BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH LANGUAGE: ENHANCING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has become a crucial aspect of foreign language teaching and learning. Language and culture are deeply interconnected, with culture being expressed through language. Therefore, learning a new language without understanding its cultural context is incomplete. Today, English speakers face two significant challenges: adapting to global cultures and effectively representing their local culture in comparison to others. This study aims to investigate the lived experiences of university-level English teachers in promoting intercultural communication within English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms. Using a qualitative research approach, the study adopts an interpretive paradigm and phenomenological design. Four English language teachers from the central campus of Far Western University served as participants. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and personal narratives. The findings indicate that the participants view the promotion of intercultural communication positively, both in fostering global cultural understanding and in highlighting local cultural identities. The proposed tasks are versatile and adaptable to various learning contexts, addressing students' specific needs and interests. They integrate the four language skills and simultaneously emphasize communicative and intercultural competencies. By fostering these abilities, the tasks aim to develop learners into effective mediators in the foreign language teaching and learning process.