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appropriately supposed to combine between English cultures and the Indonesian
cultures.

Recently, there are many papers of research focusing on intercultural
competences as a subject of discussion. The study of intercultural language

learning and teaching has become an important aspect in the context of foreign

language learning. Some such studies are conducted by Asian English teachers
such as Zhu (2010: 107), Sun (2013: 371-375), Xue (2014: 1493), and Yu et al.

(2014: 38-46). For example, Liu Yu et al. (2014) in their research indicate that
linguistic knowledge alone is not enough for guaranteeing successful interaction

with native speakers. Cultural mistakes are often more unacceptable than
linguistic mistakes because they tend to create misjudgment or ill feeling among

native and local speakers.

In the context of language learning in some private Indonesian higher
education of English departments, writing is the most difficult skill to master

because students are not able to use English effectively and appropriately (Haerazi

& Hanan, 2013; Aunurrahman, Hamid, & Emilia, 2017). The cultural contents
provided in the materials are not designed in such a way to be able to pose cultural

topics or issues into practice. Therefore, to respond to these phenomena, the
present researcher is keen to develop an interculture-based language learning

(IBLL) model in the teaching of writing skills.
B. Formulation of the Problem

Based on the background of the study, this study focuses on the problem

formulated as: what is the intercultural language learning model designed in the
teaching of writing skills for English department students in higher education

like? The intercultural language learning model which has appropriate
instructional goals, teaching stages, instructional materials, teachers and students‘

roles, and syllabuses hopefully will have a big contribution to the enhancement of
students‘ writing skills, linguistically accurate and culturally acceptable.

C. Literature Review

This section presents five major groups of materials that become
fundamental theories and bases in the development of the interculture-based

language learning (IBLL) model. These materials include the language learning,

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