Promoting Intercultural Communicative Competence through the Use of Audio-visual Translation in Foreign Language Learning: The Confucius Institutes in Morocco as a Study Case

Résumé

Media has long been used by teachers and students of foreign languages and proved its effectiveness in improving the students’ linguistic competence. On the other hand, whether translated media can enhance the students’ intercultural communicative competence is less researched and still questionable. Based on Byram’s model of Intercultural Communicative Competence in language learning-teaching, this research tries to investigate the role and use of translated audio-visual materials in cultivating students enrolled in Confucius institutes in Morocco, and to examine to what extent translated videos can help them to become competent intercultural communicators. To do so, a questionnaire of 21 questions was delivered online to Moroccan students currently studying/or former students of Chinese language in one of the Confucius institutes in Morocco. The main results of this study show that students who benefit from translated videos during the process of learning Chinese language grasp wider knowledge about different elements of the Chinese culture and they become aware of the cultural similarities and differences of both the Chinese and Moroccan cultures, and they can interact skilfully after knowing the specificities of each culture.