Strategies for Improving Information Technology-Driven Intercultural Communication Competence in Cultivating Business English Talents in Colleges and Universities
Publié en ligne: 17 mars 2025
Reçu: 07 oct. 2024
Accepté: 30 janv. 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0262
Mots clés
© 2025 Ying Yin et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Business English is the application of the English language specifically for business scenarios. It covers business communication, business negotiation and other language skills needed in the business field. Business English teaching is carried out to cover business vocabulary and phrases, business culture and etiquette, business negotiations and meetings, etc., in order to enable students to master the vocabulary and expressions commonly used in business communication, to understand the business culture and etiquette of different countries and regions [1-2], to improve the ability of business writing and presentation, to cultivate effective business communication and negotiation skills, as well as to have a solid basic English language skill, a broad international The students should have solid basic English skills, broad international vision, specialized international business knowledge and skills, master the basic knowledge and theories of economics, law and other related disciplines, have strong cross-cultural communication skills and high humanistic literacy, and be able to use English skillfully to engage in business, management, finance and other work in an international environment as a composite, application-oriented business English professionals [3-4].
In today’s globalization, cross-cultural communication ability has become an indispensable core ability in the business field. With the increasing frequency of international trade and transnational communication and cooperation, the importance of Business English as an important language tool for communicating with the world is becoming more and more prominent. Business English teaching not only teaches language knowledge and skills, but also cultivates students’ cross-cultural communication skills. Therefore, in the teaching of Business English, it is necessary to effectively cultivate students’ intercultural communicative competence, so as to enable them to cope with the international business environment freely, to meet the new demand for business talents in the era of globalization, and to contribute to the cultivation of business talents with an international outlook and intercultural communication ability [5-8].
Business English is an application-oriented major designed with “language ability + business knowledge + comprehensive skills” as the core, and it is a course aimed at realizing meaningful learning. Business English in colleges and universities is an important way to cultivate application-oriented talents, and it is also a necessity for the development of students and the labor market. Literature [9] studied the initiatives of internationalization cultivation of business English talents in colleges and universities, and based on the current situation of business English talents cultivation in colleges and universities, it put forward the suggestions of combining internationalization and localization, and constructing the teacher team system. Literature [10] discusses the value of cultivating compound business English talents in the context of the era of new liberal arts, and mentions the talent cultivation strategy of business English, aiming to provide reference for the cultivation of business English talents in colleges and universities. Literature [11] mainly aims to examine the mechanism of business English talent cultivation in colleges and universities, and analyzes the current situation of business English talent cultivation in colleges and universities, points out that the talent cultivation mechanism of colleges and universities should be in line with the strategy of “One Belt and One Road”, and suggests that a certain college or university should take the example of upgrading the curricula, teachers’ education, and the integration of industry and education to carry out talent cultivation. Talent cultivation. Literature [12] adopts a comprehensive evaluation method that combines formative and summative evaluation methods to be used in the educational evaluation of business English talent cultivation in colleges and universities. By establishing a multi-dimensional evaluation system and an evaluation database based on big data, and using this evaluation system in practice teaching, it was found that the evaluation system not only assesses the teaching effect, but also provides students with personalized guidance and improves students’ learning interest. Literature [13] discusses the current situation of talent cultivation of business English in China based on the talent demand of business English. In view of its deficiencies, it is believed that business English in Chinese colleges and universities should cultivate composite talents who are proficient in English, business knowledge and skills, and have the ability to innovate. Literature [14] points out that under the environment of economic globalization, mass education and demanding workplace, English teachers in colleges and universities need to adapt to the development of the times, moderately change their teaching concepts, change their teaching methods and increase their teaching experience, so as to improve the quality of English teaching and cultivate high-quality English talents. Literature [15] introduces a new model of talent cultivation based on the concept of Outcome-Based Education (OBE). Based on the principle of OBE centered on learning, a blended teaching method of online + offline is proposed, which breaks the traditional teaching mode in order to realize the talent cultivation of business English. The experiment shows that the talent cultivation mode of OBE concept improves students’ initiative and helps to cultivate business English talents who are in demand in the market.
