Instructors' use of culture in foreign language classes at a state university in Turkey

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2012

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Tomak, Burak

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This thesis analyzes the use of culture in foreign language classes by the instructors working in a state university in Istanbul, Turkey. The purpose of the study is to determine whether a sufficient degree of attention is paid to culture-teaching in the language classes of the School of Foreign Languages in a state university which is located in a city with a rich cultural heritage (Istanbul) and whether the instructors do their best to maintain or improve their cultural knowledge so as to integrate it in their lessons as well as how they teach culture in their lessons. The data were collected with a questionnaire distributed to the instructors and this instrument was used as guidance by the researcher to select the people to interview. The interviewees were divided into three groups: The ones who showed high utilization of culture were named as “HUC”, the ones with moderate utilization of culture were called “MUC” and the ones with low utilization of culture were named “LUC”. Results of the study showed that the instructors found it difficult not only to improve themselves on this issue but also to allocate a great deal of time to it in the lessons because of the time restrictions of the curriculum of the school and the intense syllabi of their courses. Also, instructors in the HUC group mentioned target culture more, whereas the ones in the LUC group said that they covered Turkish culture in their classes. The interviewees in the MUC group mentioned both the Turkish culture and the target culture. Thus, some modifications in the curriculum of the school are necessary to integrate culture into the lessons and the instructors should be trained on culture teaching with the help of in-service teacher training programs.

Subject Keywords

English language, English language, English language

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614458/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/21652

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

B. Tomak, “Instructors’ use of culture in foreign language classes at a state university in Turkey,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2012.