Intercultural communicative competence in the Jordanian EFL classroom: an observational study of teaching practices

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which Jordanian EFL teachers addressed intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in classroom practice. Drawing on Byram's (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence, the study investigated five dimensions of ICC: attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness. Data were collected through twenty structured classroom observations involving ten secondary-school EFL teachers in the Irbid Directorate of Education, Jordan. A researcher-developed observation checklist comprising seventeen items was used to document teaching practices aligned with the five ICC dimensions. The data were analyzed using frequencies and percentages. A total of 440 instructional instances were recorded. The findings revealed that ICC was present in classroom instruction but unevenly represented across its dimensions. Attitudes were the most frequently observed dimension (42.0%), followed by knowledge (38.0%) and critical cultural awareness (37.5%). Skills of interpreting and relating were observed less frequently (25.0%), while skills of discovery and interaction were largely absent (6.0%). These results suggest that teachers tend to emphasize cultural openness and the transmission of cultural information, while providing limited opportunities for students to independently investigate cultural issues and engage in meaningful intercultural interaction. The study highlights the need for teacher education and classroom practices that move beyond descriptive treatment of culture toward more interactive, interpretive, and critically reflective approaches to intercultural learning.