A study of intercultural communication challenges experienced by foreign teachers in Thai schools

Intercultural communication plays a crucial role in communication between foreign teachers and EFL learners at Thai schools. When people come from different cultural backgrounds, challenges that lead to communication failures can occur. This study explored the challenges in intercultural communication experienced by foreign teachers in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom in Thailand. The participants in this study were foreign teachers working at Thai schools. The data was collected using a questionnaire with close-ended and open-ended questions. The findings of the research showed that the most challenging issue in intercultural communication between foreign teachers and EFL learners was language differences due to the limited vocabulary, unfamiliar accents, and limited grammatical knowledge of EFL learners. Nonverbal misinterpretation was found to be the second most challenging issue because EFL learners' nonverbal cues were sometimes misinterpreted by the teachers. Assuming cultural similarities was the third most challenging issue which occurred when the participants assumed that their own culturally familiar criteria were similar to those of EFL learners. The findings of this study may be used as guidelines for foreign teachers working at Thai schools to understand and address potential challenges, as well as avoid misunderstandings when communicating with EFL learners.

跨文化交际在泰国学校外籍教师与英语作为外语（English as a Foreign Language，EFL）学习者的教学沟通中扮演着至关重要的角色。当交际双方来自不同文化背景时，可能出现引发沟通失败的各类挑战。本研究针对泰国境内英语作为外语（EFL）课堂中外籍教师所遭遇的跨文化交际挑战展开了探索。本研究的参与者为就职于泰国学校的外籍教师。研究数据通过包含封闭式问题与开放式问题的调查问卷采集所得。研究结果显示，外籍教师与EFL学习者之间跨文化交际中最具挑战性的问题为语言差异，具体表现为EFL学习者词汇量有限、口音生疏以及语法知识不足。非言语误解被列为第二大挑战性问题，原因在于教师有时会对EFL学习者的非言语线索产生误读。假定文化共性则为第三大挑战性问题，即研究参与者会默认自身所熟悉的文化评判标准与EFL学习者的标准相一致。本研究结果可作为就职于泰国学校的外籍教师的参考指南，帮助其理解并应对潜在的跨文化交际挑战，同时避免与EFL学习者沟通时产生误解。