English Language Teachers’ Cognition in Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)

Due to globalization, technological advancements, and mass media, non-native speakers now make up the majority of English language users worldwide, and they primarily use it for communication with people from different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, in order to increase intelligibility and prevent linguistic and cultural barriers during communication, it is necessary for EFL learners to acquire Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), which can be regarded as the ability to maintain a successful interaction in a foreign language exchange with various people from different countries and cultures. In this respect, the cognition of in-service English language teachers (what they know, what they believe, and what they do) working in K–12 settings regarding ICC holds importance. Keeping this in mind, this study is based on a qualitative design, recruiting six English language teachers working in state primary, secondary, and high schools with varied years of teaching experience in Türkiye. The data for this study were collected by means of online semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of in-service English language teachers’ perceptions and implementations of ICC. The findings laid out in this study contribute to EFL teachers’ conceptualization of ICC and their actual practices in class with a reference to contextual factors that may enable or hinder it. Based on the findings, several implications for language teachers, teacher educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders have been put forward.