Theories and models of intercultural competence

Intercultural competence is the fundamental concept in intercultural communication studies [1]. Scholars worldwide have been constructing models or building theories of intercultural competence from various perspectives. Intercultural competence has been conceptualized differently by many scholars depending on their theoretical backgrounds or study subjects [2]. Spitzberg and Changnon conducted a systematic review of intercultural competence theories and models in the existing literature. They divided the current models of intercultural competence into five categories: compositional, co-orientational, developmental, adaptational, and causal process [3]. From such a classification, we could glimpse the complexity and diversity of intercultural competence concepts.

Deardorff’s study documented outstanding intercultural experts’ consensus using the Delphi methods. Among all the definitions provided, the top-rated definition of intercultural competence was ‘the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes’ [4]. Deardorff also found that the definition of intercultural competence that 24 U.S. international institutional administrators found most acceptable was the one drawn from Byram’s study. In Byram’s model, intercultural communicative competence is composed of linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and intercultural competence, which further includes attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting/relating, skill sf discovering/interaction, and critical cultural awareness [5]. Byram’s model proposes attainable educational objectives in foreign language education, and aims to produce intercultural speakers instead of native-like speakers. At the same time, it is also a model highlighting the importance of foreign language proficiency. The two characteristics made Byram’s model one of the most highly cited, widely tested, and practiced models in educational and foreign language teaching contexts [4]. Therefore, it is used as the theoretical framework of the current study.

English curriculum reform in China over the past four decades

Since implementing the Reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China’s global connectivity has constantly risen. In 1982, the Chinese Ministry of Education formally proposed English as the first foreign language in school education, and English education in China was then put on a fast track. In the college entrance examination, which is considered the baton of Chinese education, there are six foreign languages (English, Russian, Japanese, Germany, French, and Spanish) that can be chosen. According to the data from the Ministry of Education, in 2022, 19.13 million candidates participated in the college entrance examination. However, only 300,000 chose the other five foreign languages as exam subjects, showing English’s dominant position as the first foreign language in Chinese educational context.

English has been a necessary part of school curricula at various educational levels for the past forty years. Therefore, ongoing reforms of the English curriculum have been made to keep up with the requirements raised by the new era [6]. Li summarized the historical change in the objectives and characteristics of English language teaching in China from 1978–2012 [7]. During 1978–1992, the objectives of English teaching emphasized cultivating students’ reading ability and mastering English language knowledge. Between 1993 and 2000, attention began to be paid to developing students’ overall competence, and language learning began to include content beyond the structure of language knowledge. In 2000, developing students’ understanding of cultural differences and their awareness of the world through English education was proposed for the first time. From 2000 to 2012, the most notable sign of English curriculum reform in China was the replacement of the syllabus with curriculum standards. The curriculum standards set requirements not only for knowledge, competence and skills, but also for emotions, attitudes, values and intercultural communicative awareness. More importantly, the curriculum standards placed these non-intellectual requirements on an equally important footing with those intellectual ones. At this stage, the objectives of the English language curriculum break away from the traditional instrumentalist ideology of knowledge orientation and highlight the close relationship between language and culture, requiring teachers to properly deal with the relationship between the two in their teaching process. As stated in the latest documents of the National English Curriculum Standards (2011 version and 2022 version), English is now taught as a subject from grade three in primary schools throughout China. The Curriculum Standards sets goals for English education from the language proficiency, learning strategy, thinking quality, and cultural awareness. The Curriculum Standards states that primary school students are expected to reach Level 2 after three or four years of English study from grades 3 to 6. According to the 2022 Curriculum Standards, cultural awareness in the initial stage is to help students understand the outstanding civilizational achievements of different countries and the similarities and differences between Chinese and other cultures.

Reviewing the two most current Curriculum Standards allows us to conclude that the equal emphasis on the instrumental and humanistic nature of English is becoming increasingly important in English teaching, as opposed to the conventional instrumental function. Developing students’ intercultural competence has become one of the key objectives of English language teaching in China, starting from the elementary education stage. Such emphasis aims to meet the demands of students’ personal development to prepare them for the challenges of living in a diverse and dynamic multicultural environment.

Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching (IFLT)

Although cultivating learners’ intercultural competence has become a major goal for foreign language education, cultural teaching has always been a weak link in English education, especially at the compulsory level. English teaching for pupils has remained strongly instrumental, almost obscuring the language’s cultural meaning and humanistic spirit [8]. As observed in many studies, culture is simply regarded as the encyclopedic knowledge to be taught, and students need to memorize that knowledge rather than explore it by themselves [9]. Liddicoat thinks that intercultural language pedagogy includes two aspects. The first is that it engages with the interrelatedness of language culture and learning and the different languages and cultures in the classroom. The second aspect is recognizing that there are always at least two languages in use at every moment—the target language and the learners’ first language [10]. However, due to the profound influence of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), most English teachers are pushing for an all-English classroom. They attempt to exclude the learners’ mother tongue as much as possible because it is seen as a barrier to acquiring a foreign language. Scholars from home and abroad compare intercultural foreign language teaching and traditional, knowledge-oriented teaching methods [11–13]. The difference between the two methods is that while traditional language teaching emphasizes the acquisition of linguistic knowledge; IFLT pays attention not only to language proficiency but also to the home culture, foreign cultures, and culture in general. In short, IFLT aims to integrate foreign language teaching and cultural teaching to promote the joint development of students’ language ability and intercultural competence [13]. During the process, language teachers are no longer concerned only with skills or knowledge which appear to be value-free; they should provide learners with a safe learning environment where students are willing to take risks to critically reflect on their own culture and the culture in question [14]. Such a pedagogical change obviously requires a change in the role and teaching method of teachers and therefore places new demands on foreign language teachers.

Furthermore, although researchers’ interest in intercultural foreign language teaching has been on the rise, research on IFLT in elementary education is insufficient. Compared with abundant studies in tertiary education, the cultivation of young learners’ intercultural competence is under-researched [13, 15]. In contrast to the lack of research on IFLT at the primary level, numerous studies have confirmed the importance and necessity of intercultural education for children. Children aged 3–4 years already begin categorizing people according to race and ethnicity, and obvious comparisons between ethnic groups emerge [16, 17]. Powlishta et al. [18] emphasize the need for intercultural education for children, as stereotypes are formed in childhood and cemented in the adolescent stage. The development of intercultural competence not only enhances children’s sense of identity but also stimulates their sensitivity to other cultures and their awareness of openness and tolerance [19, 20]. In addition, a meta-analysis found a significant decline in the strength of intervention effects on students’ intercultural competence from K-12 to tertiary education, which again proved the importance and necessity of implementing IFLT at the elementary level [21].

Intercultural foreign language teachers

To achieve the transformation from traditional language teaching to intercultural foreign language teaching, the role of language teachers as agents of change are essential. Hence, efforts to understand their position and opinions are important as foreign language teaching is moving towards more comprehensive goals. Intercultural competence is not something that learners can ‘pick up by themselves when they go to a foreign country’ [10]. It requires the efforts of foreign language teachers to equip their students with the set of attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed in intercultural communication. In this way, it implies that language teachers should become intercultural competent themselves and be prepared for the new challenges raised by the new era [12, 22].

Following this line of thought, teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward IFLT have received much attention. Representative research abroad includes Sercu and Bandura’s survey of the cultural teaching beliefs and attitudes of 424 secondary school foreign language teachers [23]; Oranje & Smith’s survey of the intercultural language teaching beliefs of language teachers in 76 high schools in New Zealand [24]. Chinese representative research includes Shao’s survey on the intercultural sensitivity and cultural teaching status of 35 English teachers in 4 high schools in Jiangsu Province [25]. Zhang’s study on the beliefs of intercultural competence of foreign language teachers in universities in Wuhan [26] and Han’s research of intercultural communicative competence and intercultural competence teaching cognition of 1081 English teachers in 39 universities across China [27].

Those studies mentioned above have found that foreign language teachers’ beliefs at home and abroad have not changed substantially. Although teachers mostly agree on the critical role of culture or intercultural competence in foreign languages, they have uncertain attitudes and ambivalent emotions about integrating cultural dimensions into language teaching. The dominant teaching method is teacher-centered, and the primary purpose is to impart the language and cultural knowledge of the target country. Language competence is still the top priority, while intercultural competence is an ‘add-on’ part of language education.

In addition, studies also found that teachers have little acquaintance with culture theory and need more pedagogical training in cultural teaching [28]. Their approaches to culture are mainly essentialist and nationalist, based on Communicative Language Teaching method [29]. Due to the lack of awareness and knowledge of intercultural education, teachers attach importance of the English language to native speakers’ language and cultural norms [30], and they tend to link cultural content directly to English-speaking countries [31].

The results of the studies mentioned above indicate that although the cultivation of learners’ intercultural competence has become an educational objective at the national level, foreign language teachers do not keep up with the trend to some extent.

Factors that may affect teachers’ implementation of IFLT

Studies have shown that a range of personal, sociocultural, and institutional variables, including a person’s cultural background, work experiences, and school community, affect teachers’ implementation of teaching intercultural competence [32, 33]. For example, studies found that teachers’ intercultural encounters significantly impacted their beliefs on intercultural education [32, 34], and negative inter-group contact was associated with reduced intercultural competence [35–37]. Another study discovered that teachers’ problematic understanding of culture limited teachers’ identification of intercultural objectives in language education [38]. A study also found that teachers did not understand the concept of intercultural competence [39], and they lumped members of the target culture together [31]. Research by Maijala identified three significant challenges for cultural teaching: how to incorporate culture into lessons, using the target language, and using personal cultural experiences in a pedagogically helpful manner [40].

