CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Enhancing intercultural communicative competence through cultural workshops in a Chinese as a foreign language classroom: a mixed methods study protocol
Provisionally accepted
- University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Word count: 251 As universities increasingly prioritise global citizenship through study abroad programmes, intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has become central to Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) education. Whilst blended study abroad provision is expanding, culturally responsive pedagogies remain underexamined in Irish higher education contexts. This study protocol outlines a single-case, one-group pre–post design investigating within-cohort changes in ICC associated with experiential Chinese cultural workshops in an 11-week blended CFL study abroad course at an Irish private university. The study adopts a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (QUANT → qual). In Phase 1, the full cohort (estimated n = 20–30) will complete pre-and post-course administrations of the Students' Intercultural Communicative Competence Self-Assessment (SISA). Quantitative analyses will report descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-tests (or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests where assumptions are not met), and effect sizes (Cohen's d or rank-biserial correlation), alongside internal consistency for the target sample. In Phase 2, purposive sampling (approximately 10–12 participants) will support qualitative data collection through semi-structured interviews, reflective blogs, and Zoom classroom recordings, analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Integration will occur by using quantitative patterns to inform qualitative sampling and interview foci, and by merging findings in interpretation. The protocol is theoretically grounded in Byram's (1997) ICC model and Kolb's (1984) Experiential Learning Theory, mapping workshop objectives to Byram's five savoirs and structuring learning through experience–reflection cycles. Given the one-group design, the study will avoid causal attribution and is expected to generate transferable insights into how experiential cultural pedagogy can be operationalised and evaluated in blended CFL study abroad settings.
Keywords: blended learning, Chinese as a foreign language, Experiential workshops, Intercultural communicative competence, study abroad, study protocol
Received: 23 Oct 2025; Accepted: 19 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Yan and Michaud. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Matthew Michaud
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.