La competencia comunicativa intercultural en la práctica docente. Percepción del alumnado de posgrado en lenguas extranjeras

This study examines postgraduate students’ beliefs and their self-perceptions of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in Spain. They are enrolled in 4 master’s programmes related to foreign language (FL) teaching, two at the University of Oviedo and the other two at the University of Granada. Participants completed a questionnaire that measured their ICC in terms of their awareness of similarities and differences among languages and socio-cultural aspects. A quantitative analysis of the data was performed, and the results provide insights about participants’ beliefs regarding their ICC inventory. It seems factors such as ‘university’, ‘master’s degree’ or ‘gender’ do not provide significant differences, but ‘age’ does in some cases. There is a mild relationship between how participants feel or think (attitudes) and what they know (knowledge) but it is not strong enough to take into consideration. Living abroad for longer periods (over six months) has a positive impact on their perception and understanding of language and culture. Future study research is suggested as regards masters’ students’ ICC and its influence on their future teaching practice.