The role of drama on developing intercultural sensitivity in teaching Turkish as a foreign language

This study aimed at determining the effects of drama techniques on intercultural sensitivity. The research was carried out with 14 foreign students who were taught Turkish at Dokuz Eylül University Continuing Education Center during the spring term of 2017-2018. They participated voluntarily and consent forms were taken before the study. The participants were asked to join the treatment and control groups. The rituals, celebrations and ceremonies of the Turkish culture were taught to the treatment group students for 6 weeks with drama techniques and the same topics were taught to the control group with the reading texts. Qualitative and quantitative data collection tools were used in the study. The study was prepared with the mixed method research design. Intercultural Sensitivity Scale which was developed by Chen and Starosta (2010) and adopted to Turkish by Üstün (2011) was used as the quantitative data collection tool and semi-structured interview forms were used as the qualitative data collection tools. Both data collection tools were applied to the treatment and control groups before and after the application. The data were evaluated in SPSS 22.0 package software. The Mann Whitney-U test and Wilcoxon test were used for the analysis. In addition, Mann Whitney-U test was used to determine whether the post-test mean scores of the students in the treatment group and the control group differed significantly according to the age variable. On the other hand, the content analysis method was used in the analysis of the qualitative data obtained in the study. While no significant difference was observed in the intercultural sensitivity levels of the treatment and control group students before the application, there was a significant increase in the intercultural sensitivity level means of the treatment group students after the application. In addition, it was concluded that there was a significant increase in the desire of the treatment group students to have knowledge about Turkish culture after the application. The study wraps up through the recommendations on designing programs aiming to raise sensitivity and awareness about the target language in foreign language teaching institutions. Keywords: Foreign Language Teaching, Intercultural Language Teaching, Intercultural Sensitivity, Drama