College English teachers’ beliefs and practices about developing intercultural communicative competence in classrooms

Abstract

Over the past two decades, developing students’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has become a prominent objective of College English in Chinese higher education. Nevertheless, the curriculum is realised not by written expectations but by the teachers who bring it to life. To understand how College English teachers develop students’ ICC in classrooms and why they make particular instructional decisions, this study examines their beliefs about ICC, the relationship between beliefs and classroom practices, and the factors that shape the relationship.

Grounded in a complexity theory perspective, this study adapts Zheng’s (2015) framework by incorporating Byram’s (2021) ICC model and embedding Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological system. A single-case embedded study was conducted with six College English teachers at a Chinese university. Qualitative data were collected over one semester through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, stimulated recall interviews, and documentation.

Findings show that participants widely valued ICC, though its centrality varied. Conceptions ranged from utilitarian views to more comprehensive understandings that appeared to resonate with Byram’s (2021) ICC model. Cultural knowledge and communicative competence were commonly prioritised, whereas skills were frequently downplayed. Most endorsed an integrated approach that often defaulted to Anglophone norms, alongside a policy-driven emphasis on Chinese cultural content used either for compliance-oriented inclusion or for comparative, pedagogically driven purposes. Notably, formal assessment of ICC was largely absent from their belief systems.

Beliefs and practices neither simply aligned nor diverged. Instead, they co-adapted dynamically. Drawing on a two-dimensional typology based on centrality belief and practice depth, four distinct tendencies of co-adaptation emerged: active promoters, cautious promoters, curriculum followers, and minimalist implementers of ICC. The analysis also traced how multi-level contextual factors co-adapted with belief and practice systems, such as ke cheng si zheng and national College English Tests washback at the macro level, institutional translations of policy and prescribed syllabus at the exo level, and time, class size, and student readiness at the micro level.

This study provides context-sensitive evidence on ICC teaching in Chinese College English under ongoing policy transition and challenges the assumption that belief--practice alignment signals effectiveness. Practically, the study argues for inquiry-based professional development to surface and strengthen beliefs, student assessment and lesson observation criteria that explicitly include ICC, and alignment of concurrent policy directives, so that ICC becomes a professionally supported possibility.

Date of Award	15 May 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Nottingham
Supervisor	Anwei Feng (Supervisor) & Ping Du (Supervisor)