efl leaners’ intercultural sensitivity: do proficiency level, length of learning and gender make a difference?

Intercultural sensitivity (is) as a prerequisite for improving communication between people of different cultures is a requirement for acquiring the skills required for successful intercultural communication. people with intercultural sensitivity can appreciate cultural diversity by gradually overcoming the problem of denying the existence of cultural diversity (bennett. 2017). as one of the intercultural communication skills, intercultural sensitivity is significantly influenced by different culture-related variables. the present study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between intercultural sensitivity and language proficiency, years of learning, and gender of learners of efl of private institutions of dorud city. to this aim, a total of 300 efl learners were chosen by convenient sampling. the number of female participants was 146, and that of the male participants was 154. chen and starosta’s (2000) intercultural sensitivity scale (iss), and the toefl junior standard test were employed for data collection. the findings showed that the correlation between the intercultural sensitivity of english learners and their english language proficiency is not statistically strong. on the other hand, the results indicated that, the correlation between intercultural sensitivity of english learners and the years of learning is significantly positive and strong. this indicates that as much as the learners are exposed to foreign language, they are able to interact more in the foreign language, and to communicate with people of the foreign culture to get to know the different aspects of the foreign culture. finally, the results showed that there is not a significant difference between intercultural sensitivity of female and male participants. the results of the study imply that it is important to be tolerant towards different cultures and accept the differences, but it is not certain that everybody weather proficient or non-proficient, male or female, experienced or inexperienced, is able to cope with the differences.