Developing Intercultural Competence as Part of Professional Qualifications. A Training Experiment

Abstract

The internationalization and globalization of working life sets specific requirements on professional education including professionally integrated foreign language education, the overall goal of which should be intercultural competence.The paper discusses a training experiment in intercultural communication, especially the effectiveness of training in developing the various components of intercultural competence. The training experiment included both a face-to-face tuition period and a self-study period with a multimedia- and Web-based Culture-General Assimilator consisting of a number of critical incidents. The participants of the experiment were 117 Bachelor of Engineering students at Kajaani Polytechnic, Finland.Besides assessing the effectiveness of intercultural training, the experiment aimed at mapping out what kind of communicators the students are and would like to be, whether they are motivated to develop their intercultural competence, and what they think about intercultural competence as part of their professional qualifications.