Since the beginnings of globalization in the early 1990s, intercultural communication (ICC) has been widely recognized as an important part of modern education and has been established in the higher education curricula in many countries. Since then, ICC has played an essential part in transferring cultural knowledge by teaching secondary or tertiary languages, thus contributing to international understanding. Following the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Fu Jen Catholic University (FJCU) in Taipei actively promotes new teaching approaches. In fall 2022, a new ICC course concept was included into the “Xplorer Research Project” launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE), emphasizing the application of a competence-based learning approach.
The two-credit elective course “Intercultural Communication: Theory and Practice (English)” combined intercultural theory, practical examples and exercises, and a task-based learning (TBL) project in collaboration with Hsinchuang Senior High School (HSHS) in Taipei and Louis-Baare Berufskolleg (LBB: Louis-Baare Vocational School) in Bochum: 32 students from HSHS met with 42 students from LBB in three online sessions, and 22 students of the ICC course at FJCU observed the communication process (Collaborative Online International Learning, COIL) and took notes. The research question is whether this new approach can help improve FJCU students’ understanding of culture-specific communication patterns, enabling them to detect and explain differences of communication styles that may originate from enculturated forms of verbal and nonverbal communication. This article will introduce the course concept, the task-based approach and application, and share the learning outcomes.
