Commanding the Class in a Foreign Tongue: The Influence of Language Proficiency and Intercultural Competence on Classroom Leadership

Abstract

This article examines the influence of English language proficiency and intercultural competence on the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership. It analyzes self-reported data obtained by three measuring scales from 188 English-medium instruction lecturers of a Chinese university. The Pearson correlational analysis indicated that there were significant positive relationships between the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership and the two predicting factors. The multiple regression analysis suggested that both intercultural competence and English proficiency contribute much to the variance of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership. It was found that the lecturer’s language proficiency and intercultural communicative abilities could be two determining factors for the lecturer to deliver their disciplinary knowledge and command the class in an engaging and competent manner. The findings may provide implications for the strategic intervention of English-medium instruction educators in institutions of higher education.

Keywords

intercultural competence English proficiency classroom leadership English medium instruction

Introduction

With an evident growth of globalization and greater diversity of student populations in higher education, English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has been commonly used in non-native English-speaking countries (Costa & Coleman, 2013; Dearden, 2018; Macaro et al., 2016). EMI is defined as “the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English” (Dearden, 2014, p. 4). Despite its wide spreading, there are global challenges that EMI presents, especially when considering teaching effectiveness (Doiz et al., 2013; O’Dowd, 2018; Tange, 2010; Wen et al., 2018). In the EMI’s classroom setting of diversity and multi-culturalization, being linguistically and culturally competent has become increasingly important for the lecturer (Cushner & Mahon, 2009; Klaassen, 2008; O’Dowd, 2018).

For a university lecturer, intercultural competence is the ability to teach and communicate effectively across cultures and to manage and accommodate cultural difference within the classroom (Murray, 2016). The lecturer’s classroom management helps develop positive teacher-student relationships in multicultural classrooms (Van Tartwijk et al., 2009). Thus, there may be a close connection between a lecturer’s intercultural competence and classroom leadership. Classroom leadership behaviors overlap to a great extent with a variety of teaching behaviors, such as immediacy, teacher confirmation, teacher accessibility, individualized consideration, and student intellectual stimulation (Daniels & Goodboy, 2014). These behaviors may in general have the benefit to create an engaging classroom environment, foster students’ intrinsic motivation, arouse their learning interests, and meet their psychological needs (Bolkan et al., 2011). According to previous research, a university lecturer’s classroom leadership has significant implications for effective teaching (Bolkan et al., 2011; Kim, 2012; Pounder, 2014; Treslan, 2006).

Studies have found that language and intercultural communication play critical roles in leadership construction (Du-Babcock & Tanaka, 2016; Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014). Much of the existing research on leadership construction has been conducted in the field of business communication, and far less has focused on the lecturer’s classroom leadership construction. Cruz (2018) reported the lecturer’s challenges of classroom leadership resulting from different cultures and being a non-native English speaker. As a non-native English speaker, some of the English-medium instruction lecturers are reported as ill-prepared in the cross-cultural classroom context, including the inadequacy of English language proficiency and intercultural competence (Bradford, 2016; Werther et al., 2014). However, it is still unknown whether and how the inadequacy of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s language proficiency and intercultural competence has an impact on their classroom leadership performance.

The present study aims to explore the influence of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s language proficiency and intercultural competence on their classroom leadership. The knowledge of the relationship will provide a deeper understanding of the nature behind the current problems of EMI’s teaching effectiveness. The result of this study will help EMI teacher educators to get more knowledge of what is actually happening in the EMI classroom. Furthermore, the finding of this study may contribute to the literature of the predicting factors of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership.

Intercultural Competence

Over the past half century, a considerable amount of research has been conducted on intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2006, 2009, 2016; Griffith et al., 2016). According to Deardorff (2006), intercultural competence is defined as “the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, skills and reflection” (p. 5). Effective interaction refers to the degree that an individual’s intended goals were achieved, while appropriate interaction refers to the manner and context in which those communication goals were realized (Deardorff, 2016).

There are many similar terms used to describe intercultural competence, such as cross-cultural competence, intercultural communicative competence, global competence, intercultural intelligence, intercultural competence, intercultural sensitivity, and global citizenship (Griffith et al., 2016; Leung et al., 2014). Each term reflects a different emphasis of the research. Peterson (2004) argued that competence involves only the basic skills necessary to function within a group, while intelligence is the capability of interacting and using the skills and qualities of these groups. Looking at these descriptors on an intercultural level, intercultural competence describes a person who is able to simply operate within a society, while intercultural intelligence describes a person who is able to assimilate and become one with the culture.

Scholars have shown much interest in developing scales for measuring intercultural competence (Griffith et al., 2016). Among the scales, the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (Chen & Starosta, 2000) has been well accepted to measure intercultural competence. To explain the concept of intercultural sensitivity, Bhawuk and Brislin (1992) stated,

To be effective in other cultures, people must be interested in other cultures, be sensitive enough to notice cultural differences and also be willing to modify their behavior as an indication of respect for people of other cultures. A reasonable term that summarizes these qualities of people is intercultural sensitivity. (p. 416)

Under this definition, it can be interpreted that intercultural sensitivity develops as an individual gains intercultural knowledge and experiences varying interactions. As stated by Straffon (2003, p. 487), intercultural sensitivity forms as a response to intercultural differences. Intercultural sensitivity allows individuals to manage and regulate emotions by both being able to understand culturally different perceptions and behaviors, and respectfully appreciate these differences (Chen & Starosta, 1998). According to Chen and Starosta (2000), intercultural sensitivity reflects the “active desire [of people] to motivate themselves to understand, appreciate, and accept differences among cultures” (p. 9). Deardorff (2006) highlighted the critical role of intercultural sensitivity in the discussion of intercultural competence by identifying three themes, including “the awareness, valuing, and understanding of cultural differences, experiencing other cultures, and self-awareness of one’s own culture” (p. 247).

Intercultural sensitivity is one of the prerequisites for intercultural communication competence (Chen & Starosta, 1998). Research has found that higher intercultural sensitivity has the potential to increase intercultural competence (Bennett, 2004; Hernandez & Kose, 2012; Penbek et al., 2012; Peng, 2006). Bennett (2004), for instance, suggested that cognitively complex individuals who possess greater intercultural sensitivity tend to be more “person-centered” and “perspective taking” in their communication (p. 487). Peng (2006) examined the intercultural sensitivity of English major students, non-English major students, and multinational employees in China. Peng’s study suggested that individuals with higher intercultural communication sensitivity tend to do well in intercultural communication settings. Literature furthermore noted a causal relationship between intercultural sensitivity and intercultural competence (Moore-Jones, 2018).

English Proficiency

For the English-medium instruction lecturer, English is their foreign tongue. Scholars tend to believe that the EMI lecturer should have a minimum level of English language proficiency for successful teaching (Ball & Lindsay, 2013). It is suggested that the minimum proficiency level should be C1 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Klaassen & Bos, 2010). However, CEFR is known as a description of general English proficiency, similar to TOEFL or IELTS. General English proficiency refers to the basic ability to listen, speak, read, and write in English.

An appropriate classroom event should be composed of four “languages”: general language, academic language, domain-specific language, and classroom language (Gierlinger, 2013). According to Cullen (1994), classroom English is a form of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) since it is a necessary skill to give proper instructions, ask questions, and prompt discussion by students in the classroom. Even if a lecturer has good general English language proficiency, it does not necessarily guarantee classroom language proficiency (Freeman et al., 2015). Effective classroom delivery not only includes proficiency in the language, but also an array of skills such as questioning and signaling (Elder & Kim, 2013).

Studies on English-for-Teaching provide another perspective to look at the English language proficiency for the English-medium instruction lecturer. English-for-Teaching is defined as “the essential English language skills a teacher needs to be able to prepare and enact the lesson in a standardized (usually national) curriculum in English in a way that is recognizable and understandable to other speakers of the language” (Young et al., 2014, p. 5). The classroom language use has three functional areas, namely managing the classroom, understanding and communicating lesson content, and providing feedback to students (Freeman et al., 2015).

Classroom Leadership

The approach to a lecturer’s classroom leadership behaviors originates from the transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006). According to this theory, transformational leaders in organizations lead through idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Similarly, a lecturer as a transformational leader articulates a realistic vision of the course learning shared by the class, motivates and stimulates students intellectually, and pays attention to the differences among the students (Balwant, 2016; White et al., 2017).

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is a process by which leaders influence followers in terms of changing morality, motivation, perceptions and values, expectations, and aspirations (Burns, 1978). Transformational leadership involves inspiring followers toward a shared vision or an agreed goal within an organization through coaching, mentoring, and challenging, as well as supporting (Bass & Riggio, 2006). According to Bass and Avolio (2000), transformational leadership contains four components:

(a) Idealized Influence or Charisma: The leader gains respect, trust, and admiration, instills pride in followers, and displays a sense of power, confidence, and underlying ethics, principles, and values.

(b) Inspirational Motivation: The leader motivates and challenges subordinates, acts as a model, communicates a vision, excites and inspires subordinates.

(c) Individual Consideration: The leader teaches, acts as a coach or mentor, cares about individual’s different concerns and needs, and helps subordinates develop their strengths.

(d) Intellectual Stimulation: The leader stimulates followers toward innovation and creativeness, solicits different solutions, and re-examines critical assumptions.

The use of the transformational leadership theory may help explain why excellent teachers tend to become teacher leaders (Snell & Swanson, 2000) and, conversely, why teacher leaders are usually excellent teachers (Pounder, 2006). As York-Barr and Duke (2004) pointed out, the respect from students afforded teacher leaders to enjoy their reputations as excellent classroom performers. In addition, teachers’ classroom leadership characteristics may be able to account for their perceived “pedagogical excellence” (Crowther & Olsen, 1997, p. 6).

Transformational Classroom Leadership

Classroom leadership is distinct from teacher leadership. Pounder (2006) argued that classroom leadership is the fourth wave of teacher leadership, as teacher classroom leadership is a process, rather than a positional concept in the first three phrases of teacher leadership, with a focus shift from the lecturer-staff relationship to the lecturer-student relationship in the university classroom context. The studies on classroom leadership share the premise that the classroom is a quasi-organization, with a lecturer as a leader and students as followers (Pounder, 2008). The lecturer in a university classroom usually plays a role of a transformational leader (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009, 2011; Pounder, 2006). That is, a lecturer’s classroom leadership practices are transformational in nature (Andy-Wali & Wali, 2018). The terms of transformational classroom leadership and classroom leadership are interchangeably used in this study.

Classroom leadership has already become an alternative conceptual lens for examining effective teaching in much research (Balwant, 2018; Balwant et al., 2019; Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009; Pounder, 2014). As a significant predictor of student learning, classroom leadership may in general have the benefit to create an engaging classroom environment, foster students’ intrinsic motivation, arouse their learning interests, and meet their psychological needs (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009, 2011; Bolkan et al., 2011). The lecturer as a transformational leader articulates a realistic vision of the course learning shared by the class, motivates and stimulates students intellectually, and pays attention to the differences among the students (Balwant, 2016).

Much research on classroom leadership focused on its benefits for student academic performance and learning outcomes (Balwant, 2016; Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009, 2011; Pounder, 2008, 2014). However, there is limited research to relate classroom leadership to other competences of a lecturer. In particular, little is known about the classroom leadership of a non-native English-speaking lecturer in a cross-cultural context. The present study is guided by the following research questions:

(1) Is there any relationship between the English-medium instruction lecturer’s language proficiency, intercultural competence, and their classroom leadership?

(2) To what extent do the English-medium instruction lecturer’s language proficiency and intercultural competence significantly affect their classroom leadership?

Method

Data Collection

The sample size for this study was calculated using the G-power with an alpha of 0.05 and an effect size of 0.06 (determined by the variance explained by special effect of 0.03 and residual variance 0.5). According to Hedges and Rhoads (2010, p. 12), for normative statistical practice in education research, “power of 0.8 or above is considered acceptable.” In this study, the G-power calculated a total sample size of 185 participants for a power of 0.8.

The data collection approach was a convenience sampling method. The participants for this study were the English-medium instruction lecturers at a Chinese public university. This university has been implementing English medium instruction (EMI) programs at varying levels for approximately 10 years, with over 1,000 international students enrolled in the EMI programs yearly. Almost all the EMI programs have a mixture of international students and Chinese students; however, the lecturers’ actual classroom language use is English.

The quantitative questionnaire packet of this study included the scales to measure the independent variables and the dependent variable. All the scales used a 5-point Likert scale where 0 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree. The survey for the data collection was made by a self-report, which can provide valuable performance-related information. The internet link of the questionnaire was sent by email to the English-medium instruction lecturers of the university for the completion.

A total of 188 lecturers responded to the self-reported questionnaire. Of all the respondents, 67 (36%) were male and 121 (64%) were female. The lecturers were all native Chinese, most of whom finished their education in China. The participants’ similar background showed that the sample was roughly a homogeneous representation of the whole population. Sample homogeneity is the main assumption of convenience sampling.

During this study, all participants were informed of the confidentiality of their responses and were encouraged to provide honest answers in the survey. Also, participants were assured that they could stop doing the questionnaires whenever they decided to do so. At all times data would be kept confidential. No names would be identified in the publication of results.

Measures

The scales used to measure the variables were the 20-item Transformational Leadership Scale taken from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ Form 5x-Short) (Bass & Avolio, 2000), the 12-item Classroom Language Scale adapted from the Classroom Language Assessment (Education Bureau of Hong Kong, 2011), and the 24-item Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (Chen & Starosta, 2000).¹

The Intercultural Sensitivity Scale

The English-medium instruction lecturer’s intercultural competence was measured via the use of the 24-item Intercultural Sensitivity Scale, which measures five aspects of intercultural sensitivity: interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction confidence, interaction enjoyment, and interaction attentiveness (Chen & Starosta, 2000). According to the study by Chen and Starosta (2000), the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient is 0.86, which shows high internal consistency (p. 9). This scale’s validity was also evaluated with seven related measures; the result showed that there exists significant correlation between them, with values ranging from r = 0.17 to r = 0.74 (p. 11).

The Classroom Language Scale

The Classroom English Proficiency Scale (see Appendix A) was used to measure English-medium instruction lecturers’ classroom language proficiency. This scale was adapted from the Classroom Language Assessment of LPATE (Education Bureau of Hong Kong, 2011). The original application of this scale was through classroom observation, which was not ideal in a self-reported study. In order to use this scale, the questionnaire was adapted into a total of 12 self-report items, with three statements per component. The four components are grammatical and lexical accuracy and range; pronunciation, stress, and intonation; the language of interaction; and the language of instruction (Education Bureau of Hong Kong, 2011). The original assessment has a high reliability (Coniam & Falvey, 2013). The reliability and the validity for the adapted scale were checked using the SPSS (IBM, 2015).

The MLQ Transformational Leadership Scale

The English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership in this study was measured via the MLQ Transformational Leadership Scale (Bass & Avolio, 2000). This scale has a high reliability alpha (Dvir et al., 2002). Its construct includes four factors: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration (Four I’s). In order to employ this scale in a university setting, some words were changed to increase clarity; for example, “others” was changed into “students,” and “the group” into “the whole class.”

Translation

In this study, the original three English-version scales were first translated into Chinese by the writer, and then reviewed and checked by two experienced native-Chinese English teachers. Using Brislin’s (2000) back-translation procedure, the translated draft was then retranslated back into English independently by another two experienced English teachers. The writer compared the back-translated version to the original English version, and then revised the Chinese translation to ensure that the intent of the question was not lost. The translated Chinese versions were finally reviewed again by two senior English teachers.

Reliability and Validity

The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS v. 23.0; IBM, 2015) was used for reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis of the collected data. The internal consistency for each translated scale was determined using Cronbach Alpha for measuring its reliability (Cohen et al., 2007). In this study, the internal consistency Cronbach α of the translated Transformational Classroom Leadership Scale is 0.92, the Classroom Language Scale 0.94, and the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale 0.84.

Exploratory factor analysis was used to check the translated scales’ construct validity. The Total Variance Explained table and the Rotated Factor Matrix table for each scale indicated that roughly all the factors for the translated scales are consistent with the constructs of the original scales. That is, the scales of Chinese versions all have good construct validity.

Results

Preliminary Analysis

In this study, the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom language proficiency and intercultural competence are treated as the independent variables, and the lecturer’s transformational classroom leadership as the dependent variable. By running the frequencies in SPSS (IBM, 2015), no data was missing. Correlational analysis and multiple regression analysis were conducted to examine the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable.

The data collected was screened for the assumptions of multiple regression analysis, including normality and linearity. To check the distribution of normality, descriptive statistics and normal Q-Q plots of the variables were studied. The descriptive statistics presented the means and standard deviations for all the variables: English Proficiency (M = 2.84, SD = 0.63), Intercultural Competence (M = 2.80, SD = 0.35), and Classroom Leadership (M = 3.07, SD = 0.42) (Table 1).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for the Variables (Means, Standard Deviation, Skewness, and Kurtosis).

Variables	M	SD	Skewness		Kurtosis
Variables	M	SD	Statistic	SE	Statistic	SE
English proficiency	2.84	0.63	−0.49	0.18	0.59	0.35
Intercultural competence	2.80	0.35	0.29	0.18	−0.19	0.35
Classroom leadership	3.07	0.42	0.25	0.18	−0.18	0.35

Note. N = 188. M, SD, and SE represent mean, standard deviation, and standard error, respectively.

Five-point Likert scale where 0 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree. The maximum score is 4.

According to George and Mallery (2010), if the values for skewness and kurtosis are between −2 and +2, they are considered acceptable for normal distribution. All the variables in this study were near normal based on the Skewness and Kurtosis (Table 1). The skewness was between −0.5 and 0.5, so the data collected were symmetric. The normal Q-Q plots of the three variables were almost a line, which also showed the variables’ distribution normality.

The linear relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable is the basic assumption for multiple linear regression analysis. Therefore, scatter plots were checked to see the linearity of the variables in this study. All the scatter plots demonstrated insignificant deviation from linearity (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Scatter plots of English proficiency and intercultural competence to classroom leadership.

Correlational Analysis

The correlational analysis was used to answer the first research question. The results of the Pearson correlation indicated that there were significant positive associations between the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership and the two independent variables, English proficiency (r = 0.40, p < .001) and intercultural competence (r = 0.51, p < .001) (Table 2). That is, there was a medium correlation between the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership and their English proficiency and intercultural competence.

Table 2.

Pearson Correlations of English Proficiency (EP), Intercultural Competence (IC), and Classroom Leadership (CL) (N = 188).

	EP	IC	CL
English proficiency	—	—	—
Intercultural competence	0.47	—	—
Classroom leadership	0.40	0.51	—

Note. p < .001.

English proficiency includes four components: grammar, pronunciation, English of interaction, and English of instruction. Among the four components of the classroom English proficiency scale, the English for instruction had the highest correlation with classroom leadership (r = 0.42, p < .001), and grammar had the least correlation with classroom leadership (r = 0.28, p < .001), compared with pronunciation (r = 0.33, p < .001) and the English for interaction (r = 0.36, p < .001).

Intercultural Competence includes five components: Interaction Engagement, Respect for Cultural Differences, Interaction Confidence, Interaction Enjoyment, and Interaction Attentiveness. Among the five components of Intercultural Competence, the Interaction Engagement (r = 0.53, p < .001) had the highest correlation with classroom leadership, compared with Interaction Enjoyment (r = 0.22, p < .001), Respect for Cultural Differences (r = 0.38, p < .001), and Interaction Confidence (r = 0.33, p < .001), Interaction Attentiveness (r = 0.39, p < .001), and Interaction Enjoyment had the least correlation with classroom leadership.

The correlations between English proficiency and each of the components of classroom leadership, respectively, are Idealized Influence (r = 0.35, p < .001), Inspirational Motivation (r = 0.31, p < .001), Intellectual Stimulation (r = 0.42, p < .001), and Individual Consideration (r = 0.36, p < .001) (Table 3). The correlations between Intercultural Competence and the components of classroom leadership, respectively, are Idealized Influence (r = 0.42, p < .001), Inspirational Motivation (r = 0.50, p < .001), Intellectual Stimulation (r = 0.51, p < .001), and Individual Consideration (r = 0.44, p < .001) (Table 3). Among the correlations, Intellectual Stimulation had the highest correlations with both English proficiency and Intercultural Competence.

Table 3.

Pearson Correlations of English Proficiency (EP), Intercultural Competence (IC), and the Components of Classroom Leadership (CL) (N = 188).

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Idealized influence	—	—	—	—	—	—
2. Inspirational motivation	0.80	—	—	—	—	—
3. Intellectual stimulation	0.67	0.70	—	—	—	—
4. Individual consideration	0.69	0.73	0.70	—	—	—
5. English proficiency (EP)	0.35	0.31	0.42	0.36	—	—
6. Intercultural competence (IC)	0.42	0.50	0.51	0.44	0.47	—

Note. p < .001.

Multiple Regression Analysis

To answer the second research question, a multiple regression analysis was used, whereby English proficiency and intercultural competence were regressed on classroom leadership. The multiple regression analysis would determine the amount of variation in the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership attributed to each of the independent variables. In other words, the size of the coefficient for each independent variable gives the size of the effect that the independent variable is having on the dependent variable, and the positive or negative sign on the coefficient gives the direction of the effect.

The R² value indicates how much of the total variation in the dependent variable can be explained by the independent variables. The p value (Significance) tells that how confident the researcher can be that each independent variable correlates with the dependent variable. In this case, the results of the regression indicated that the two independent variables explained 30% of the variance of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership (R² = 0.30, F(2, 185) = 38.81, p < .001) (Table 4). The Durbin-Watson d = 1.77, which is between the two critical values of 1.5 < d < 2.5. Therefore, it could be assumed that there is no first order linear auto-correlation in the multiple linear regression data.

Table 4.

Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Classroom Leadership (N = 188).

Variables	B	SE B	β	t	p	Collinearity
Variables	B	SE B	β	t	p	Tolerance	VIF
(Constant)	1.28	0.21	—	6.12	.00*	—	—
English proficiency	0.14	0.05	0.20	2.90	.00	0.78	1.29
Intercultural competence	0.50	0.08	0.42	5.98	.00*	0.78	1.29

Note. R² = 0.30, F(2, 185) = 38.81.

p < .001.

It was shown that, the overall level of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership was significantly predicted by intercultural competence (β = 0.42, p < .001) and English proficiency (β = 0.20, p < .001) (Table 4). In other words, intercultural competence and English proficiency are the two important variables that significantly influence changes in the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership. The results showed that intercultural competence has a much higher impact than English proficiency by comparing the standardized coefficients (β = 0.42 vs. β = 0.20).

The results also allow the researcher to check for multicollinearity in the multiple linear regression model. If tolerance values >0.1 and VIF < 10, they are usually considered to be in the normal ranges. In this case, both the tolerance values (0.78) and the VIF values (1.29) are acceptable. In addition, the mean of residuals is zero, with no strong deviations, which indicates that the residuals are normally distributed.

Discussion

Intercultural Competence and Classroom Leadership

The correlational analysis of this study showed that intercultural competence had a medium correlation with classroom leadership. The results of the regression analysis showed that intercultural competence contributes much more to the variance of classroom leadership. That is, intercultural competence is a significant predictor of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership. The findings gave insights to the idea of improving classroom leadership mainly through developing the lecturer’s intercultural competence. Increased intercultural competence of the English-medium instruction lecturer will lead to stronger classroom leadership.

The findings are consistent with the previous research on the relationship between intercultural competence and leadership in a context of diverse cultures, despite different terms used for intercultural competence (Gandolfi, 2012; Keung, 2011; Seiler, 2007). According to Gandolfi (2012), there is a positive relationship between leadership dimensions and intercultural communication competence across different cultural contexts. Keung’s (2011) study showed that there is a significant positive relationship between cultural intelligence and transformational leadership in international school leaders. Another study also concluded that cultural intelligence as an individual competence is one of the determining factors of leadership in the intercultural setting (Seiler, 2007).

Language Proficiency and Classroom Leadership

The correlational analysis showed that there is a significant positive correlational relationship between the English-medium instruction lecturer’s English proficiency and classroom leadership. The regression results indicated that language proficiency significantly contributes to the variance of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership. The findings of the relationship between language and classroom leadership is consistent with the social constructivist approach to leadership. Under the social constructivist theory, language and communication are critical in leadership construction (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014). According to Du-Babcock and Tanaka (2016), language is a key tool for non-native English-speaking leaders to minimize intercultural communication problems.

The findings of this study confirmed the important role of language proficiency for leadership. Literature noted a great effect of a leader’s motivating language use on followers’ perceptions and behaviors (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2017). Lack of English language proficiency may generate a sense of mistrust among followers, which further diminishes the power and authority of the leaders who are second language users (Kouzes & Pozner, 2008). Cullen (2002) also pointed out that the lecturer who does not have the necessary language skills will be unable to exert their authority and have low self-esteem.

In this study, the influence of the lecturer’s English proficiency on their classroom leadership supports the results of previous research. For example, one study (Jensen et al., 2013) conducted in Denmark found that English language proficiency is perceived by students as one of the key elements of the English-medium instruction lecturer’s teaching ability. English proficiency may influence not only the lecturer’s charismatic image in students’ eyes, but the lecturer’s classroom leadership behaviors, such as inspiring, motivating, and mentoring students.

The results of this study may have some implications for the development and training of English-medium instruction lecturers. This study supports the positive effect of the training practice of intercultural competence and English language proficiency for the English-medium instruction lecturer (Klaassen, 2008). As Murray (2016) argued, the lecturer with higher intercultural competence and linguistic competence could better manage and accommodate cultural differences in the classroom. The findings of this study may contribute to a more professional approach to the English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership development. It was suggested that future classroom leadership training and development program may focus not only on developing classroom leadership itself (Pounder, 2009), but on developing the lecturer’s language proficiency and intercultural competence. Thus, the lecturer’s language proficiency and intercultural communicative abilities could be two determining factors for the lecturer to deliver their disciplinary knowledge and command the class in an engaging and competent manner.

Limitations and Future Research

This study has some limitations. Despite a good power of the sample size, the sample was from only one university, which might not explain much beyond the current context. This limitation made it difficult for the findings to be generalizable to other universities. Another limitation was that this study provided only a cross-sectional data with a snapshot, leaving the research findings and inferences on the lecturer’s classroom leadership narrowly focused and inconclusive. Future research may focus on identifying other sources of variance in an English-medium instruction lecturer’s classroom leadership, which can be done via surveys given to an expanded population and studies from the perspective of students.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by China Foreign Language Education Fund [grant number ZGWYJYJJ10A041].

ORCID iD

Changmi Wang

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, C. W. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Notes

Author Biography

Changmi Wang is an associate professor in the School of Foreign Language Studies, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, China. He obtained his doctoral degree of education from the St. Thomas University of the United States. His current research interest includes English medium instruction and English teaching.

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