In the context of globalization, students majoring in business English in colleges and universities need to have the ability to communicate across cultures. This is because international business involves cooperation and communication between people of different cultural backgrounds. Intercultural communication skills are one of the core competencies necessary for business English majors. Literature [16] studied the principles of cultivating students’ intercultural communication skills in an all-round way, and examined the strategies for improving intercultural communication skills of business English majors in colleges and universities from various perspectives, such as syllabus and teaching mode. Literature [17], based on the acquisition of intercultural communication competence in English in colleges and universities, argues that cultural knowledge, cultural attitudes and cultural behaviors are important components of intercultural competence. It indicates that a combination of summative and formative approaches should be used in order to assess the intercultural communicative competence of college students. Literature [18] utilizes action research methodology and adopts a quasi-experimental design that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to propose a new teaching methodology aimed at developing students’ intercultural communicative competence. Through the literature review and a questionnaire survey of business English students, the results showed that the teaching method developed students’ intercultural communicative competence comprehensively in terms of their attitudes, knowledge and skills. The purpose of the literature [19] is to reveal the development of intercultural communicative competence in the business English programs of two universities and to describe the theoretical approach to the development of intercultural communicative competence skills in business English. The results of the study show that cooperation with students from foreign universities is an effective way to promote intercultural communicative competence. Literature [20] explored teachers’ views on the teaching of intercultural communicative competence in business English, conducted a survey through classroom observation and interviews, and analyzed the data using inductive analysis, and the results emphasized that teachers generally believe that ICC is very important in business communication, but they don’t have a good understanding of ICC, much less teach it to their students. Literature [21] used Byram’s framework in order to explore widely used English language textbooks and found that there is some potential for these materials to develop intercultural competence, but there is a lack of learning tasks to enhance students’ intercultural competence. Literature [22] constructed the MIT-based university English ICC model and the MIT-based university English ICC teaching model in order to test students’ intercultural sensitivity and ICC, and applied them to teaching practice, evaluating students’ intercultural sensitivity and ICC through interviews and questionnaires, and the experimental results demonstrated the excellence of this model compared with the traditional model with many advantages such as breaking the time The experimental results demonstrated the excellence of the model over the traditional model, with many advantages such as breaking the time limitation and information sharing, which meets the learning needs of college students and effectively improves students’ intercultural sensitivity and ICC.
In the teaching of business English majors in colleges and universities, the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence needs to guide students to recognize and respect cultural differences and be able to conduct effective intercultural communication in business activities. On the basis of investigating the current situation of intercultural communicative competence cultivation of business English talents in colleges and universities, this paper establishes a business English blended teaching model combined with blended teaching and designs a teaching experiment. The teaching experiment analyzes the specific role of the information technology-driven blended teaching mode in enhancing students’ business English application ability, and explores the enhancement of cross-cultural communicative competence of business English talents under this mode.
Business English is a social function variant and a branch of English, which combines English knowledge with business culture and incorporates other learning knowledge on this basis, so that students can improve their English cultural competence and comprehensive quality in the process of learning knowledge, and create good conditions for subsequent study and life. It can be seen that business English for students, its own importance, in the process of students learning knowledge, teachers not only need to let them master the corresponding skills, but also need to cultivate their own cross-cultural awareness, so that they know the value of English in the development of the country at this stage. And help them improve their own English knowledge system, develop cross-cultural communication skills, so that they have a new understanding and knowledge of English, so as to obtain the best teaching results.
Intercultural communication ability is a necessary ability for business English talents in colleges and universities, which helps business English talents to better carry out cross-cultural communication and business negotiation, and the cross-cultural awareness of business English talents to a certain extent also affects the success or failure of cross-cultural communication and negotiation. In this regard, it is necessary to conduct a survey and research on cross-cultural communication awareness and competence in the process of cultivating business English talents in colleges and universities, to understand the cross-cultural communication awareness and competence of business English talents in colleges and universities, and to provide basic data for optimizing the cultivation mode of cross-cultural communication competence of business English talents in colleges and universities.
In this paper, the target of the survey is the first-year and second-year students majoring in Business English in the College of Foreign Languages of the University of W.The total number of students is 260, with 140 being first-year students and 120 being second-year students. This time, the main way to understand the current situation of intercultural communicative competence of business English majors is to distribute questionnaires + interviews in the field, so as to provide references for optimizing the cultivation mode of intercultural communicative competence of business English majors in colleges and universities.
In order to investigate the intercultural communication ability of business English majors in colleges and universities, this paper designs a corresponding evaluation scale, which is mainly based on the theoretical foundation of the multidimensional model of intercultural competence, and refers to the evaluation scale of intercultural competence in the existing research to improve it in combination with the actual situation of intercultural communication of business English majors in colleges and universities, so as to construct a set of four dimensions of intercultural communication competence, which includes awareness, attitude, skills and knowledge. Evaluation Scale, the specific content of which is shown in Table 1. A five-point scale was used to quantify the data, with 1~5 indicating completely disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree and completely agree, respectively.
