Pre-service English teachers’ intercultural sensitivity

Abstract

Globalisation has helped the number of people to be cognizant of the importance of foreign language teaching and learning. As  it is almost impossible to separate culture from language and the familiarization of  diverse cultures from language do not help students for the real life because people from diverse cultural backgrounds use language differently, Kramsch (1993:258) holds that the aim of language learning is “cultivating international understanding, responsibility, and effective participation in a global age”. The purpose of  this  article is to explore the intercultural sensitivity among teacher trainees. For this purpose two scales were administered to  the pre- service teachers to see to what extent they have intercultural sensitivity and how they see culture teaching in the curriculum. The results yield that Turkish teacher  trainees  integrate language teaching objectives  with culture teaching and they prioritize the attitudinal knowledge, showing tolerance and sympathy for the others.