Intercultural competence of esp students

Abstract

Bearing in mind the importance of international communication, globalisation, student mobility and employability, the readiness to use language properly in different social and cultural contexts has become a major priority. It comprises a wide array of skills that make up what is known as intercultural competence. It might be defined as a set of abilities and qualities necessary for understanding of and communication with other people, no matter whether they come from different countries or not. This paper aims to investigate the understanding of and attitudes to intercultural competence of ESP students in Poland and Serbia. Since we live in the age of globalisation, it seems it ought to be quite important for all students to become interculturally competent. Therefore, we also attempted to analyse various factors influencing students' attitudes such as their national BACKGROUND: or experience abroad. The results present a set of issues to be addressed by ESP teachers, as well as similarities and differences observed for Polish and Serbian ESP students. The implications for further research as well as limitations of this study are stated.