Optimizing Medical English Teaching through Intercultural Competence: A Quantitative Analysis in Chinese Vocational Institutions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of integrating cross-cultural competence into medical English teaching on improving the English learning outcomes of medical students in Chinese vocational colleges. Using quantitative research methods, a 16-week cross-cultural integration medical English teaching experiment was designed and implemented with 108 medical students in a vocational college. The 108 students were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group was taught with cross-cultural content, while the control group was taught with traditional teaching methods. Before and after the study, students in both groups were tested on English listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, pragmatic skills, and intercultural competence. Through statistical analyses such as independent samples t-test, repeated measures ANOVA and structural equation modeling, the results of the study showed that: (1) the experimental group made significantly better progress than the control group in English listening, speaking, reading, writing, pragmatics, and cross-cultural competence; (2) cross-cultural competence partially mediated the improvement of the overall English proficiency; (3) cross-cultural competence had a significant impact on the experimental group's pragmatics and oral communication; and (4) cross-cultural competence had a significant impact on the experimental group's oral communication and pragmatics. s pragmatics and oral communication skills significantly. This study provides an evidence-based cross-cultural integration teaching model for medical English teaching, which can help Chinese vocational colleges and universities to cultivate medical talents with cross-cultural literacy to better meet the needs of international medical cooperation and communication.