An Investigation into English Language Instructors' and Students’ Intercultural Awareness

Authors

Burcu Yılmaz, Çukurova UniversityFollow
Yonca Özkan, Çukurova UniversityFollow

Abstract

The role of English as a global language has been increasing greatly in importance for the past few decades, giving rise to different varieties of English spoken by native and non-native English speakers all around the world. It has pointed to the need to raise intercultural awareness in English language classes. This study aims to reveal teacher and student perspectives of intercultural awareness regarding ownership of English and cultural integration in English language classes in Turkey. A mixed method research investigation was used in this descriptive case study. Questionnaires were employed to collect data from 45 English language instructors and 92 English language students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight English language instructors, and focus group interviews were conducted with 24 English language students. The quantitative data was analyzed via SPSS 20 and the qualitative data was analyzed via NVivo 10.0 qualitative data software. The findings revealed that while both instructors and students seemed to be aware of the importance of intercultural awareness in English language teaching, their perspectives didn’t indicate a thorough intercultural point of view. The findings yielded several significant implications including the need to develop an intercultural curriculum, textbook, and teacher training programs to enhance intercultural awareness in English language teaching and learning process.

Keywords

Mixed Method Research, Case Study, Native English Speakers (NESs), Non-native English Speakers (NNESs), Cultural Integration, Intercultural Awareness, World English, Global English, International English

Author Bio(s)

Burcu Yılmaz is an English language teacher in Istanbul, Turkey. She is a Middle East Technical University graduate with a BA in English Language Teaching and has completed her MA in English language teaching at Çukurova University. Her primary focus is on culture and language and intercultural awareness. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: burcu.yilmaz89@gmail.com.

Yonca Özkan is an associate professor in the Department of English Language Teaching at Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey. She teaches undergraduate and graduate course in teacher education and second/foreign language teaching methodology. Her research focuses on pre-service language teacher education and technology integration into language teacher education. She is currently conducting a research study on ELF and teacher education. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: yoncaca@cu.edu.tr.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Scientific Research Projects Department of Çukurova University, with Project No: SYL-2015-4063

Publication Date

10-24-2016

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2575

Recommended APA Citation

Yılmaz, B., & Özkan, Y. (2016). An Investigation into English Language Instructors' and Students’ Intercultural Awareness. The Qualitative Report, 21(10), 1932-1959. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2575