Cross-cultural communication ability evaluation scale
| Dimension | Explanation | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-cultural awareness | Focus on cultural differences | A1 |
| Open and open communication | A2 | |
| Understand each other’s feelings accurately | A3 | |
| Express emotions in an acceptable way | A4 | |
| Pay attention to other people’s difficulties in time | A5 | |
| Cross-cultural attitude | Native culture is better than other cultures | B1 |
| Appreciate cultural differences | B2 | |
| There is no cultural bias | B3 | |
| Actively communicate with foreigners | B4 | |
| Give positive feedback to each other | B5 | |
| Cross-cultural skill | The way to communicate according to the situation | C1 |
| Articulate ability | C2 | |
| Capture the information you need in time | C3 | |
| Quickly find common words | C4 | |
| Actively share personal feelings | C5 | |
| Cross-cultural knowledge | Understand the cultural characteristics of the native language | D1 |
| Clear behavior is influenced by culture | D2 | |
| Proficiency in foreign language | D3 | |
| Use foreign language to communicate | D4 | |
| Write in writing through a foreign language | D5 |
In order to better understand the overall level of intercultural communicative competence of Business English majors in the College of Foreign Languages of University W, this study was conducted to collect data on the current status of students’ intercultural communicative competence level through questionnaires, and to analyze their overall level of intercultural communicative competence. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the intercultural communicative competence level of business English majors, where Figure 1(a)~(b) shows the overall level and the specific level, respectively.
Horizontal distribution of cross-cultural communication ability
According to the statistical results of the data from the questionnaire, the average value of the overall level of students’ intercultural communicative competence is 2.639, which is close to the original scale of 3 = uncertain. It can be seen that the overall level of intercultural communicative competence of business English majors in colleges and universities is average. Specifically unfolding, the mean values of students’ intercultural communicative competence awareness, attitude, skill and knowledge levels are 2.329, 2.684, 2.688, 2.855 respectively, which are all between 2=comparatively non-conformity and 3=uncertainty. This shows that the awareness, attitude, skill and knowledge dimensions of students’ intercultural communication competence are in a vague and uncertain state, indicating that in the dimensions of awareness, attitude, skill and knowledge, students’ mastery of intercultural communication competence is not optimistic, and that students’ intercultural communication competence is weaker in the skill dimension. Generally speaking, students are better in the dimension of knowledge, and students’ attitudes towards different cultures are still relatively positive, but they are weaker in the dimensions of awareness, attitude and skills, which need to be further improved. In addition, in terms of specific indicators, the values of some of the intercultural communicative competence evaluation indicators exceeded 3=uncertainty on the original scale, which also reflects that students have some intercultural communicative competence in some indicators. The overall kurtosis and skewness are both within the range of [-2,2], indicating that the survey data show a normal distribution trend, which can truly reflect the situation of students’ intercultural communicative competence level, and provide basic comparative data for the validation of the effect of carrying out blended teaching later.
Through the results of the questionnaire survey and situation analysis, it was found that there are three main problems in the intercultural communicative competence of business English majors in colleges and universities.
1) Students have already possessed a certain degree of intercultural communication ability, but their flexible mastery and understanding of related knowledge need to be improved.
2) In intercultural communication, students already have a positive mindset, but due to the limited class time, there are more theoretical knowledge lectures in the class, and the time allocated for practical training is not sufficient.
3) Some of the students have already possessed the sense of critical thinking, but teachers still need to help students establish cross-cultural comparative thinking in all aspects and guide them to critically tolerate and absorb other cultures.
From the results of the questionnaires and interviews and the analysis of their causes, the following points are needed to develop students’ intercultural communication skills and improve their ability to introduce Chinese culture in English:
1) Students must have solid comprehensive application skills in English (basic English and business English). 2) Students need to understand the connotation of a series of related theories such as intercultural communication. 3) Students must be familiar with basic knowledge of Chinese culture and learn to express it in English.
Based on these three points, the next phase of Business English teaching will integrate language knowledge, business knowledge, cross-cultural knowledge, humanities and social sciences knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge and Chinese cultural knowledge, optimize the teaching mode and train students to meet the specifications of Business English professionals through various teaching strategies such as sharing cultural stories, presenting and analyzing cases of cross-cultural conflicts in teaching practice, in order to meet the increasingly open and internationalized demand for talents.
