Profiling the Intercultural Communicative Competence of University Students at the Beginning of their Erasmus Placements

Abstract

Drawing on seminal notions of culture to help diagnose and evaluate intercultural training (Byram 1997), this paper reports on the preliminary results of a research project seeking to explore key elements of the intercultural dimension during Erasmus placements. Preliminary data from a questionnaire distributed to students from Nottingham Trent University (UK) and Salamanca University (Spain) show that, in spite of their differences, both groups display positive attitudes towards the host country at the beginning of their placements, even if the eradication of deeply ingrained prejudices still pose the main educational challenge for the students and their home and host institutions.

Does Erasmus+ Programme Improve the Participants’ Intercultural Communicative Competence?

“…Similarly, in the present study, the interpretation that having the opportunity to live in a different country might contribute positively to the development of ICC of the students can be arrived at. In a similar way, Almarza, et al (2015) concludes that exchange program students have high ICC levels. As has been highlighted in the previous parts of the study, Erasmus+ Programme experience possibly renders the students more knowledgeable about and tolerant to the peculiarities of other cultures.…”