A Review of Domestic Empirical Studies on the Intercultural Perspective in Foreign Language Teaching

Abstract

We reviewed all the empirical studies on the intercultural perspective in foreign language teaching, published between 2008 to 2018, on 6 Chinese major refereed journals of linguistics and foreign language education. 21 articles were identified after three rounds of screening. Each article was analyzed from three dimensions: research content, research participants and methodology. The results indicated that domestic studies were mainly involved in new pedagogical strategy application, instrument or model construction, and culture teaching assessment. Most of the research participants were Chinese university students. Only four studies included teachers or foreign students, one included high school students and one postgraduate. In terms of methodology, we found that Chinese scholars widely adopted a mixed methodology, by using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Finally, the study pointed out some weaknesses of the reviewed articles and put forward several suggestions to promote the foundations on the intercultural perspective in foreign language teaching.