Cultures in the Foreign Language Curriculum: Instructors’ Views at a State University

This study investigates how the concept of ‘culture’ is situated within the curriculum of a school of foreign languages by instructors at a state university in Western Turkey. Data were collected in two phases. First, all instructors at the research site were invited to complete a survey exploring how teachers viewed the place of culture in the curriculum and their practice and the choices they made in order to develop their own cultural awareness. After reviewing the responses of the participants (N=85), we categorized the patterns in three groups. Those with high utilization levels of culture were coded “HUC”; the ones with moderate utilization levels of culture were labelled “MUC” and those with low utilization levels of culture were named “LUC”. Based on a purposeful stratified sampling procedure, up to 4 participants were selected from each of these clusters and interviewed (n=10). The qualitative analysis of the interview data revealed that the instructors faced challenges related to self-development and integrating culture(s) in teaching. These were associated with the structure of the curriculum and pressures caused by the push to focus on too much content in limited time in the classroom. While some instructors referred to concepts associated with target culture(s) more, others predominantly stated that they incorporated local cultural elements (Turkish) in their instruction. The results underscore the need for the restructuring of the curriculum and in-service teacher education focusing on the place of culture(s) in foreign language classes. The knowledge generated in this research report is relevant for teachers, administrators, and researchers interested in language teaching and teacher education. Through participation in the study and review of the disseminated results, instructors in this setting reported having experienced reflective thinking on the issue