Factors influencing the Mandarin teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs and practices

Abstract

Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has become an essential objective in foreign language education. Accordingly, language teachers are required to integrate ICC in classroom teaching. It is necessary to identify critical factors contributing to teachers’ teaching beliefs and practices about the cultivation of ICC in MFL classes to provide adequate training to them. This study, therefore, examined Bruneian Mandarin as a Foreign Language teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs and practices and explored factors that could contribute to individual differences among them. A quantitative research design was adopted, wherein an online survey consisting of 55 questions concerning intercultural aspects of MFL teaching was distributed to 30 Bruneian MFL school teachers. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data. The results revealed an average intercultural teaching profile among the MFL teachers. In addition, the study found that educational levels showed significant differences among the teachers.