Contextual factors were also discovered to have greatly affected language teachers’ instruction of intercultural competence compared to the individual factors listed above. Several studies proved that the lack of time available to teach intercultural content, appropriate teaching materials, and teacher training in teaching intercultural competence could hinder EFL teachers’ willingness to implement IFLT [41–43]. Salli’s study proved the effectiveness of a training session in achieving the ICC goals in foreign language education through action research [44]. While Safa and Tofighi’s study implied that teacher training programs in Iran mediate the development of intercultural competence theory aspects, they do not result in the development of the necessary skills for the implementation of intercultural competence in pedagogical practices [45]. The current teacher training programs in the field of interculturality encourage participants’ reflection, but it has the weakness of being non-contextual, inflexible and dominated by theoretical learning [46]. Through the analysis of research papers, Romijn et al. argued that the effectiveness of an embedded and contextual approach in which reflection is guided and enactment is fostered is most likely to enhance teachers’ intercultural competence [47]. Since textbooks are the primary tools teachers use to teach foreign languages, another essential facet of IFLT research is the teaching materials. Many studies examined the intercultural content in textbooks used in educational contexts [48–50]. Song’s study investigated the strength and weaknesses of the cultural content in one of the most extensively used textbooks in China. She found that the strength of this textbook lies in its great deal of general cultural content, but it severely neglected the source culture compared to the target culture [49]. Minh and Phuong discovered that textbooks in Vietnam do not provide students with opportunities for intercultural learning, and the books also tend to present a static view of culture [51]. Teachers also felt the scattered, overgeneralized, and stereotypical culture presentation in textbooks [52]. In addition, several studies have pointed out the importance of involving more outer and expanding circle countries in textbooks [53] as well as general cultural knowledge [15]. Although a study demonstrates that teachers can successfully use EFL textbooks along with possible teaching resources that include cultural values to foster learners’ intercultural competence [54], most research indicates that the currently used textbooks are not appropriate for the cultivation of intercultural competence [51, 55].

Gap in the literature review

From the above literature review, we can find that the state has emphasized the importance of developing students’ intercultural competence through foreign language education from its policy orientation. The Curriculum Standards also set out the levels of intercultural competence that students are expected to achieve by the end of primary school. However, this is in contrast to the lack of research on IFLT at primary level. In addition, foreign language teachers’ role is of essential importance in the implementation of such a transformation. However, most studies on foreign language teachers mentioned above put their research contexts in secondary or higher education, and none of them has been focused on primary school EFL teachers specifically. There is not enough research on the IFLT at primary school levels and among primary school EFL teachers. The lack of research in this area does not match its importance. Furthermore, most of the related studies use the questionnaire method as the main way to collect data. The questionnaire allows for a large amount of data to be obtained about the current state of teachers’ opinions of IFLT, but it is limited in that it does not explain why teachers think this way. Another limitation of the questionnaire is that teachers’ answers are limited by the options provided in the questionnaire, making it difficult to get insightful answers from teachers. In other words, what do front-line language teachers consider to be the factors that facilitate or hinder IFLT? What support do front-line teachers need in order to get the national policy implemented? Based on the above discussion, this research targets primary school EFL teachers in China, trying to answer the following research questions using convergent mixed methods:

1. How prepared are Chinese primary school EFL teachers to meet the requirement of IFLT raised in the Curriculum Standards?
2. What affects Chinese primary school EFL teachers’ implementation of IFLT?
3. What support do Chinese primary school EFL teachers need to implement IFLT?

Research design

A mixed methods design was used in the current study. A mixed methods design is one that ‘include at least one quantitative method (designed to collect numbers) and one qualitative method (designed to collect words)’ [56]. The researcher combined qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to have a ‘breadth and depth understanding and corroboration’ [57].

In this study, the researchers employed the convergent design, in which the researcher collected and analysed two separate databases—quantitative and qualitative—and then merged the two databases to compare or comb the results [56]. Fig 1 is the flow chart of the convergent mixed methods design. Data were collected in two different forms with the intent of obtaining a more complete understanding of the research questions.

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Fig 1. Convergent mixed methods design.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.g001

Firstly, quantitative data from a large number of teachers were needed to generate an overall picture. However, due to the complex nature of IFLT, it is not enough to gain comprehensive insight by using a questionnaire alone. A semi-structured interview allowed the participants to express their views in their own words, tell stories, or talk about their personal experiences without being limited by answer types. Therefore, the convergent mixed methods design, using both quantitative and qualitative data, provide the potential to explore a fuller and more meaningful and comprehensive understanding of the research questions than if either data has been used alone.

