The role of interactive exercises in developing multicultural competence among Ukrainian high school EFL learners: A quasi-experimental mixed-methods study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v9i2.16931Keywords:
Affective component, Behavioural skills, Foreign language education, Intercultural learning, Interactive methodsAbstract
In view of the growing intercultural interaction, foreign language education requires effective approaches to the development of students’ multicultural competence. In this context, interactive culturally oriented teaching methods that are able to combine language training with the development of tolerance and intercultural communication are being under special focus. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether interactive culturally oriented exercises were associated with changes in students’ multicultural competence, understood as the integration of cognitive, affective, and behavioural capacities required for intercultural interaction. The study involved 120 Ukrainian high school EFL learners (EG, n = 60; CG, n = 60) in a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design. The intervention combined interactive culturally oriented activities, including Story Circles, OSEE exercises, role-playing, discussions, and scenario tasks; analysis included ANOVA, Cohen’s d, Pearson’s correlation, and reflective diary analysis. Significant Group × Time interactions were found for all three MCC components (all p < .001), indicating greater pre-test–post-test improvement in the EG than in the CG. Large within-EG pre-test–post-test effects were observed in the B1 and B2 subgroups (d_z = 1.64–2.08), and post-test correlations among the MCC components were strong (r = .76–.87). The findings indicate that the intervention was associated with substantial improvement in MCC in this sample, although the quasi-experimental design limits strong causal inference. The academic contribution lies in the differentiated examination of coordinated changes in the cognitive, affective, and behavioural components of MCC in a Ukrainian high-school EFL context. Further research prospects are related to testing the methodology in other educational contexts and expanding the qualitative analysis.References
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