Abstract:

Global changes taking place in the 21st century open the boarders for free movement of people in the world making working and educational environment more culturally diverse. Naturally, people from different societies around the world are supposed to be involved in international dialogues and need a common language to communicate. Thus, the basic goal of learning a foreign language is not only learning to communicate in the target language but also learning the customs and traditions of the foreign community. Foreign language educators need to develop the learner’s intercultural communication competence and intercultural sensitivity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the intercultural sensitivity of pre-service teachers and their beliefs about the objectives of teaching culture in teaching English as a foreign language. It is also aimed to discover if there is a relationship between the participants’ intercultural sensitivity, beliefs about culture teaching and some demographic variables such as age, gender, department, the place where the participants were grown up. For this purpose, a questionnaire was used to collect data which was composed of three parts: an open ended and multiple-choice question form to gather demographic information about the participants; an intercultural sensitivity scale, and a scale with questions about the beliefs of teachers towards culture teaching. The data was gathered in 2015-2016 academic year. The participants were 310 pre-service teachers (102 males and 206 females) from the Faculty of Education of a state university in Turkey. The results indicated that gender is not related to the participants’ intercultural sensitivity levels and their beliefs about the objectives of teaching culture whereas age, department and the place where the participants were grown up are important factors in their intercultural sensitivity levels and beliefs about the objectives of teaching culture. Some recommendations were made in accordance with the findings of the study.

Keywords:

Intercultural sensitivity, teaching culture in EFL, teaching English as a foreign language.