The Analysis of Foreign Language Teaching Undergraduate Programs in Turkey in Terms of Intercultural Approach

Abstract

In today's world where the intercultural communication skills are becoming increasingly important, many countries have included interculturalism in their education policies, particularly in the content of foreign language teacher education programs for a peaceful world where people are mutually more tolerant without alienating each other. in this respect, the general purpose of this research is to examine the contents of the courses, especially the course of "Teaching Foreign Language to Children", in the Foreign Language Education Programs in Turkey in terms of intercultural perspective. in line with this general purpose of the research, the content of the 1161 courses determined by criterion sampling was examined through document analysis in terms of intercultural approach and the data were subjected to qualitative content analysis. the results revealed that interculturalism has the highest amount of coverage respectively in the German Teaching Program, French Teaching Program, and English Teaching Program. However, regarding the content of the course "Teaching Foreign Language to Children", which is the focus of this study, there is no reference to interculturalism in the German Teaching Program. As such, it turns out that the French Teaching Program offers a content that is more focused on interculturalism in early foreign language teaching and learning compared to the two other programs. As a result, inclusion of the interculturalism in teacher education programs is considered an urgent need.