A model of intercultural competence and its implications for the foreign language curriculum

Abstract

Although study abroad has often been promoted as an effective means of developing cross-cultural knowledge and skills, this process has been difficult to assess due to the challenge of defining intercultural competence.This chapter reports the results of a research project designed to answer to this question. Using a Delphi technique for group consensus building, 20 intercultural experts engaged in successive rounds of proposing and rating definitions, ultimately achieving 80% agreement or higher on key characteristics of intercultural competence. Not only useful for understanding what is meant by intercultural competence, these characteristics also form the basis for a new cyclical and dynamic conceptualization of the process of developing intercultural skills.This model holds implications for curriculum design and assessment, which are discussed as well, particularly as they relate to the concerns of language educators.