English language instructors' views and practices of intercultural competence activities at university contexts

By the 21st century, as a reflection of the globalization that prevailed all over the world, today 'internationalisation' term is used more frequently than before in many fields for many different reasons such as business and education. With the increase of mobilities for many various reasons such as travelling, working, marriage or as a refugee, there has been an increase in international dialogues among nations and other cultures come across more frequently than before. Nowadays, learning a foreign language has become an important need as a means of communication rather than acquiring a social or academic qualification. In today's world where international environments and different cultures come together more frequently, the idea of teaching other cultures besides teaching a foreign language has gained significance in the education field. This study aims to investigate the views of English language instructors about the objectives of foreign language teaching, objectives of teaching culture in English language teaching context and explores the practises of the intercultural competence activities in English courses. The study was conducted with the participation of 50 English language instructors working at preparatory schools of Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Çukurova University, Adana Science and Technology University and Mersin University. A survey based research was used in the study. The original questionnaire was created by Sercu et al. (2005). In the present study, Kılıç (2013) version of the was adapted and used as a data collection tool. The results of the study revealed that participants have awareness about the importance of integrating culture in the foreign language classroom and have a positive approach towards it in English language teaching. However, teaching culture and equipping the learners with intercultural competence are not the primary objectives of the teachers. Instead, it has been determined that the acquisition of language knowledge and linguistic skills to use English appropriately are among the top objectives. According to the result, providing information on the daily lives and routines of target culture and exhibit positive attitude and openness towards other people and cultures are seen as the main objectives of teaching culture by the participants. In the study, it was observed that the cultural activities applied in the classroom environment is mostly exchanging and sharing information about their own experiences that they have had before in a foreign country. These types of activities do not require preliminary preparation before the course and take much time.