MODEL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF 4C’S SKILLS

Abstract

There is substantiated the relevance of the purposeful formation of students’ intercultural competence in the context of globalization and digital transformation of society. The authors prove that the traditional teaching methods of the course “Intercultural Communication” are not sufficiently focused on the development of the activity-based component of intercultural competence. As an effective solution, a model for integrating four essential 21st-century learning skills – 4C’s (critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration) into the educational process is proposed. Based on the analysis of scientific literature, the meaningful correspondence of the components of intercultural competence and 4C’s skills has been clarified. In the process of pedagogical experiment, the effectiveness of the proposed model was proved: the students of the experimental group who studied under the innovative program showed a statistically significant increase in indicators of cognitive, emotional, evaluative and behavioral components of intercultural competence compared with the control group. It is concluded that the 4C’s model acts not only as a complement, but also as a structural framework for the effective formation of intercultural competence and enhancing educational activities, turning the course of intercultural communication into a practice-centered environment for developing soft skills that are in great demand in a modern multicultural professional sphere.