The relationship between intercultural sensitivity and English language achievement

Abstract

The present descriptive study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between intercultural sensitivity and language achievement of learners of EFL in Turkey. To this aim, a descriptive research design based on the quantitative research methodology was used. The number of female participants was 120, and that of the male participants was 205. A total of 325 participants who were attending preparatory school at a state university were selected using random cluster sampling. The “Intercultural Sensitivity Scale” developed by Chen and Starosta was used to obtain the quantitative data. The findings showed that there is a weak statistically significant positive correlation between intercultural sensitivity and English language achievement of learners of English as a foreign language in Turkey. However, there was a significant difference between the intercultural sensitivity scores of the participants regarding the English language proficiency levels. The results displayed that the higher the proficiency level, the greater the intercultural sensitivity scores are. Additionally, findings indicated that there was not a significant difference between intercultural sensitivity scores of the female and male participants.