Think Like Them? A Self-Reflection on Teaching Culture in EFL Classes
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Abstract
This article explores the evolving understanding of the cultural dimension of language teaching and its role in shaping classroom dynamics. As early teaching experiences revealed distinct variations in student attitudes toward the target culture, the realization led to the questioning of how the student, the native culture, and the target language culture interact within the classroom. As a consequence of being influenced by published classroom practices, a learning environment in which these cultural dimensions support rather than conflict with one another was envisioned. With this aim, two cultural texts, one from the native culture and one from the target culture, were studied in an English preparatory classroom of a foreign language school at a state university in southern Turkiye. The students were given questionnaires after each text and were invited to focus group interviews to explore their views in depth. They were given another questionnaire three months after the study to identify any occurring changes in their attitude to reading cultural texts. The results showed that the students admitted the role of language in representing culture. In addition, it was found that the cultural texts contributed to their general knowledge of the world, helped them speak about their native culture in the target language and they favoured their own cultural values if they needed to choose from cultural takeaways. This reflective study later informed the development of my master’s thesis proposal on integration of native culture in foreign language education.
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