Intercultural communicative competence is a necessary professional quality for students majoring in Business English, but many colleges and universities neglect the cultivation of students’ intercultural communicative competence, and the teaching content, teaching methods and curriculum are not conducive to the cultivation of students’ intercultural communicative competence. Intercultural communicative competence is the language communication ability that people can freely switch between different social cultures, which is the extension and development of social communicative competence and an indispensable ability for foreign language communication. Therefore, we should innovate the concept of business English teaching in colleges and universities, take intercultural communicative competence as an important teaching goal, construct the curriculum system, teaching content and practical teaching mode oriented to the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence, and carry out intercultural communicative teaching in various forms of teaching activities.
Business English teaching is both language and culture teaching. It is not only a language course, but also a cross-cultural communication course [23]. In the teaching of Business English, the cultivation of cultural awareness is an important aspect and a part that cannot be neglected. In the teaching of Business English, cultural awareness should be cultivated throughout the course.By enhancing students’ cultural awareness, they can cultivate their intercultural communication skills. Intercultural communicative competence is the basic ability to realize foreign communication, and its composition is shown in Figure 2. It mainly includes language usage ability, cultural mastery ability, and interpersonal communication ability. Through the teaching of Business English, students can understand and master traditional cultural knowledge, general knowledge of literature, historical allusions, traditional virtues, etc., so as to improve their intercultural communicative competence starting from the cultivation of cultural awareness.
The composition of cross-cultural communication ability
1) Language refers not only to the basic ability to use language in listening, speaking, reading and writing in a foreign language, but also to the ability to master the native language. In foreign communication, the more fluent the language communication, the more accurate the information conveyed.
2) The ability to master cultural background is the foundation of unimpeded communication in foreign exchange. Familiarity with the local culture is necessary, and understanding the other culture is even more necessary to facilitate effective cross-cultural communication.
3) The essence of cross-cultural communication is interpersonal communication, and good interpersonal communication skills will inevitably promote cross-cultural communication, which includes both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication.
Blended teaching mode is an emerging product of the information technology era, mainly with the help of information technology and integrated media technology, to create a teaching platform that integrates online and offline, through the integration of network resources, learning progress, communication and interaction, testing and assessment, monitoring and management, evaluation and feedback and other teaching links. Realize the combination of students’ online independent learning and teachers’ offline classroom teaching to achieve the teaching effect of complementary advantages, can effectively break through the traditional classroom teaching time and space limitations of the constraints, and extend the multidimensionality of teaching activities. Blended teaching can not only realize the seamless connection between online and offline teaching links, but also ensure that the teaching system is coherent and orderly as well as the hierarchical advancement of teaching activities, and promote the maximization of teaching effectiveness [24].
Blended teaching adheres to the students as the fundamental, establish the students’ subjective position, the teacher as a guide to participate in the teaching process, play a precise inspiration, full guidance and organization of the role of coordination. Students’ sense of independent learning and diversified thinking are fully stimulated in the process of independent learning at anytime and anywhere. Teachers can use the platform to communicate and interact with students in real time, answer students’ questions in a timely manner, and with the help of online tests, discussions and evaluations, they can grasp students’ independent learning status in real time, so that they can adjust their teaching strategies according to the changes in the learning situation in a timely manner.
In the continuous integration and development of modern information technology and English education, it is necessary to increase the cognition and attention to modern information technology-enabled teaching reform and create an intelligent teaching environment. On the basis of adapting to the learning situation, through the implementation of blended teaching inside and outside the classroom, online and offline organic synchronization, and focusing on giving full play to the advantages and efficacy of the flipped classroom, we can comprehensively cultivate students’ personalized learning mindset and cross-cultural communicative competence level.
Based on the status quo and problems of the cultivation of cross-cultural communicative competence of business English talents in the previous article, combined with the blended teaching mode, this paper constructs a blended teaching mode applicable to the cultivation of business English talents in colleges and universities, whose specific structure is shown in Fig. 3, which mainly consists of three phases: pre-course, in-course and post-course [25]. There are some differences in the way of business English teaching in different stages, but the ultimate goal is to improve the cross-cultural communication ability of business English talents in colleges and universities, and to provide high-quality talents for the enhancement of foreign exchanges.
Business English hybrid teaching mode
1) Pre-course stage. Teachers, as the producer and provider of learning resources and the assigner of learning tasks, are responsible for producing relevant learning resources and releasing the pre-reading videos, exercises and language point PPTs of the reading part to the e-learning platform one day in advance. Students can give feedback in the comment area of the platform when they finish the pre-course study, and teachers can adjust the teaching content according to the statistical rate of wrong questions in the feedback of the platform.
