Enhancing Students' Ability to Comprehend Intercultural Concepts in EFL Classes

Abstract

Intercultural language learning has become an important focus of modern language education recently. Learners may encounter cultural barriers as well as linguistic barriers in classrooms. Therefore, teachers should follow some strategies to help them cope with these intercultural encounters by raising their cultural awareness and engaging them in culture learning. The study introduces the project called "Let's learn about other cultures" carried out during the fall semester of 2014-2015 academic year in the English preparatory school of a state university in Turkey with a group of 40 students. The project aimed at enhancing students’ intercultural concept learning performance using weekly student-designed bulletins that provide information on the words, phrases, and sentences indicative of intercultural elements or concepts they encountered in their classes. The data consisted of 15 students’ responses to the semi-structured interview questions on the efficiency of the project and their scores on the test on the words and expressions practiced in the bulletins administered at the end of the semester. The results showed that most of the students were able to learn the intercultural words, phrases, and sentences studied as part of the project and they had positive views on the efficiency of the project.

Keywords

• Intercultural communicative competence,intercultural language learning,prospective English teachers

Öğrencilerin Yabancı Dil Sınıflarında Karşılaştıkları Kültürlerarası Kavramları Öğrenme Becerilerinin Geliştirilmesi

Öz

Kültürlerarası dil öğreniminin yakın zamanda modern dil eğitiminin önemli bir odak noktası haline geldiği bilinmektedir.  Öğrenciler, sınıf ortamında dilbilimsel engellerin yanı sıra kültürel engellerle de karşılaşabilmektedir. Bu nedenle, öğretmenler, öğrencilerin kültürel farkındalıklarını artırarak ve kültür öğrenimiyle alakadar olmalarını sağlayarak öğrencilerin yabancı dil sınıflarında karşılaşılan kültürlerarası kavramlarla başa çıkabilmeleri için bazı stratejiler takip etmelidir. Bu çalışma, 2014 – 2015 akademik yılı güz dönemi boyunca Türkiye’deki bir devlet üniversitesinin İngilizce hazırlık sınıfında 40 kişilik bir öğrenci grubuyla uygulanan “Diğer kültürleri tanıyalım (Let's learn about other cultures)” projesini ele almaktadır.  Proje, öğrencilerin derslerde karşılaştıkları kültürel unsurları ve kavramları içinde barındıran kelime, ifade ve cümlelerle ilgili bilgi içeren ve kendileri tarafından haftalık olarak hazırlanan bültenlerin kullanılması yoluyla, öğrencilerin kültürlerarası kavramları öğrenme performanslarını geliştirmeyi hedeflemektedir. Çalışmada veriler, 15 öğrencinin katılımıyla gerçekleştirilen yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme ve dönem sonunda bültende bulunan kültürlerarası kelime ve ifadeleri ölçen kısa sınav sonuçlarından elde edilmiştir.  Dönemin sonunda öğrencilerin büyük çoğunluğu, proje kapsamında çalışılan kültürlerarası kelime, ifade ve cümleleri öğrenebilmiş ve projenin etkililiği konusunda olumlu görüş belirtmişlerdir. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Kültürlerarası kavramlar,kültürel engeller,kültürlerarası farkındalık

Kaynakça

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