Üniversite eğitiminde yabancı dil olarak İngilizce öğrenenlerin kültürler arası duyarlılığının geliştirilmesi üzerine bir çalışma

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 of necessary skills and competencies for successful intercultural communication, the current case study aims to investigate the place of IS in an English Language Program (ELP) of a state university revealing the views of the administrators, instructors and learners and to scrutinize how an eleven-week intercultural component added to the syllabus contribute to IS development 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 and group discussions, a teacher journal and researcher field notes were examined. The results of the study revealed that IS and intercultural dimension were valued in the ELP; however, they were not targeted as specific objectives. The study also indicated that ICforELP 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.