2) In-class phase. Teachers, as the organizer and guide of classroom learning activities, are responsible for organizing students to carry out the corresponding activities. First of all, the teacher focuses on what students do not understand and doubt in the platform learning, and at the same time guides students to think and communicate. Secondly, the teacher organizes the students to study the text, carry out brainstorming, complete the detailed questions of the article and other activities, the students answer the questions through independent thinking or group discussion, show the results of the task, and the teacher gives feedback and evaluation on the performance of the students appropriately. Finally, the teacher delves into the learning material, instructs students to examine the profound ideas contained in the article, and develops a positive outlook on life.
3) Post-lesson stage. Teachers, as the organizer of after-school communication and learning, and the supervisor and guide of students’ independent learning, are responsible for releasing after-school learning videos on the platform and organizing students’ exchange and sharing of ideas, with teachers summarizing students’ views and guiding students to expand their thinking. Students, on the other hand, complete the learning of after-school video resources, post learning tips on the platform, participate in teacher-student and student-student interactions, and collide with sparks of thinking.
In order to verify the impact of the IT-driven blended teaching mode of business English in colleges and universities on students’ business English listening, reading and writing performance as well as cross-cultural communication skills, this paper carries out a comparative experiment on business English course teaching. The details are as follows:
1) Experimental subjects. Sixty first-year students majoring in Business English at the College of Foreign Languages of University W were selected as the research subjects and divided into the experimental group and the control group on average.Among them, the experimental group adopts blended teaching for business English teaching, while the control group adopts traditional teaching methods for teaching.The experiment uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, centers on empirical research, and utilizes test papers and questionnaires as experimental tools.The teaching experiment is conducted from March 2023 to July 2023 for one semester. 2) Achievement test. In order to test whether blended teaching in business English majors in colleges and universities can improve students’ English acquisition level, two acquisition level test papers were used to test the students in the experimental group and the control group before the beginning of the teaching experiment and at the end of the teaching experiment, respectively. The two test papers were exactly the same in terms of question types and scores, but they were more consistent in terms of difficulty, which ensured the reliability of the experiment. 3) Questionnaires. For students’ intercultural communication skills, the scale designed in Section 2.1.2 is used. In addition, this paper also investigates and analyzes students’ online learning participation, classroom learning participation and learning experience in the blended teaching mode, and students should make “completely disagree”, “mostly disagree”, “partially agree”, “mostly agree” and “completely agree” according to their personal judgment, and the quantitative score is 1~5. The questionnaire was conducted before and after the start of the teaching experiment.
With the rapid development of economic globalization, international cooperation and communication are becoming more and more frequent, and the demand for talents with cross-cultural communication ability is becoming more and more prosperous. The cradle of talent cultivation is the school, so colleges and universities have to take on the task of cultivating high-quality talents with international vision, big country sentiment, and better cultivate business English talents with cross-cultural communication ability. This chapter mainly analyzes the effects of the information technology-driven blended teaching mode on the performance, intercultural communicative competence and learning participation of business English professionals, aiming to improve the quality of business English professionals in colleges and universities, and further enhance the intercultural communicative competence of business English professionals.
Before the beginning of the teaching experiment, the business English achievement of the students in the experimental group (X1) and the control group (X2) was pre-tested using a test paper, which was mainly divided into four dimensions: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The collected data were entered into SPSS software and subjected to independent samples t-test (Sig. > 0.05 indicates no statistical significance) to obtain the results of the pre-test of business English achievement of the students in the experimental group and the control group before the beginning of the teaching experiment as shown in Table 2.
Pre-Test results for business English
| - | Group | Means | STD. | T | Sig.2tailed | 95% CI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower | Upper | ||||||
| Oral | X1 | 14.27 | 2.07 | -0.516 | 0.437 | -1.042 | 0.583 |
| X2 | 14.13 | 2.68 | |||||
| Listen | X1 | 12.18 | 1.75 | -0.524 | 0.569 | -0.239 | 0.995 |
| X2 | 12.09 | 1.69 | |||||
| Read | X1 | 13.54 | 2.16 | -0.798 | 0.741 | -2.418 | 0.372 |
| X2 | 13.67 | 2.14 | |||||
| Write | X1 | 12.36 | 1.47 | -0.643 | 0.324 | -1.957 | 0.464 |
| X2 | 12.38 | 1.52 | |||||
| Total | X1 | 52.35 | 1.39 | -0.342 | 0.665 | -1.362 | 0.758 |
| X2 | 52.27 | 1.41 | |||||
From the table, it can be learned that the mean values of the total business English scores of the students in the experimental group and the control group before the teaching experiment are 52.35±1.39 and 52.27±1.41, respectively. The difference between the mean values of the total business English scores of the two classes is only 0.08 points, which is a very small difference. Therefore, it can be concluded that the students in both classes have about the same ability and level of proficiency in using business English. In order to verify this conclusion, an independent sample t-test was conducted on the achievement data to further come to test whether there is any difference in the academic performance of the students in the two classes. When the t-value of the total business English achievement of the students in the experimental group and the control group is -0.342, the Sig (two-sided) value is 0.665, which is significantly greater than 0.05, and the 95% confidence intervals of the difference are between [-2.5,1.0], which shows that there is no particularly significant difference between the two classes’ pre-test scores.