Research instrument

A questionnaire was used to collect the data from Chinese primary school EFL teachers. The questionnaire is written in Chinese and English to ensure that participants understand every question. The questionnaire design refers to Sercu and Bandura’s instrument and is shaped to be more appropriate for primary school EFL teachers in the Chinese context [23]. It is a questionnaire that contains six parts with 28 items. In this article, the researchers only focus on the parts related to the research questions listed above. There would be a consent form before the online questionnaire began. By ticking the box YES, the participants were providing consent. At the end of the online questionnaire, the researchers asked those willing to participate in the following interviews to leave their contact information. For those willing to participate in the interview, an additional participant information sheet would be provided before the interview and/or classroom observation, and a hard copy of the consent form was obtained before the interview started. Finally, ten teachers were interviewed. The Ethical Committee of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David approved the whole project.

Participants

The researchers recruited participating teachers through the Primary Teacher Education Alliance. Universities and education administrative departments initiated the Primary Teacher Education Alliance in central China. One hundred fifty-six primary schools have joined the alliance, ranging from elite urban primary schools to backward rural ones. The researchers used a snowballing sampling method to recruit the participants. Questionnaires were first sent to the liaisons of each school, and they were asked to distribute the questionnaires to the EFL teachers in their schools. Teachers who received the questionnaire can also forward it to primary school English teachers they know. The researchers received a total of 97 questionnaires, of which 93 were valid, which constituted the quantitative data source of this study. The demographic information about the 93 participants is listed in Table 1, and school information is listed in Table 2.

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Table 1. Demographic information of participants.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t001

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Table 2. School information.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t002

Among the 93 primary schools EFL teachers, 86.02% were female, and 13.98% were male. The majority of them (70.32%) were young teachers under the age of 35. More than half (n = 60, 64.51%) of the teachers were novice teachers with less than five years of teaching experience. Of all the primary EFL teachers, 87.1% had a Bachelor’s Degree, 6.45% had a Master’s Degree, and 2.15% had a Doctoral Degree. Regarding their teaching load, 96.78% taught under 20 hours per week. Most teachers (83.69%) were required to teach around 200 students. Two hundred students might be surprising for counterparts in Western countries, but the average class size in China is 40–70 students due to its huge population. Two hundred students in total means a teacher is in charge of 3–4 classes on average, which is quite reasonable in the Chinese context.

The school information presented a more balanced image. Nearly half of the teachers (40.86%) come from big schools with more than 1000 students. Teachers were balanced distributed in urban/ suburban/ rural schools, providing a good chance for the researcher to get an overall picture. 40.86% of teachers describe their school community as mostly lower and middle income, but a considerable number of teachers come from mostly lower-income (21.51%) and mostly middle-income communities (26.88%).

Ten teachers accepted the researchers’ interview. The researchers identified them as T1 to T10 to protect their privacy. The personal information of the ten interviewees is shown in Table 3.

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Table 3. Personal information of ten interviewees.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t003

Ten interviewees share the same educational backgrounds. They all hold bachelor’s degrees. With ages ranging from 22 to 46 years old, teaching experience varies from half a year to 23 years. In total, four teachers come from cities, six from rural areas, and four based on county.

Data collection and analysis procedures

The questionnaire was sent to the liaison in each primary school, who would send the link to EFL teachers in their schools. The questionnaire was pilot-tested with a convenient sample of 3 EFL teachers from different primary schools. One of them had been an EFL teacher for three years and is now a doctorate student in English Language Education. Such an educational and working background makes her suggestion to the point. Some changes were made. Then the formal questionnaires were sent out.

Quantitative data were computer-coded, and the SPSSAU (V20.0) online data science algorithm tool was used to analyze data. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used. The specific statistical methods used will be reported in the findings and discussions.

Interviews were conducted using an interview guide to ensure all relevant topics were covered and allowed free exploring topics that came up through the interview process. Thematic analysis was used to code and analyze qualitative data. The researchers followed the six phases that Braun and Clarke proposed to create meaningful patterns [58]. The six phases are: familiarizing with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes among codes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final report. The first author is the primary transcriber and coder. The first phase, familiarization with data, occurred through transcription as the researchers listened to the interviews and transcribed the conversation. Once all interviews were transcribed, the information was divided up into domains to build up relevant themes. These domains were created from the interview guide questions based on the research questions.

Teachers’ degree of preparation for IFLT

According to the Curriculum Standards, English subject is expected to cultivate students’ intercultural competence, and there are specific grading standards for children of different ages to achieve in different compulsory education stages. Teachers were asked to indicate how well prepared they are to meet the Curriculum Standards in terms of intercultural teaching, including helping students to form intercultural awareness and to increase their sensitivity to cultural differences, which in turn improves their intercultural communicative competence. Table 4 provides teachers’ responses to these questions.

