Intercultural Communicative Competence

// English Language and Literature Studies Vol. 1, No. 2; December 2011. P. 113-122This paper reports on a survey conducted at a university in Beijing, China into students’ intercultural knowledge. Surveys with both close-ended and open-ended questions were distributed to the students and questionnaires with open-ended questions were also sent to the international teachers. By means of quantitative and qualitative research methods, this paper (a) analyzes the problems the surveyed students have with their intercultural communicative competence (b) examines the reasons for the students’ failures in intercultural communication and (c) explores what intercultural knowledge should be taught in class.