After determining that there is no significant difference between the pre-test scores of business English of the experimental group and the control group, the post-test of business English utilization ability of the experimental group and the control group was conducted. The distribution of questions in the post-test was consistent with that of the pre-test, and the difficulty was moderate. The collected post-test scores were subjected to a normality test, which aimed to find out whether the English scores of the two groups conformed to a normal distribution. Figure 4 shows the results of the normality test of the total business English posttest scores of the experimental group and the control group, in which Figures 4(a)~(b) show the Q-Q plots of the scores of the experimental group and the control group, respectively. As can be seen from the figure, the total business English posttest scores of the students in the experimental group and the control group are close to normal analysis, and the use of this data to analyze the teaching effect of the blended teaching mode has authenticity and reliability.
The results of the normal test results of the general results
After the normality test was completed, the collected business English scores of the students in the experimental and control groups were entered into the SPSS software to carry out the independent samples t-test, the results of which are shown in Table 3. As can be seen from the table, at the end of the teaching experiment, the total business English scores of the students in the experimental group and the control group were 80.39±0.98 and 58.45±1.05 respectively, and the total business English scores of the two groups improved compared to those before the experiment, but the total scores of the experimental group increased by 53.56% as a whole, and the difference in the total scores of the experimental group and the control group reached 21.56% at the end of the teaching experiment. The difference between the total achievement of the experimental and control groups was 21.94 points. In addition, in the independent samples t-test results, the t-test results of speaking, listening, reading and writing scores under business English scores are 6.541, 3.792, 5.053 and 4.978, respectively, with the Sig (two-sided) value significantly less than 0.05, and the 95% confidence intervals of the differences do not contain 0. The experimental group uses the blended teaching mode to teach business English, and its speaking, listening, and reading scores have significantly improved. The reason for the substantial improvement in reading scores may be that, compared with the control group, the experimental group added a micro-course video explanation of the text in the introductory stage before the online class, and at the same time, they were required to read the text aloud and record it for uploading in the practice stage at the end of the class. The addition of these two tasks made online teaching more effective in linking reading, listening, and speaking. Therefore, the information technology-driven blended teaching mode can help to improve the English application ability of business English professionals in colleges and universities, and provide the most basic guarantee for them to improve their cross-cultural communication ability.
Post-Test results for business English
| - | Group | Means | STD. | T | Sig.2tailed | 95% CI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower | Upper | ||||||
| Oral | X1 | 21.02 | 1.46 | 6.541 | 0.001 | 0.512 | 4.015 |
| X2 | 15.26 | 1.52 | |||||
| Listen | X1 | 20.58 | 1.38 | 3.792 | 0.000 | 0.439 | 5.247 |
| X2 | 13.48 | 1.27 | |||||
| Read | X1 | 20.47 | 1.93 | 5.053 | 0.003 | 0.725 | 3.853 |
| X2 | 14.96 | 1.87 | |||||
| Write | X1 | 18.32 | 1.45 | 4.978 | 0.000 | 0.607 | 2.185 |
| X2 | 14.75 | 1.51 | |||||
| Total | X1 | 80.39 | 0.98 | 2.997 | 0.005 | 0.446 | 3.717 |
| X2 | 58.45 | 1.05 | |||||
In order to further analyze the students’ experience when conducting business English learning in the blended teaching mode, a questionnaire was used to investigate the students’ e-learning engagement, classroom learning engagement, and learning experience. E-learning engagement was mainly measured by completing e-learning assignments on time (K1), actively participating in e-forum discussions (K2) and doing e-learning every day (K3). Classroom learning engagement was measured by five dimensions: attentively participating in classroom activities (U1), attending classroom learning (U2), actively expressing themselves in class (U3), actively answering the teacher’s questions (U4), and asking questions in class in a timely manner (U5). Learning experience is measured by liking to reflect and summarize (L1), focusing on the learning process (L2), ensuring the quality of learning (L3), and stimulating interest in learning (L4). Figure 5 shows the effect of students’ learning experience.
