition of ICC is never complete as it is not
possible to anticipate all the situations in which a learner would need it which makes ICC
a life-long activity. This is in keeping with the current idea of life-long learning – that
academia does not give students knowledge that will last them all working life, but
equips them with necessary skills with which they will keep acquiring new knowledge
and competences.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the criticism against ICC teaching goes
against a considerable difficulty of assessing it, as learning and teaching ICC is a fairly
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