INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF AN INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION

This study aimed at identifying intercultural sensitivity elements perceived by English department students in an Indonesian university. Broadly, this study used mix-methods: quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data were obtained through questionnaires. The questionnaires were sent to 100 participants and followed by semi-structured interview of 10 participants. For this paper, only quantitative data were used. The findings show that there were three important intercultural sensitivity dimensions: cultural engagement, respect to cultural differences and interaction enjoyment. This study contributes to the more understanding of intercultural dimensions and debates across the globe about intercultural issues. In addition, this study provides methodological contribution on the set of criteria to determine the scale of intercultural sensitivity. This study has further implication of the teaching and learning as one of the key elements on English curriculum. The study suggested that the research on wider participants can further enhance the sounding of this findings and provide overarching understanding of intercultural sensitivity.


INTRODUCTION
Most current research in English language education focused on generic understanding own and cultures, and culture and identity.Few studies have investigated intercultural sensitivity in English language education.Most research have been conducted in the areas of non-English department within westem contexts.For this reason, intercultural sensitiuty is important to further investigate.
A number of studies have indicated the importance of intercultural sensitivity.Chen and Starosta (2000) pointed out that people with intercultural sensitive mind and belravior tend to successfully adapt with people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.Similarly, Byram (1997) commented that it is important for people are equipped with intercultural communication competence to help them sensitive to other cultures.
In Indonesia, research was conducted in several areas.ln the areas of socio-cultural and language leaming (Abduh & Rosm aladewi, 20 1 7b), collaborative culture of leaming (Rosmaladewi & Abduh, 2017), intercultural and online vocabulary leaming (Abduh & Rosmaladewi, 2017a), imagined LITERATURE REVIEW Chen and Starosta (2000) describes intercultural dimension into three categories: intercultural awareness, intercultural adroitness and intercultural sensitivity.The intercultural awareness relates to an individual capability to decipher similar and different culture of others.This means that those peoples in this category tends to have broader lorowledge of cultures other than their own.The awareness of other cultures reflects the cogaitive ability of a person in their expressions and in the way they about others.Intercultural sensitivity is the psychological and emotional dimensions of intercultural communication competence (Chen & Starosta 2000).This psychological trait brings about the emotional feeling and desire of an individual to acknowledge that every person is different, to appreciate that there are similarities and differences among humar beings, and to accept the dissimilarities of culture, ethnic, and identities.Intercultural sensitivi{ includes self+onfidence, self-monitoring, inclusiveness, empathy, broadminded, and social dimensions.In addition, the main feahre of intercultural sensitivity to further explore in this research are cultural engagement, respect to cultural differences, and interaction enjoyment.kr language teaching, it is described as intercultural communicative competence (Byrarn, 1997;l,o Bianco et al. 1999;Sercu, 2002).A research has been conducted to grasp intercultural scholars' perceptions of intercultural competence, however there is no common agreement on what intercultural understanding is (Deardorff, 2006).Despite these differences, those researchers have indicated that the term "intercultural" becomes an important aspect of teaching and leaming.Therefore, this paper argues that intercultural sensitivity has to be part of the core curriculum and become compulsory additional outside classroom activities.

METHODOLOGY
The research employed a pragnatic paradign which combines both quantitative and qualitative approach.The quantitative approach used open-ended questionnaire, and the qualitative data were gained from semi- structured interviews.The questionnaire was created via google form and sent it out to 100 teachers, however only half of them filled the questionnaire due to technical internet connection problems.The questionnaire consists of 26 items.It was adapted from Chen and Starosta (2000) and 2 items were added by researchers.The data were analysed using descriptive statistics.For the purpose of this article, only quantitative data were reported.
To assess intercultural sensitivity, researchers established criteria that are used to identifu the score level of sensitivrty in relation to cultural engagement.39 identities and intercultural investment (Abduh & Andrew, 2017), cultural and ideological values (AMuh & Sau4 2017) utd analyzing language and cultural values in Indonesian language policy (Dollah, Abduh, & Rosmaladewi, 2017).Among these investigations, interculhral sensitivity has not becorne the main focus..5 : Poorly sensitive to intercultural issues 1.6-2.5:Fairly sensitive to intercultural issues 2.6-3.5:Highly setrsitive to intercultural lssues 3.6-above: Very highly sensitive to intercultural issues between age of 18-25 and above 26 years.
Only small number of participants aged under 17 and above 35 years of age.3).39% of participants was in bachelor degree,2\o/o of master's degree, and 4l% of them was doctoral students.This shows a variety of educational levels of students participating at this study.They tended to wait before forming an impression of culturallydistinct counterparts (3.18).Participants were very inclusive to the people from other culhres (4.14).In The graph indicates that the lower the score the better ofthe participant achieve: The better they behave and respect to intercultural lssues.

Interaction enjoyment
Figure ( 6) below indicates the interaction enjoy,ment of participants with other cultures.
Participants did not get upset easily when interacting wrth people fiom different cultures.They were enthusiastic when they were with people from different cultures.
Finally, they often felt useful when interacting with people from different cultures.

t-rQ9
This confirms what Chen and Starosta' s (2000) argument that the lower the average score, the more they enjoy interact with people fiom cultures other than their own.examine students' vocabulary level in business English students.World Byram, M. (1997).Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative comp€tence, Channel View Books.Chen, G.-M. and W. J. Starosta (2000)."The Development and Validation of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale."Human Communication, 3, 1-15 Deardorff, D. K. (2006)."Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization." Joumal of studies in international education l0 (3): 241 -266.

Transdctions on Engineeing and
Dollah, S., Abduh, A., & Rosmaladewi, R. (2017) a set of criteria to assess respect others and interaction enjoyment as follows: o 0-1.5 : Very highly sensitive to intercultural issues c 1.6-2.5:Highly sensitive to intercultural issues o 26-1.5:Fairly sensitive to interculturat lssues o 3.6-above: Poorly sensitive to intercultural rssues FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Profile of ParticipantsThe participants of this study mostly comes fiom female which constitutes more than 50% of the respondents (See Figure l), while male only less than 50% of the participants

Figure 2 :
Figure 2 : Participant's ageIn relation to educational backgound, participants at this study comprise of three levels of qualifications (see Table3). 39% of participants was in bachelor degree,2\o/o of

Figure
Figure 3. Partioipants' educational background Figure 6: lnteraction enjoyment . Benefits and Drawbacks of the analysis of the findings, it appears that participants in this study show highly sensitive and understanding to other cultures in terms of cultural engagemen!respect of cultural differences and interaction enjoyment.Both cognitively and emotionally, participants in this study are able to engage with people from culture other their own.They have established more respectful minded to others and keen to take part in communication with those from other cultures.Despite they are more intercultural minded, it is important to observe how these intercultural dimensions are practiced and realized within a multicultural setting.The limitation of this study is that these findings are based on student's perceptions, not their behaviors.Therefore, it is important to There are no right or wrong answers.Please work quickly and remrd your first impression by indicating the degree to which you agree or disagree with the statement.This scale should be complaed before and after the spring academy.Please fill it in and send it am very observant when interacting with people from different cultures.I often feel useless when interactilg with people from different cultures.I respect the ways people from drfferent cultures behave I try to opt different cultures in as much information as I can when interacbng with people from people from different cultues.I would not accept the opinions from people of different cultwes I am sensitive to my culturally-distinct From I