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Table 4. Teacher preparedness in meeting the national standards -by frequency and by mean score.

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In general, teachers are poorly prepared for the humanistic aspects of English language education and the enhancement of students’ intercultural competence through English education. We can see from Table 4 that up to 67.74% of teachers choose either inadequately prepared or not well prepared for the first question, and 64.52% of teachers have the same choices for the second question. Whether we judge from the humanity nature of English courses or from the perspective of improving pupils’ intercultural sensitivity, the data showed the same results. This unpreparedness can also be seen in the mean score. The researcher assigned different scores to the four answers, namely inadequately prepared (1), not well prepared (2), adequately prepared (3) and very well prepared (4). The mean scores for the two questions were 2.215 and 2.290, respectively, which shows that teachers are not well prepared for both cultural teaching goals. The median scores for the two questions also reflect teachers’ unpreparedness from another statistical perspective.

Another two questions to indicate teachers’ preparation are the main ways in which they acquire intercultural knowledge and the amount of time they currently spend on expanding their intercultural knowledge and skills per week. Tables 5 and 6 show the results.

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Table 5. Teachers’ main ways in acquiring intercultural knowledge.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t005

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Table 6. Time devoted to self-improvement in intercultural knowledge/skills.

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Teachers’ main ways of acquiring intercultural knowledge are ‘watching movies and TV series home and abroad’ (84.95%) and ‘reading newspapers, magazines or journal articles about intercultural competence’ (55.91%). This shows that most teachers do not regard the acquisition of intercultural knowledge as a serious matter. The main way they acquire intercultural knowledge—watching movies and TV series—is more like a means of entertainment rather than a means of formal learning. A similar conclusion can be drawn from the percentage of teachers who participated in relevant seminars or symposiums as a main way to get intercultural knowledge. The number was 7.53%, only 7 out of 93 teachers chose this option.

The picture would be more comprehensive if we take a look at the time teachers currently spend on expanding their intercultural knowledge/skills per week (Table 6). Around 57% of teachers spent less than one-hour acquiring intercultural knowledge and skills. Teachers who spend one hour or more in this area account for around 30%. Such a result implies that although teachers honestly admit that they are not well prepared for implementing IFLT, they do not regard it seriously, since most of them do not devote much time to improve themselves in this regard.

Affecting factors of teachers’ implementation of IFLT

Teachers reported that they were not well prepared for the implementation of IFLT. Naturally, one may wonder about the reason behind such a situation. In the next question, the researcher asked those teachers what the reasons are for choosing not to spend more time in IFLT, the data obtained are shown in Table 7.

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Table 7. Reasons for not devote more time to IFLT.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t007

As can be seen from Table 7, the four options with the highest response rate are ‘shortage of suitable resources’ (59.14%), ‘lack of training in intercultural competence myself’(58.06%), ‘lack of time in the class’(44.09%) and ‘poor knowledge of foreign culture’(41.94%). Among the four most frequently selected reasons, ‘lack of time in the class’ is the third reason, while this was the most often chosen reason in Sercu and Bandura’s investigation [23]. What is more, this number is significantly lower than the top two reasons. It can be inferred that lack of time in class is not the main reason why teachers cannot carry out intercultural teaching in the Chinese context. The remaining three main options can be roughly divided into two categories: insufficient teaching resources and insufficient training in intercultural competence for teachers.

The researchers also interviewed teachers about the main factors that affect their implementation of IFLT. In this way, teachers could offer answers without being limited by the options provided in the questionnaire. From the qualitative data analysis results, textbooks, the current evaluation system, teachers’ lack of literacy in intercultural competence, insufficient teacher training on intercultural competence, and lack of time are the five main factors that affect teachers’ implementation of IFLT.

The first and most frequently mentioned factor is textbooks. When selecting supplementary cultural materials, assigning homework, or organizing after-class activities, the first factor that teachers consider is whether the material chosen or activities organized are related to the textbooks:

First of all, it has to be related to our textbooks. It is necessary to consider not only the cultural content but also the language points. For example, the text of The Four Great Inventions is an article written in the past tense. The main language point of this unit is the usage of the past tense, so when we choose reading materials for students, we consider the cultural content as well as the language knowledge. (T3)

It should be related to the content of this unit. The words and sentence patterns in it can match the articles in the textbooks, that is the best. (T4)

It can be seen that textbooks are the first consideration for teachers. It can even be said that textbooks play a leading role in teachers’ teaching. Therefore, if the cultural presentation or intercultural content in the textbook is insufficient, it is easy for teachers to think that intercultural competence is not important. In fact, such a view was also reflected in the interview:

