Developing intercultural communicative competence in French-medium content and language integrated learning courses through teacher scaffolding

Abstract

The increasing popularity of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) courses has attracted the attention of Chinese language educators. Many scholars have examined its functions of facilitating the development of content and language. However, intercultural communicative competence (ICC), as a core aspect of CLIL’s 4Cs (communication, content, cognition, and culture) framework, has been hardly analysed. Moreover, most studies on CLIL courses have been conducted in English-medium contexts, with scant attention paid to CLIL programs delivered in languages other than English. Drawing from sociocultural theory, this study aims to investigate how Chinese students develop ICC through teacher scaffolding in French-medium CLIL courses and their views on facilitating ICC in CLIL courses. The study collected data from a six-week classroom observation of twenty Chinese French-major undergraduates and interviews with seven of these students. The findings revealed that teacher scaffolding, i.e. explaining academic language, drawing on previous knowledge and linguistic scaffolding, helped to develop the participants' ICC. This research addresses the gap in understanding how teacher scaffolding can facilitate students' ICC development in a French-medium CLIL course, providing pedagogical guidance for CLIL teachers on how to promote ICC. FUNDING INFORMATION. The study was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (1103-413000094) and Major Projects of China National Language Commission (ZDA145-2).