A study on developing tertiary level efl learners’ intercultural sensitivity

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2021-4-04
Taşkın, Ayşe
In this era, cultural exchanges are an unavoidable part of communication and thus, intercultural sensitivity (IS) is a prerequisite to enhance communication among people from different cultures.Considering that IS is a requirement for the acquisition ofnecessary skills and competencies for successful intercultural communication, the current case study aims toinvestigate the place of ISin an English Language Program (ELP) of a state university revealing the views of the administrators, instructors and learnersand to scrutinize how an eleven-week intercultural component added to the syllabus contribute toISdevelopment of the language learners. In order to investigate the role of IS and an intercultural dimension in language teaching programs, interviews with the administrators and teachers as well as classroom observations were carried out. In addition, to reveal the contribution of the Intercultural Component for the English Language Program (ICforELP) which aimed to develop learners’IS, both qualitative and quantitative measures were used. The data from the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) (Chen and Starosta, 2000a) the interviews with the learners carried out before and after ICforELP, learners’ tasks from the intercultural portfolio, class andgroup discussions, a teacher journal and researcher field notes were examined. The results of the study revealed that ISand intercultural dimension werevalued in the ELP; however, they were not targeted as specific objectives. The study also indicated that CforELP contributed to the learners IS development with an increase in all of the dimensions of IS, which was supported by both qualitative and quantitative data.

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Citation Formats
A. Taşkın, “A study on developing tertiary level efl learners’ intercultural sensitivity,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2021.