Learning Beyond Languages: The Role of Cross-Cultural Understanding Courses and Lecturers’ Intercultural Experiences in Fostering Open-Mindedness among EFL Students

This study investigated how the Cross-Cultural Understanding (CCU) course and lecturers’ intercultural experiences fostered open-mindedness among EFL students at a state Islamic university in Aceh. A qualitative phenomenological design was employed through semi-structured interviews with seven students (P1-P7), analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis and interpreted through Byram’s ICC model and Bhabha’s Third Space framework. Nine answers were found. The CCU course fostered open-mindedness across Byram’s (1997, 2021) savoir comprendre, savoir être, and savoir apprendre/faire, while lecturers’ intercultural experiences functioned as a separate, trusted way of learning through someone else’s experience, in one case directly changing a participant’s earlier stereotype. The two sources worked jointly, a relationship that became clearer through Bhabha’s Third Space framework as applied by Zakaria (2025), concluding that lecturers’ intercultural experiences functioned as an active pedagogical resource rather than illustrative background.