Developing intercultural understanding in teacher education curricula through tv commercials

This paper suggests that media sources should be integrated into teacher training curricula in order to avoid prejudices and to have a better understanding of another culture. Based on related literature a 14-week-study was designed at Kocaeli University, Faculty of Education. This study aimed at creating a new context through which pre-service teachers improve their awareness through another culture and a deeper understanding of and appreciation for that culture by means of TV commercials. The study was conducted with 118 second grade pre-service teachers enrolled in English Language Teaching (ELT) classes at Kocaeli University, Turkey. During the study, integrated into an elective course, students were shown TV commercials and they were made to analyze them based on a framework consisting of varied questions which helped the students to get an idea about another culture on their own without being influenced. In this descriptive study, students were given an adjective list prepared after a pilot study and they were made to tick the adjectives that they thought were the most suitable one/ones for that culture. The most and least repeated five adjectives were listed in accordance with their frequency both at the beginning and at the end of the study. This study showed that students involved in the study had changed their attitudes from being negative towards another culture to positive.

Media Analysis ,

Teacher Education Curriculum ,

Intercultural Understanding ,

TV Commercials In Education ,