Strategies to Promote Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in ESL Classrooms: Islamic Ethical Values in Pakistani University Teachers’ Perspective

Abstract

This paper is designed to investigate teachers' attitudes towards the teaching of ICC in the ESL class in Pakistan Universities. It also focuses on the teacher’s perspectives as to how they perceive the integration of ICC in teaching English as a second language. In a dynamic era of technology, countries and cultures have come together like never before making cultural awareness and sensitivity a growing need in as multilingual and multicultural society as Pakistan in general and the fast shrinking world in particular. The research methodology used is qualitative in nature with purposive sampling to choose the participants carefully for the interviews which were transcribed and analyzed thematically. The results indicated that the Students' ICC development is very important in a Pakistani society which is multilingual and multicultural so as to instill the much-needed tolerance. But, it exposes the lack of teachers' professional development and appropriate assessment on this matter. The teachers also will have to deal with the inferiority complex as a non-native ESL teacher and introduce the English cultural values and identities into the students. Rigid attitude, limited resources and time constraints are some of the challenges that the teachers face while developing ICC. Considerable work has been done to encourage ICC, such as lecture explanation, selection and creation of multicultural materials, in-class activities and relevant reading/hearing activities.