CHAPTER 4 DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE THROUGH VIRTUAL REALITY Assoc. Prof. Servet Çelik Trabzon University servet61@trabzon.edu.tr ORCID: 0000-0002-2908-2551 Dr. Şakire Erbay-Çetinkaya Karadeniz Technical University sakireerbay@ktu.edu.tr ORCID: 0000-0003-2594-1205 Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Kokoç Trabzon University kokoc@trabzon.edu.tr 0000-0002-1347-8033 Before you read, reflect on the following questions: 1. What does the concept of “cultural competence” mean to you? 2. How do you define “Intercultural Communicative Competence”? 3. How much do you know about the concept of “Virtual Reality”? 4. Do you think that three-dimensional simulations could be utilized to develop ICC? If so, how? 5. Do you think that language teachers could encounter difficulties when they try to integrate virtual reality technologies into culture teaching in Türkiye? Introduction The increasingly globalized world characterized by frequent cross-cultural interactions for professional, social, and personal motivations and cultural diversity necessitates equipping new generations with skills to interact and cooperate effectively at the intercultural level (Akdere et al., 2021; Çelik & Erbay-Çetinkaya, 2020; Griffith et al., 2016; Nadeem et al., 2020; Perry & Southwell, 2011; Tutunea, 2021). Thus, in the