Application of Blended Learning in the Intercultural Communication Course in English in Chinese Universities

The recent development of blended learning has facilitated a new direction for the reform of intercultural communication teaching in English in Chinese universities. This study designs a blended learning for the Intercultural Communication course in English based on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison et al., Internet and Higher Education 2:87–105, 2000), and applies it on 58 English majors over three weeks in two universities in the northwest of China, with the aim of demonstrating how the CoI framework could be adopted to blended learning design for intercultural communication teaching in English and exploring whether it can achieve effective application results in the Intercultural Communication course in English. The research data were collected from online comments, reflective journals, teaching notes, in-depth interviews and satisfaction surveys. The data were qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, Qualitative Research in Psychology 3:77–101, 2006), and quantitatively analysed using descriptive statistics. The results of this study indicate that by adopting the blended learning design for the Intercultural Communication course in English based on the CoI framework, students’ intercultural communication competence is enhanced in terms of intercultural knowledge, intercultural attitude, intercultural skills and intercultural awareness, and students’ English proficiency is improved mainly through the stimulation of learning enthusiasm and the changes in their learning habits. The overall teaching process is satisfying in the aspects of teaching content, teaching methods and intercultural context.