1 Introduction

This section elaborates on the importance and urgency of cultivating international communication competence among traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) talents within the context of national strategies. It points out that international communication competence serves as the core support for TCM talents to break through international communication barriers and achieve effective dissemination of TCM culture. It emphasizes that this competence is not simply an additive combination of language skills, professional knowledge, and ideological-political elements, but rather a composite capability generated in cross-cultural interaction scenarios. Simultaneously, it identifies issues in the current English language teaching at TCM higher education institutions, notably the traditional ESP teaching's focus on linguistic forms at the expense of substantive content. To address this problem, Activity Theory is introduced as an analytical lens, aiming to transcend the limitations of traditional ESP teaching. The objective is to explore the cultivation of international communication competence among TCM talents from a systemic perspective and to construct a cultivation model with stronger theoretical explanatory power and practical orientation.

2 Current Status and Deficiencies in Cultivating International Communication Competence of TCM Talents

This section analyzes the current status and deficiencies in cultivating international communication competence among TCM talents across three primary practice fields: medical colleges, hospitals, and international healthcare settings. Although foreign language curricula in medical colleges have shown some exploration, limitations persist, including restricted goal orientation, rigid teaching models, and a lack of authentic pragmatic contexts, making it difficult to cultivate advanced international communication competence. Hospital-based English learning exhibits a pronounced utilitarian orientation, where cross-border communication is marginalized, lacking systematic institutional guarantees and professional support. Research on cultivation in international healthcare settings is nearly absent, practices are fragmented, and there is a lack of specialized cultivation research and replicable professional pathways. Overall, the existing cultivation system suffers from structural mismatches across "curriculum–application–research" levels, with different fields failing to form synergies centered on international communication competence.

3 Conceptual Definition of International Communication Competence for TCM Talents and Its Application in ESP Teaching

This section first emphasizes the importance of clearly defining the concept of international communication competence for TCM talents. It indicates that this is a composite concept integrating characteristics of cross-cultural communication and the practical needs of TCM, possessing comprehensiveness, situatedness, and strategic significance, encompassing both language skills and cross-cultural interaction capabilities. Subsequently, it explores the application of international communication competence in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teaching. It proposes that teaching should shift from language training to fostering cross-cultural communication abilities. This includes setting composite talent cultivation objectives, constructing curriculum content that integrates cross-cultural communication strategies with TCM practice, designing immersive task-based learning activities, and establishing a multi-dimensional comprehensive competency evaluation system, all aimed at enhancing the overall international communication competence of TCM talents.

4 A Cultivation Pathway for International Communication Competence of TCM Talents Based on Activity Theory

This chapter explores a cultivation pathway for international communication competence of TCM talents based on Activity Theory. Addressing issues present in the three major fields—medical colleges, hospitals, and international healthcare settings—such as deviation in object orientation, outdated mediating tools, unreasonable rule systems, fragmented communities, and unidirectional division of labor, targeted improvement proposals are put forward. For the medical college field, the object should be reoriented, task-based projects should be introduced as mediating tools, evaluation rules reformed, interdisciplinary teaching communities built, and students granted more space for active planning and presentation. In the hospital field, there is a need to reshape the object, develop relevant tools, adjust rules, expand the community, and establish dedicated language support positions or teams. For international healthcare settings, it is necessary to clarify the object, develop standardized procedures and guidelines, formulate certification and training standards, build a normalized interactive community, and introduce multi-role collaboration mechanisms. Through these improvements, the various systemic elements can be coordinated towards common goals, achieving systematic cultivation of international communication competence.

5 Conclusion

This chapter emphasizes the need to break through the limitations of traditional ESP teaching. It introduces an integrated concept of international communication competence and, based on third-generation Activity Theory, treats medical colleges, hospitals, and international healthcare settings as collaborative activity systems, aiming to cultivate advanced international communication capabilities in TCM talents. The innovation lies in clarifying the connotation of the competence, proposing cross-field element restructuring and teaching intervention pathways to systematize cultivation. Future research needs to progress in two directions: theoretical extension and empirical validation. At the practical level, efforts should promote policy support, mechanism building, development of relevant resources, and the formation of interdisciplinary teams to enhance the international communication influence and discursive power of TCM talents.