Students’ learning experience
Students’ learning experience satisfaction was high after the blended learning was conducted, reaching 83.71% overall.
In terms of e-learning participation, more than 95% of students basically engaged in e-learning every day, and 98.75% and 98.68% were able to actively participate in the discussion of online forums and complete their e-learning assignments on time. There is a high degree of autonomy and participation in the process of e-learning, and very few are in a passive state. This shows that most of the students have a positive attitude towards e-learning, recognize the way of e-learning, and follow up on it in time. In the assessment system, we can consider the factor of learner autonomy, pay attention to the learning process, such as the number of forum discussions, online quizzes, etc., and incorporate the corresponding assessment methods to improve the motivation of learners.
In terms of classroom learning participation, more than 98% of the students attend every class, and 93.7% of the students participate in classroom learning with a serious attitude.It shows that most students have a good attitude towards learning in the classroom and can participate in the learning process seriously. Therefore, in the system of assessment methods, we can follow the elements of traditional assessment methods, take the classroom attendance rate as an index in the assessment system, and appropriately control the weight of the score, so as to ensure the basic attendance rate of students’ classroom learning. However, relative to other students, the situation of students asking questions, answering questions, and presenting themselves in the classroom is not optimistic. This also indicates that individual learners are not actively engaged in the classroom.In the subsequent optimization, students need to be rewarded with certain points in order to stimulate their enthusiasm for learning and improve their classroom participation and experience.
In terms of learning experience, more than 90% of students have a positive attitude and positive emotional experience towards the blended learning model, recognizing the blended learning approach and focusing on the learning process. From the perspective of students’ learning after class, most students like to reflect and summarize what they have learned, thought, and understood. In the process of business English assessment methods, we can appropriately increase the assessment methods to meet the students’ progressive psychology, pay attention to the students’ progress in the learning process, and give timely feedback and evaluation, so as to increase the students’ confidence and improve the learning experience and satisfaction.
After the implementation of the blended teaching mode of Business English, the students’ intercultural communicative competence level was tested again using the Intercultural Communicative Competence Scale and an independent sample t-test was carried out for the students’ intercultural communicative competence to illustrate the enhancement effect of the blended teaching mode on the students’ intercultural communicative competence. Table 4 shows the comparison results of students’ intercultural communication competence level.
The comparison of cross-cultural communication ability level
| - | Time | Means | STD. | T | Sig.2tailed | 95% CI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower | Upper | ||||||
| Awareness | Before | 2.329 | 1.247 | 3.741 | 0.002 | 0.547 | 1.143 |
| After | 4.215 | 0.758 | |||||
| Attitude | Before | 2.684 | 1.085 | 5.064 | 0.000 | 0.392 | 0.785 |
| After | 4.308 | 0.643 | |||||
| Skill | Before | 2.688 | 0.969 | 3.958 | 0.005 | 0.518 | 1.052 |
| After | 4.179 | 0.576 | |||||
| Knowledge | Before | 2.855 | 1.138 | 4.229 | 0.000 | 0.334 | 0.837 |
| After | 4.426 | 0.469 | |||||
| Total | Before | 2.639 | 1.103 | 3.847 | 0.001 | 0.693 | 0.954 |
| After | 4.282 | 0.624 | |||||
As can be seen from the table, the mean value of students’ intercultural communicative competence scores was 2.639±1.103 before the blended teaching mode of business English was carried out, and the mean value of students’ intercultural communicative competence scores reached 4.282±0.624 at the end of the teaching experiment, which was 62.26% higher than that before the teaching experiment. Combined with the results of independent samples t-test, it can be seen that there is a significant difference between the students’ intercultural communicative competence before and after the teaching experiment (P<0.05), and the 95% confidence interval of the difference is [0.693,0.954]. In addition, students’ awareness, attitude, skills, and knowledge scores improved by 55% to 81% after the teaching experiment, and all showed significant differences from the preexperiment. This shows that information technology-driven blended teaching can effectively enhance the cross-cultural communicative competence of business English personnel training in colleges and universities, guide students to speak boldly through effective communication before and during the class, help students better master English communication skills, and fully enhance students’ ability to apply business English skills.
