Exploring Cultural Interaction as a Tool for Language Learning: A Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the importance of intercultural interaction as a language-learning tool among students who are majoring in English as a Foreign Language through various methodologies. The study compares the effect of exposure to target culture on linguistic competence, pragmatic awareness and affective aspects of language acquisition based on the theory of intercultural communicative competence and sociocultural learning. The quantitative data were gathered with the help of a Cultural Interaction and Language Learning Questionnaire, which was given to 80 students, and semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with a subsample of 20 students. The findings reveal that there is a strong agreement regarding the cognitive and motivational advantages of genuine cultural interest e.g., enhanced language fluency, listening comprehensiveness and acquisition of slang. Nevertheless, the statistics also point to major emotional issues, such as anxiety and low self-esteem in real-life interactions, which implicates a gap between the theoretical support and the real-life reality. Communicative resilience, identity reframing and the reframing of intercultural dissonance were also found to be processes in the thematic analysis as developmental opportunities. It is concluded that intercultural integration is a two-sided and yet a transformative factor in language learning which demands pedagogical methods that promote its cognitive and emotional requirements. The paper explains the inferences of this in the context of developing intercultural competence and significant language use in the context of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL)