A Survey on the Intercultural Competence of Chinese Students Volunteers for the International Events at Private Colleges —Taking the Sixth China International Import Expo as an Example

Abstract

With the continuous improvement of China’s participation in globalization, more and more international competitions and events are held in China, which calls for the involvement of Chinese student volunteers with higher intercultural competence. Meanwhile, enhancing Chinese college students’ intercultural competence is both an important component and a main goal of foreign language teaching and reform in higher education. This paper aims to deeply explore the current situation of intercultural competence of student volunteers for international events at private colleges. The study reports a survey of the intercultural competence of 140 student volunteers for the sixth China International Import Expo from private colleges in Shanghai, employing the Intercultural Competence Evaluation Scale for Chinese College Students as an instrument. The study shows the current intercultural competence of Chinese students who volunteer for International Events at private colleges is at a satisfactory level, with an overall average score of 3.699. Among the six dimensions of intercultural competence, Attitude gets the highest score (M=4.167), and Knowledge of Foreign Culture gets the lowest (M=2.987). Meanwhile, it reveals some differences between the students volunteers with different backgrounds and the dimensions of intercultural competence． Students with contact with people from different cultures, with intercultural events and experiences, and with the intention of studying abroad scored significantly higher than those without. Therefore, this study provides an important theoretical basis for deepening the reform of international talent cultivation and for effectively improving the intercultural competence of Chinese students volunteers and provides practical suggestions for improving the intercultural competence of college students.