Rethinking Intercultural Communication Competence in English Language Teaching: A Gap between Lecturers' Perspectives and Practices in a Southeast Asian Tertiary Context.
It is undeniable that the existence of internationalization has given a great deal of influences within various fields of worldwide nations, namely science, technology, economics, politics, and even education. One of its obvious results is the emergence of intercultural communication and English language has then become as a bridge for cross cultural communication, thanks to its worldwide lingua franca. For these reasons, Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) should be more concerned in English Language Teaching (ELT) tertiary contexts. Although ICC in ELT has been long discussed in the previous studies of Vietnamese tertiary contexts, its investigations are revealed differently and separately with regard to its theoretical analysis in this context or its practices in English classrooms. This study aims to gain an indepth understanding on this issue by investigating English teachers' perceptions and practices on ICC in ELT in the context of Vietnamese southern tertiary institutions. The study uses a mixed method, namely a survey questionnaire and interviews to English lecturers from six southern universities in Vietnam. The findings of the study reveal the positive attitudes of English lecturers on ICC in ELT, but certain challenges confronted by their implementations have been highlighted. As a result, some possible measures to enhance ICC engagement in ELT in this context are proposed.