English Teaching through a Different Cultural Aspect

English Teaching through a Different Cultural Aspect

Fatih, Tekce

Language learning has many aspects. One of them is undoubtedly the culture of the target language. It is known that a positive attitude toward L2 culture can lead to cross-cultural understanding. However, there have not been many attempts to introduce a third culture in ELT, which is the topic of this paper. As a teacher of English who comes from Turkey and works in Serbia, I introduced elements of Turkish culture in my English classroom and tried to make use of the relationship between three cultures. Would they clash, merge or will one of them be dominant? With the beginning of Turkish serials in Serbian TV channels the ongoing increasing interest has boosted since 2009.People are not only interested in Turkish culture but also in economy, tourism, sports, and many other aspects of Turkish life. There are more news about Turkey in Serbian media compared to past. As my students have shown interest in these topics, I introduced various elements of Turkish culture and incorporated most of them in speaking activities, but also tried to combine them with total physical response and some extracurricular activities. They proved to be very successful, since student’s interest in Turkish culture increased student talking time, their motivation for participation in communicative and extracurricular activities, and their overall performance has improved.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012-05

795