INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT OF EFL TEACHERS IN INDONESIA

Abstract

This paper explores EFL teachers’ perception of intercultural competence in Indonesian higher education institutions. It also provides some recommendations for teaching intercultural competence. The participants are 10 teachers who were purposively selected from different higher education institutions. The instrument for data collection was semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that it is important to develop professional teachers’ intercultural competence. Teacher as participants found intercultural competence as a way of accepting cultural differences and respecting other cultures. Most of the teachers had high perceptions on the development of EFL teachers’ intercultural competence. They agreed that interculturality in English should be integrated as the goal of English learning because language and culture are integral part and inseparable.