A Core Skill for Higher Education

This chapter will argue that intercultural communication is a core skill for students of higher education. Yet, high school graduates are not adequately prepared for the global environments that are today's higher education institutions. The focus is on the learning and teaching of intercultural communication at high school and the skills carried by the learner into higher education. The authors examine why, despite the guidelines from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and the High Schools English Curriculum standards express instructions for teaching intercultural skills in the classroom, students lack the core skills on completion of language studies at high school. The material for this chapter is drawn from the experience of the authors in learning, teaching, and assessing language competence in South-Eastern China, Central Europe, and the Eastern Seaboard of the USA.