The textbook does not focus on culture at all. It focuses on the function of the language…to know this word, to know this sentence pattern…to be able to achieve basic communication. The design of the textbook does not pay attention to the culture…I think it does not pay attention to it, at least in the third and fourth grades. It is just a basic communication of words and sentences. (T5)

An important reason why this teacher did not deliberately carry out intercultural teaching in his/her teaching was that he/she believed that textbooks did not pay attention to the cultural aspect. In contrast, language knowledge was the core content of textbooks. Therefore, the teaching focus should be language knowledge. Such views are quite popular among teachers. In the interviews, the vast majority of teachers mentioned the leading role of textbooks in their teaching. Therefore, correspondingly, if the presentation of cultural content in the textbook does not meet teachers’ expectations, they would easily consider textbooks as one of the factors that are restricting IFLT:

(The biggest difficulty is) textbooks. Because our teaching are based on textbooks. Everything follows the teaching materials; textbooks are used as a guide. (T5)

(The biggest difficulty is) textbooks. Textbooks limit teachers’ teaching. The second is teachers’ quality. Our theoretical knowledge (on intercultural competence) is not enough. (T6)

The limitation of textbooks on IFLT is also reflected in another aspect, i.e., the current evaluation system. In the current evaluation system, the focus of the evaluation is students’ mastery of the language knowledge in the textbook. Due to the complexity of intercultural competence assessment, the evaluation of students’ intercultural competence is often not the focus or even ignored. Such a tendency also makes teachers pay more attention to the language knowledge in the teaching materials while ignoring intercultural competence intentionally or unintentionally.

For example, if that article helps me to train my students to read, I might teach, because we have exams after all, right? If you always focus on that (culture), it is not good; we still need to deal with exams. If the article seems to be not very related to the focus of the unit and it is relatively long, I have to spend a lot of time on that article. Then I might just mention it and go on. That’s the way it is. (T2)

The biggest difficulty is that our students may still pay more attention to grades. (T3)

Teachers are talking about the importance of test scores, while the focus of the test is on language knowledge in textbooks rather than (inter)cultural knowledge, which makes both textbooks and the current evaluation system realistic factors that restrict the cultivation of students’ intercultural competence. This environment makes teachers and students unconsciously take language knowledge acquisition as their primary goal in teaching/learning a foreign language.

In addition, teachers’ lack of literacy in intercultural competence is also an important reason why IFLT cannot be successfully implemented. In fact, it is a common phenomenon among primary school EFL teachers to think that they do not have enough knowledge or understanding of intercultural competence:

I don’t think I am very clear about these things (culture). I’m still at a very shallow level. I just stop at introducing some cultural knowledge to students and let them know there is such a thing. That’s how it is. (T4)

Because first of all…Although I am an English teacher, we are also in a kind of… . when it comes to foreign countries…actually I don’t know much… . In fact, for all of us, we have a relatively shallow understanding of their culture, so when we teach students, very deep cultural exchange does not exist, I think. It is just about language structure…very simple…just language level, it doesn’t involve culture. (T5)

Those quotes were consistent with teachers’ unpreparedness for IFLT in the quantitative data. Teachers believe that they have insufficient literacy in intercultural competence, so they can only carry out cultural teaching in a relatively simple way. To promote the implementation of IFLT, teachers’ IFLT ability is very important. This ability includes not only teachers’ understanding of other countries’ cultures, but also teachers’ ability to design and implement intercultural teaching based on the characteristics of cultural teaching as well as teaching materials. The improvement of teachers’ IFLT ability is far from enough to rely only on teachers’ self-study. Teachers also realized this problem too. Many teachers mentioned insufficient education and training in intercultural competence:

I don’t know what kind of activities can really promote students’ intercultural competence. In the past, including in university, my teachers may have mentioned this aspect, but I still lack deep understanding. (T1)

I still don’t know how to cultivate children’s intercultural competence systematically and consciously. In fact, I think that as teachers, we receive relatively little education and training in this area. (T7)

As can be seen from the above introduction, whether in school or in in-service training, teachers thought they had not received enough education and training in intercultural competence, so they did not know how to systematically cultivate students’ intercultural competence. This leads to random and fragmented cultural teaching observed in many studies [11, 12]. Hence, we can say that training on teachers’ IFLT ability should be a focus of teacher education. The current frequency of training on teachers’ intercultural competence cannot keep up with the requirement of the times.

