Anyway, the intercultural communicative competence is defined according to the need for the research goals and the theoretical perspective。 And in this paper, we define it as an ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with people from various cultural backgrounds。

2。3 Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices

Based on the theory of behaviorism, Ruben brought out a new model called “Intercultural Behavioral Assessment Indices” (IBAI)。 He considers intercultural communicative competence as a visible, trainable ability, which could only be defined in a real intercultural situation。 According to IBAI, seven elements of ICC are: display of respect, interaction posture, orientation to knowledge, empathy, role behaviors, interaction management, and tolerance of ambiguity。 Based on his theoretical mode, scholars created several assessment tools to help selecting staffs working overseas (Huang , 2013)。

This paper adopts seven essential elements of IBAI to measure the development of volunteers’ ICC。 Six elements of IBAI are as follows:

       1。 Display of respect来*自-优=尔,论:文+网www.chuibin.com

Display of respect refers to “the ability to express respect and positive regard for another person” (Ruben, 1976, p。339)。 This element includes behavioral cues such as eye contact, body posture, voice tone and pitch, and general displays of interest in the interaction。 Interaction posture refers to “the ability to respond to others in a descriptive, nonevaluating, and nonjudgmental way”(Ruben, 1976, p。 340)。 According to Ruben, the more competent the inpiduals are, the more descriptive and less evaluative or judgmental they are。

       2。 Role behaviors

Role behaviors refer to the ability to be functionally flexible in different group situations。 Role behaviors are classified into task roles, relational roles, and inpidualistic roles。 For the task roles a competent person shows the ability to complete tasks such as “initiation of ideas, requesting further information or facts, seeking of clarification or group tasks, clarification of task-related issues, evaluation of suggestions of others, or focusing group on task”(Ruben, 1976: 350)。 For relational roles a competent person shows the ability to lead the group to outcomes such as “harmonizing and mediating scraps and conflicts between group members, attempts to regulate evenness of contributions of group members,” offers comments "relative to the group's dynamics," displays "indications of a willingness to compromise own position for the sake of group consensus," (Ruben, 1976: 350) and displays interests。 For inpidualistic roles a competent person would not show behaviors such as resistance to others’ ideas, attempt to call attention to him or herself, manipulation of the group, and avoidance of participation in the group activities。