Perceptions of the Language Instructors Towards Course Book Content in Terms of Intercultural Communicative Competence: A Sample Case—New Inside Out Elementary

Betül Demirel, Aslı Özlem Tarakcıoğlu

Abstract


Multicultural learning environment is the setting where there are students from different cultural and national backgrounds therefore this contains a variety of cultural components. One of the most important tools for teaching a foreign language in a multicultural learning environment is the teaching materials itself that is used in the teaching process. Among these materials, the course book carries a significant importance. The content of the course books used during the teaching process plays a vital role when it comes to teaching a foreign language. Most importantly, illumination of the cultural components of different cultures and the target culture in the content of the course book and the scope of the course book in terms of intercultural communicative competence content are the expected criteria from a course book. In the content of a course book introduction of the target culture and multicultural components are undeniable criteria and advantages in terms of enabling students to learn more about other cultures in the process of learning a foreign language. The present study is conducted in Turkish Military Academy in the 2014-2015 academic years. The questionnaire and structured interviews were conducted to the language instructors in order to collect the data. The questionnaire was given to 48 language instructors. In the study, a structured interview is also applied to 15 instructors to evaluate the content of the course book in terms of intercultural communicative competence. To analyze the data SPSS version 17.0 is used. In order to understand the data obtained from the surveys in a better way, descriptive statistics such as mean, SD, frequency and percentages were used. As for the results, the content of the course book used in teaching in a multicultural learning environment is evaluated in terms of intercultural communicative competence through questionnaire and structured interviews. Data are analyzed according to the perceptions of the instructors towards the content of the New Inside Out Elementary Course Book in terms of the sufficiency of the content in line with the intercultural communicative competence factor.
According to the perceptions of the instructors, the content of the course book is not regarded as sufficient in terms of goals, aims, and the interests from general point of view. Besides, the content of the teaching material is regarded as insufficient in terms of multicultural, cross-cultural, and ICC components. The content of the course book is evaluated as sufficient and adequate in terms of the target cultural components.


Keywords


Culture; Multicultural learning; Cultural variety; Target culture

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/n

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