Building Intercultural Competence through Blogging
Kai-lin Wu
Assistant Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Tunghai University

Abstract
  The study explored the effects of blog interactions on foreign language learners’ intercultural competence. It involved 17 English majors at a private university in Taiwan and 19 American students at a university in Pittsburgh. They took East Asian Food Culture courses offered in their institutions and participated in a 4-week blog interactions. These blog entries written by Taiwanese students, comments from their American partners, and replies were collected for a content-analysis based on Byram’s model of intercultural competence. A 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire on students’ perceptions of the blog use was distributed at the end of the semester and analyzed. Research results showed that blogging had positive effects on EFL English majors’ intercultural competence as the blog entries revealed four different categories of intercultural competence. Among these categories, the most frequently occurred one was “knowledge about one’s own and others’ culture for intercultural communication,” followed by “interest in knowing other people’s way of life and introducing one’s own cultures to others.” In addition, the majority of students held positive attitudes toward the use of blogs in the classroom.

Keywords: Intercultural competence, blog interaction, food culture

以部落格書寫培養跨文化溝通能力

吳凱琳助理教授
東海大學外國語文學系

摘要

　　本研究旨在探索部落格互動對外語學習者跨文化溝通能力的成效。參與本研究的為台灣一所私立大學的 17 位外文系學生，和美國匹茲堡一所私立大學 19 位不同科系大學生。他們選修兩校所開設的東亞飲食文化課程，並參與了為期４周的部落格互動。本研究收集了台灣學生寫的部落格貼文和回覆、美國學生回應作內容分析，分析依照巴倫跨文化溝通能力指標。期末問卷採五等尺度量表，調查學生對使用部落格的觀感。研究結果顯示部落格互動對英語系學生跨文化溝通能力的培養有其成效，部落格貼文呈現四種不同種類跨文化溝通能力。其中最常見的是有關本身或他人文化的知識，其次是獲知他人文化生活和介紹本身文化給他人的興趣。此外，大多數學生對課堂使用部落格抱持正面態度。

關鍵詞: 跨文化溝通能力 跨文化溝通能力 跨文化溝通能力、部落格互動、飲食文化