Correlation analysis is a statistical method to study the closeness of the relationship between variables, which mainly reflects whether there is a correlation between two kinds of variables or two kinds of phenomena in terms of the direction and magnitude of the development and change, but it cannot reflect whether there is a causal relationship between two kinds of phenomena. Students’ intercultural communication competence consists of intercultural awareness, intercultural attitude, intercultural knowledge and intercultural skills.Based on the data from the questionnaire, the correlation between the dimensions of students’ intercultural communication competence is analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Table 5 shows the results of the correlation analysis, and *** in the table indicates that the correlation is significant at the confidence level (double test) of 0.01.
Correlation of cross-cultural communication ability
| - | Awareness | Attitude | Skill | Knowledge | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Pearson | 1.000 | 0.685*** | 0.172*** | 0.198*** |
| Sig.2tailed | - | 0.001 | 0.002 | 0.005 | |
| Attitude | Pearson | 0.685*** | 1.000 | 0.154*** | 0.183*** |
| Sig.2tailed | 0.001 | - | 0.000 | 0.002 | |
| Skill | Pearson | 0.172*** | 0.154*** | 1.000 | 0.185*** |
| Sig.2tailed | 0.002 | 0.000 | - | 0.000 | |
| Knowledge | Pearson | 0.198*** | 0.183*** | 0.185*** | 1.000 |
| Sig.2tailed | 0.005 | 0.002 | 0.000 | - | |
According to the statistical results, it can be known that the correlation coefficients of intercultural awareness and intercultural attitude, intercultural skills and intercultural knowledge are 0.685, 0.172 and 0.198 respectively, and the significance is less than 0.01. It shows that there is a significant positive correlation between intercultural awareness and intercultural attitude, intercultural knowledge and intercultural skills, and intercultural awareness can improve intercultural attitude, intercultural knowledge and intercultural skills. The correlation coefficients of intercultural attitudes with intercultural skills and intercultural knowledge are 0.154 and 0.183 respectively, and the significance is less than 0.01. It shows that there is a significant positive correlation between intercultural attitudes and intercultural skills and intercultural knowledge, and intercultural attitudes can improve intercultural skills and intercultural knowledge. The correlation coefficient between intercultural skills and intercultural knowledge is 0.185 and the Sig (two-tailed) value is 0.000<0.01. It indicates that there is a significant positive correlation between intercultural skills and intercultural knowledge, and intercultural skills can enhance intercultural knowledge.
To summarize, the introduction of an information technology-driven blended teaching mode can enhance students’ business English learning effect in the process of improving cross-cultural communication competence in the cultivation of business English talent.It helps students obtain perfect business English educational resources, so that they can achieve the expected results of their business English course objectives.Students in the blended teaching mode will obtain meaningful learning outcomes after learning, and teachers should further innovate and reform their teaching methods. Revise the talent cultivation program with the results as the guide, continuously optimize the curriculum system, innovate the teaching mode, scientifically improve the teaching evaluation, promote the development of Business English majors, and provide a more solid teaching foundation for enhancing the cross-cultural communication ability of Business English talents in colleges and universities.
On the basis of investigating the current situation of the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence of business English talents in colleges and universities, the article introduces blended teaching to establish a blended teaching model of business English in colleges and universities and sets up teaching experiments to verify the specific effect of blended teaching on improving the intercultural communicative competence of business English talents in colleges and universities.
1) At the end of the teaching experiment, the total score of business English of the students in the experimental group increased from 52.35±1.39 to 80.39±0.98, the total score of business English of the students in the experimental group increased by 53.56%, and the difference between the total score of business English of the experimental group and the control group reached 21.94 points. And the Sig (two-sided) value of the independent samples T-test is significantly less than 0.05, and the 95% confidence interval of the difference does not contain 0. This indicates that the blended teaching mode can significantly enhance the performance of business English majors in colleges and universities and lay the foundation for improving their cross-cultural communication competence.
2) After the blended teaching was carried out, the overall satisfaction of students’ learning experience reached 83.71%. More than 90% of the students in terms of online learning participation, classroom learning participation and learning experience said that it was very much in line with the way of learning Business English, which helped them to stimulate their interest in learning Business English.
3) The students’ intercultural communicative competence score after the teaching experiment is 4.282±0.624, which is 62.26% higher than that before the teaching experiment, and there is an obvious positive correlation between the four dimensions of intercultural communicative competence: awareness, attitude, skills and knowledge.
The IT-driven blended teaching for business English talent cultivation in colleges and universities can enhance students’ ability to apply business English skills, fully enhance students’ business English listening and speaking abilities, and provide reliable model support for improving students’ intercultural communicative competence.