Finally, teachers generally lack time and energy for self-improvement in any form. At present, heavy tasks and many trivial affairs for front-line teachers is a quite common phenomena in China. The impact of teachers’ lack of time and energy is mainly reflected in two aspects. First, teachers do not have enough time to dig deep into the cultural content of textbooks, so language knowledge as the focus of teaching has become a ‘shortcut’; Second, teachers do not have time for self-improvement. As a result, it leads to teachers’ lack of literacy in intercultural competence:

Because I taught in rural school before, at that time it (English) was not a major subject. I also taught mathematics at that time, I did not have the time and energy to dig deep into the textbooks of English, so I would only focus on language itself. (T5)

There are actually quite a lot of online training courses, but indeed…we have very heavy tasks, some required online training courses…to be honest… we do not have time to (watch). We have to spend a lot of time preparing lessons, making PPT, grading the papers for students… . many things. Training is supposed to be a good way…to improve…I think it is really good if you have time to listen, but the reality is that we don’t have time. In addition, we don’t have the energy to learn. I can’t devote myself to learning. It takes time and energy to study. (T4)

From the above quotes, we can see that lacking time and energy has restricted the improvement of teaching quality, and has also become an important reason for restricting the implementation of IFLT. In the interview, we can feel that most teachers are aware of their lack of preparation for implementing IFLT, but due to the constraints of practical conditions, even if they recognize the problem, they do not have the time or energy to improve themselves. This also helps explain why up to 73.12% of teachers spend less than two hours per week on improving intercultural knowledge/skills even though they clearly understand their unpreparedness. How can we enable teachers have enough time to prepare for the class is an important issue that need to be addressed in China.

To conclude, from teachers’ perspective, their literacy in intercultural competence is generally not enough, and they lack time and energy for self-improvement. They are far from adequately educated and trained in intercultural competence. In addition, the textbook and the current evaluation system are also two factors restricting IFLT.

Support needed to implement IFLT

We have now identified factors restricting the implementation of IFLT, which answered RQ2. The next question we want to resolve is how we can help teachers implement IFLT. In other words, what support do teachers need to achieve the transformation in foreign language education? As noted by many studies, it is necessary to develop intercultural competence in pre-service and in-service teachers education systematically [22, 59, 60]. Therefore, the researchers investigated what experiences were the most helpful in preparing teachers for future intercultural foreign language teaching. ‘Independent study/reading’ and ‘travel and living in other culture’ were the most highly rated among the options provided (see Table 8), with a mean score of 2.398 and 2.376, respectively. The option ranked third is ‘more support/open attitude from school or district administrators’ (2.344). The high rating of this option indicates the importance of supports from education administrators. The transformation from traditional language teaching methods to IFLT requires more than intercultural knowledge, such a transformation is a systematic project includes the change of language learning objectives, the classroom activities, the language teaching methods and assessment etc. While one cannot expect any individual teachers can accomplish such a transformation with his/her own efforts. Teachers obviously realized that too, therefore, more support from school got a very high rating.

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Table 8. The helpfulness of different experiences.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t008

Another surprising finding is that training courses on culture or intercultural communication got very low rates from teachers (2.301 and 2.258 respectively), ranked the first from last and the third from last. Before the data analysis, we thought that the training course on intercultural competence would be very helpful for teachers who would like to promote IFLT, but the data showed that teachers thought exactly the other way around. We could gain some insights into such a result from another question in the questionnaire. Teachers were asked whether there are any programs or contents related to the cultivation of intercultural competence in the in-service teacher training they have attended. Up to 66.67% (see Table 9) of teachers gave positive answers to this question, which means that in the teacher training programs they have participated in, there was content related to intercultural competence, whether it be in every/most or some training program. If we combine the two data, we can infer that teachers think training courses are not helpful, because in the training courses they have attended, the content related to intercultural competence does not help their teaching in the real context. If such an inference holds true, then there must be some problems with the current intercultural competence training courses. The training curriculum may be unreasonable, or the training content cannot guide actual teaching. No matter what the problems are, those problems lead teachers to conclude that intercultural competence training is of little use. We shall discuss this point with the qualitative data again.

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Table 9. Teacher training programs related to intercultural competence.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t009

We also asked teachers about the helpfulness of materials in promoting their future IFLT. Table 10 shows the results. English materials on the target culture and intercultural communication were the ones teachers thought would be the most helpful, while general materials on culture was rated as the least helpful. The respondents are EFL teachers in primary schools, so it can be understood that they think English materials on English cultures would be most helpful in their future teaching. It would be interesting to investigate why most teachers think general materials on culture are of little help. But from such a result, we can infer that teachers still put the target culture (English in this study) as the focus of their cultural teaching while ignoring the imparting of culture-general knowledge.

