Developing the Reading Skill and Intercultural Communicative Competence Using Multicultural Narratives at Tertiary Level in Palestine

Abstract

Abstract: Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the impact of teaching multicultural narratives using intensive readingskills on promoting the intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and improving reading skill achievement at the tertiary level in Palestine. Methodology: To achieve this purpose, the researcher randomly selected 160 university freshmen students learning Englishas an obligatory course at tertiary level in Palestine during the second semester of the academic skills evenly into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. Both groups were taught the same multicultural narratives using the intensive reading skills by the researcher himself. They were assessed using the same quantitative tools. However, the experimental group was taught the narratives using ICC teaching, which incorporated the nine ICC concepts and themes of the three ICC stages, i.e. the ethnocentric (denial, defense, minimization), ethnorelative (acceptance, adaptation, integration), and global competence (substantial knowledge, perpetual understanding, and intercultural communication). In contrast, the control group was taught the same narratives using the traditional way of teaching reading without including any ICC teaching. To measure the development of the ICC and the achievement of the reading skill, the Intercultural Sensitivity Index (ISI), and the IELTS Academic Reading Test were used respectively before and after the experiment. Findings: The findings showed that both ICC and reading achievement have significantly improved.Recommendations: Some implications have been suggested at school, university, and the Ministry of Education levels, and some future research was recommended, too.