Foreign Language Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge about Teaching Intercultural Communication: A Chinese Perspective

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) refers to teachers’ comprehensive knowledge of a subject and the expertise to deliver it effectively to their students, which plays a crucial in student learning outcomes. With cultivation of intercultural competence being established as an important goal of foreign language education, Intercultural Communication (IC), under various course titles, has been introduced by foreign language teachers to students. This qualitative study, situated within the context of Chinese foreign language education, explores the characteristics of college English teachers’ PCK about teaching IC (IC-PCK) and identifies the key factors contributing to its development. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, complemented by field notes from classroom observations, course syllabi, lesson slides, textbooks, and teachers’ publications. A hybrid thematic analysis approach was utilized for data analysis. The findings reveal that among the five components of IC-PCK, teachers’ curricular knowledge is relatively well-developed, but there is room for growth in their subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, knowledge about students, and knowledge about assessment. Primary factors contributing to the development of their IC-PCK include: professional learning about IC, intercultural contact and students’ input. These findings provide insights into the development of foreign language teachers’ professional competence, particularly their intercultural teaching competence.