Institutional internationalisation is regarded as an important aspect in today's higher education development. This paper first argues that the development of intercultural competence should be considered as an important students' outcome of institutional internationalisation. It is believed that English teaching and related activities are easily accessible resources which can be fully utilised to promote students' intercultural competence at universities, and based on this, the author proposes a working model of intercultural competence that consists of three dimensions, i.e. knowledge, action and reflection. To practice this working model, a four-module pattern of co-curricular activity-based intercultural competence training programme is introduced. In addition, some further principles (organisation, participation and evaluation) rising from the author's empirical practice are discussed. This programme could be, to a large extent, applicable to many higher educational institutions in the global arena.