rEFLections Vol 26, No.1, January – June 2019 Developing Intercultural Awareness in ELT: Students’ Attitudes toward their Intercultural Learning Experience MARISSA PHONGSIRIKUL* Department of English, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand SANEH THONGRIN Department of English, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand *Corresponding author e-mail:
[email protected] Article Information Abstract Article History: This study aimed at investigating students’ attitudes toward their Received: April 18, 2019 intercultural learning experience to develop intercultural awareness in an Accepted: June 28, 2019 English language classroom. The participants were a group of 31 students Available Online: at tertiary level. They registered for an elective English course, the June 30, 2019 objective of which was to prepare students for job application, job interview Keywords: and working effectively in multicultural contexts. A set of teaching and Intercultural awareness learning materials intended to develop intercultural awareness was Intercultural communication especially designed and integrated into the existing English course. A English language teaching survey questionnaire, reflective writing, self-assessment forms, and Intercultural speaker semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. The results showed that the participants had highly positive attitudes toward their intercultural learning experience in various aspects, but still were hesitant with the overall ideas of an incorporation of intercultural components into an English course. INTRODUCTION As a number of non-native English users are greatly increasing nowadays, an important question to answer in English Language Teaching (ELT) is whether the nature of current English classrooms can effectively equip the 21st century learners with a sufficiency of language ability and intercultural ability for intercultural communication.