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Table 10. The helpfulness of different cultural teaching materials.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284146.t010

Teachers’ answers in the interviews corroborated with the quantitative data. The support teachers need can be divided into three categories. The first category is support from the external environment, for example, support from authorities and school administrations; the second type is materials and resources related to intercultural teaching; the third type is teacher training on intercultural competence. Interestingly, teacher training is the most frequently mentioned support of the three types of support needed, contradicting the quantitative data. In the quantitative data results, training courses working on the nature of culture and intercultural competence got a low ranking (see Table 9). However, teacher training is a need mentioned by almost all teachers in the interviews. The contradiction of the results might lie in the training content. From the interview data, we can tell that teachers prefer practical and methodological training. A few teachers mentioned training in theoretical frameworks, but more teachers need training in methods, that is, training in ‘how to’:

I’m now very urgent to know the background and definition of this concept. Secondly, I want to have something that can be practiced… . some experience… . or methodology. How to accomplish such a task? A practical method. Use a lecture to clarify its definition and then tell us how it can be cultivated, what methods are effective, or what research or practice has been done. Demonstration classes are also very good; they are more direct. And in such training, it is best to give us some practice opportunities. Guide me after the practice. This training would be more meaningful to our daily teaching. (T9)

I need an experienced person to guide me on how to carry out such activities. I have never conducted this kind of activity; I have no experience in this regards. It (Training) should be able to provide me with a systematic process of organizing teaching. For example, if I want to do that, what preparations and various equipment do I need, and what are the basic procedures? I don’t understand this concept, and I don’t understand how to carry out activities that can promote students’ intercultural competence…I have no idea. (T10)

First of all, I definitely want to supplement my intercultural competence knowledge. After I understand what it is, I would like to receive training on how to cultivate children’s intercultural competence in my daily teaching. So (training on) teaching methods may be more useful. The demonstration lessons or the discussion of teaching cases. (T8)

As seen from the above quotes, teachers are very willing to teach intercultural competence and keen to spend time learning and practicing. Most front-line primary school EFL teachers do not receive scientific research training; therefore, it is unrealistic to rely on their teaching experience and intuition to try out which teaching methods can promote students’ intercultural competence. An efficient solution should be to regularly provide teachers with IFLT ability training and pass on the teaching methods that have been proved to be effective by academia. The training content should focus on the interpretation of intercultural teaching principles and the guidance of teaching methods, including the design and presentation of cultural content in the teaching materials.

The second type of support is external environment support, which mostly appeared in the interviews with rural EFL teachers. Rural primary schools usually have a backward and poor learning environment for English, and their school infrastructure and support from parents are not as good as urban primary schools. Rural students’ English proficiency is generally weaker than that of urban pupils. Therefore, for EFL teachers in rural areas, the environment is not conducive to implementing IFLT. This is the most realistic factor as well as the one that needs to be improved urgently in rural areas:

The biggest difficulty is the lack of support. In our school, the only opportunity for students to speak English is in English classes. They do not speak English at other places or at other times. Many of them cannot listen or speak in English, not to mention intercultural competence… . I don’t know how to start at all. I have some friends who are EFL teachers in cities. The support they receive, for example, if they want to hold an event, the venue, the equipment, and the support from parents. These are all different, totally different. (T10)

The third type of support needed is the construction of related resources. Relevant resources include two aspects. The first is building of teacher groups or Communities of Practice, as Wenger put it [61]. Many teachers have mentioned that relying on individuals to implement IFLT is unrealistic. It requires teamwork, with each teacher doing their own part. However, such division and cooperation are difficult to achieve in many small-sized primary schools. The second aspect is the materials and resources related to intercultural teaching, including textbooks and other available resources. The textbook is the major concern for most teachers when designing their classroom teaching. Therefore, constructing intercultural resources related to textbooks and other cultural teaching materials is indispensable if we want to promote the development of IFLT. Suppose a shared resources library can be established. In that case, it can firstly improve teachers’ awareness and willingness to IFLT and make teachers realize that intercultural competence is one of the important goals of foreign language teaching. On the other hand, it can reduce teachers’ workload on searching and choosing resources; hence, more time could be devoted to teaching design and implementation, improving teaching quality.

Lack of partner. For example, my school has only two English teachers, and we have to teach all the students in four grades. If you want to do something about intercultural competence, you must design it carefully, using project-based learning or similar methods. If you only use the current textbooks and follow the content in the textbooks, you definitely will not be able to achieve this. So you have to search for materials and resources, sort out the texts you need……Only two of us can not do all those work…and to be honest, our literacy in this regard… .is just so-so. So there is a lack of professional support and the support from working partners. (T10)

I hope this course teaches me how to cultivate children’s intercultural competence. And it can provide me with some…for example, ideas, good materials and resources. Tell me what kind of ability needs to be developed and use what materials to cultivate. (T7)

In a word, promoting IFLT is a long-term and complex task, which requires improving teachers’ intercultural literacy and support from educational departments, school administrations, and the construction of related resources. One teacher nicely sums up the support they need in his/her interview:

Intercultural competence can be cultivated (in primary schools), but only in an ideal environment. It requires many conditions… .it needs a good environment, good teaching materials, and teachers’ good professional ability. (T9).