大學第二外語學習者的跨文化能力發展：正情意傾向與知識增長

Development of College Students' Intercultural Competence Through Learning Languages Other Than English - Positive Affect and Improvement on Intercultural Knowledge

The development of intercultural competence (IC) is generally considered a companion of foreign language learning, but relevant studies have been almost exclusively limited to English. These findings could hardly be applied to languages other than English (LOTEs) since English has become a global lingua franca and is now very different from LOTEs in cultural representations. While there have been resources devoted to LOTEs in higher education in Taiwan, not much is known about these learners' IC development. This study attempted to reveal the possible effects of LOTE learning on IC development. Participants were college students, at a university in northern Taiwan, enrolled in the first two years of the eight most popular LOTEs (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian/Malay, German, French, and Spanish). They participated in an IC questionnaire survey at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. A total of 281 complete data sets were matched from the three waves of surveys. Statistical analyses were carried out to examine if possible differences existed across time and among learner subgroups. Among the five IC constructs of affect, consciousness, knowledge, behavior, and self-efficacy, the affect was ranked the highest from the first wave of surveys and did not change for the rest of the year. Knowledge, although the lowest among the five constructs, improved most significantly. Most changes occurred in the first semester and then leveled off. Differences in IC and its levels of change also existed between gender and among geographical clusters of languages, with females improving more than males, and European language learners outperforming Southeast/Northeast Asian language learners. LOTE learning, in the absence of deliberate intervention, could improve college learners' IC at significant levels within the course of one semester, and such effect was revealed more prominently in the construct of knowledge. However, if IC improvement beyond the first semester and the construct of knowledge is desired, some deliberate curricular arrangements and special instructional designs might be necessary.

為了解大學生在修習第二外語時的跨文化能力發展，本研究邀請臺灣北部一所大學的第二外語選修生於一學年間參與三次量表填答，聚焦在修課人數多的八個語種（日、韓、越、泰、印／馬、德、法、西），於學年初、中、末填寫跨文化能力量表三次，共得到281筆完整配對資料，檢驗三次量測間及不同學生群體間的發展變化及差異。在五個跨文化能力構念中，情意傾向自始即最高，但其後沒有顯著變化；跨文化知識雖在第一次量測時得分最低，卻有最顯著的增長。大多數的增長發生在第一年的第一學期間，其後維持不變。分群比較發現，女生較男生增幅較多也較早，歐語學習者有顯著的跨文化能力提升，但東南亞及東北亞語的學習者則沒有。整體而言，在一般修課的情況下，第二外語課程可在一學期間增進學生的跨文化知識，但在一學期後及其他層面的能力上，或有需要另作安排。