Toward the internationalization of higher education: developing university students’ intercultural communicative competence in Spain

ABSTRACT

Globalization has impacted higher education to an unprecedented degree, resulting in a need for students and teachers to be prepared for interaction in culturally and linguistically diverse environments at home and abroad, in both the university and the workplace. The present case study at a university in Spain collected questionnaire, individual interview, and focus group data from students pursuing academic degree programs with international profiles, to investigate students' level of intercultural communicative competence by looking at their attitudes, knowledge, experience and reflections. Recommendations for improving students' intercultural experience are extrapolated from the results.

RESUMEN

Debido al impacto sin precedentes de la globalización en la educación superior, alumnos y profesores han tenido que desarrollar competencias para desenvolverse en entornos cultural y lingüísticamente diversos, sea a nivel nacional o internacional, en el mundo académico o laboral. El presente estudio de caso se llevó a cabo en una universidad española, en titulaciones de perfiles internacionales, mediante una encuesta y entrevistas individuales o grupales. Pretende explorar su nivel de competencia comunicativa intercultural abarcando sus actitudes, conocimientos, experiencias y reflexiones. A partir de los resultados se extrapolarán recomendaciones con objeto de mejorar la experiencia intercultural de los estudiantes.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural identity
• intercultural communication
• multiculturalism
• plurilingualism
• intercultural education
• globalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This publication was partially supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) No. 18K00805.

Notes on contributors

Birgit Strotmann

Birgit Strotmann is a lecturer and researcher at Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, Spain, where she teaches in the fields of strategic and intercultural communication. She holds a PhD in English Studies and has over 20 years’ university teaching experience in both Spain and Germany. Her research interests include CLIL/EMI, the internationalisation of higher education and intercultural communication. She is a presenter at national and international conferences and has published in journals such as the TESOL Quarterly or Les Langues Modernes. She is a member of IATEFL and TESOL-SPAIN, having served on the board of the latter for over 20 years.

Claudia Kunschak

Claudia Kunschak is Professor of English language education at the College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. She has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Arizona and an M.A. in Interpreting from the University of Vienna. Over the years, she has taught at universities in Austria, China, Japan, Scotland, Spain, Ukraine and the US. Her research interests have always tried to bridge language in society with language in the classroom and include English Lingua Franca, intercultural communication and multilingual communities of practice.