TEACHING CULTURE IN THE FL CLASSROOM: TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

It has long been assumed that language and culture are strongly linked to each other and an important aspect of learning a foreign language is learning its culture. However, teachers in different classrooms in different parts of the world still ignore the importance of teaching culture as a part of language study. Regarding the need to investigate culture and culture teaching in different context of foreign language teaching, this study proposes an original attempt in a Turkish EFL context by comparing 60 teachers of different educational backgrounds rather than cultural backgrounds in terms of what they think about various aspects of culture and integrating it into their classes. Whether significant differences exist between teachers from different educational backgrounds is also an issue of investigation. The results gathered through a comprehensive questionnaire and interviews have yielded that although there are some differences between teachers of different backgrounds about which aspects of the target culture to give priority, they are generally aware of the importance of teaching and integrating culture in the foreign language classroom. It is also revealed that all teachers have knowledge about the aspects of the target culture to some extent, but how they deal with the target culture is affected highly by the curricular considerations and limitations. Based on the results, several implications are derived from the study for the integration of culture in the foreign language class and suggestions are made for future studies.

Keywords: culture and language learning, teacher perceptions, foreign language teaching, integration of culture in foreign language study

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