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Intercultural Communicative Competence
Learning a foreign language is a process that involves not just the knowledge of grammatical aspects of the language but also the knowledge of how to use these structures in specific communicative contexts.
According to Choudhury (2013), learners need to know cultural aspects of the other culture such as appropriate ways to address people, how to express gratitude, make requests, or simple agree or disagree with someone.
Intercultural Communicative Competence implies that knowing a language also requires knowing about the culture of their speakers more than the mere linguistic aspects of it. Tuzcu (2015) stated that teaching ICC implies teaching the general language skills but also emphasizing in communicative skills which at the same time allow students to think beyond their culture to overcome any cultural differences with the other culture.
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Fostering Intercultural Communicative Competence in the foreign classroom also reveals the necessity of studying the culture. Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) refers to culture as the attitudes, values, beliefs, rituals, customs and behavioral patterns people have since they are born and that is constantly created by people actions.
Spencer-Oatey (2008) stated that “Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioral conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but do not determine) each member’s behavior and his/her interpretations of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behavior.”
