Speaker
Description
Understanding culture in foreign language learning is crucial, and as a result, students’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has garnered significant research attention recently. This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions of role-play activities in developing students’ ICC, focusing on its components: knowledge, intercultural attitudes, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness. Conducted in a Vietnamese setting, the study employs a mixed-methods design involving 24 EFL teachers as participants and two of them are interviewed participants. Particularly, quantitative data were collected through a structured questionnaire based on Byram’s ICC model, while qualitative data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. Additionally, statistical analysis included reliability tests, descriptive statistics, and paired sample T-tests. The primary data indicate that teachers perceive role-play activities positively in developing students’ ICC and core results show high mean scores across all ICC components, with all of them are considered equally. These findings highlight the practical implications of role-play in ICC development. Moreover, the study underscores the significant role of role-play activities in fostering students’ ICC and emphasizes the need for integrating such activities into EFL teaching practices.
Biography
This is a research paper that I conducted during my Master's degree at Can Tho University. The study aimed to explore EFL teachers' perceptions of role-play activities in developing students' ICC. The study applied a mixed method approach to shed light on teachers' perceptions of this learning activity. The participants were 24 EFL teachers, of whom two were invited to speak for the purpose of collecting interview data. The data were then analyzed using computer tools for quantitative data, and the qualitative analysis process involved two co-checkers. The results showed that teachers' perceptions of the application of role-play in teaching practice to help students enhance their intercultural communication competence were positive and optimistic. The study highlighted the important role of role-play activities in promoting students' ICC and emphasized the need to integrate such activities into EFL teaching practices. It is hoped that this study will lay the foundation for the application of role play in teaching activities.
