Analysing students' reactions to english course books in terms of cultural elements

Analysing students‟ reactions to english course books in terms of cultural elements

Özet

Bu çalışmanın amacı öğrencilerin ders kitaplarındaki hedef dil kültür öğelerine ilişkintepkilerini belirlemek, öğrencilerin bölümlerinin kültürel öğeleri algılamalarında etkisinin olupolmadığını saptamak ve milli kültür öğelerinin de yabancı dil ders kitaplarında bulunupbulunmaması sorusuna cevap aramaktır. Bu bağlamda, 2011-2012 akademik yılında OndokuzMayıs Üniversitesi İlahiyat ve Mühendislik Fakültelerinde 1. Sınıfta öğrenim gören toplam 100öğrenciye, birinci sınıflarda zorunlu olarak okutulan Yabancı Dil 1 (İngilizce) dersinde kullanılanders kitabına yönelik tepkilerini ölçen bir anket uygulanmak suretiyle veri toplanmıştır. Verilerinçözümlenmesinde t-testi analizi uygulanmıştır. Araştırmanın sonucunda, iki grup arasındatoplam 5 maddede anlamlı fark olduğu tespit edilmiştir. İki grup arasında, ders kitabındakikültürel öğelerin dünya görüşleriyle uyuşması, hedef dile ait özel gün ve isimlerin dil gelişimlerinekatkısı, bu öğelerin hedef kültürle olan etkileşimlerinde yararlı olması, kültürel öğelerin ilginç vemotive edici olması ve ders kitabının sadece dilbilgisi kurallarını içermesi gerektiği konularındaanlamlı farklılıklar olduğu bulunmuştur. Araştırmadan elde dilen sonuçlara göre, yabancı dil derskitaplarındaki kültürel öğeler hem hedef dili hem de ana dili kapsayacak şekilde dengeli bir şekildedüzenlenmeli, kültürel öğeler daha gerçekçi, ilginç ve öğrencileri daha motive edici özellikteolmalıdır.

Abstract

There is a growing consensus among researchers that foreign languagelearning and teaching implies some degree of learning and teaching a foreign culture. Iflanguage learning is considered as a process, culture learning is one of the components of thisprocess. Pursuing Hyme s communicative competence theory, contemporary foreign languageteaching methods have a special focus on sociolinguistic competence which is the knowledge ofsociocultural rules of language. This aspect of language is conveyed to language studentsthrough teachers as a core-source or the materials employed in classrooms. Language teachers,implicitly or explicitly, relay cultural information to their students. However, in countries likeTurkey where English is a foreign language, the core-source of cultural issues is course booksrather than teachers who themselves may not be competent enough in target cultural issues.Therefore, course books are of great importance in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settingslike Turkey.There have been lots of debates recently on whether or not to include target cultural elements inforeign language course books, and on to what extent they should be presented. There aredifferent views about presenting culture in course books in the literature. Some scholars claimtarget culture-specific elements should be presented in a systematic way, as from familiar tounfamiliar. A number of researchers put the emphasis on the functions of course books andspecifically on cultural elements as being one of the functions. Some researchers complain aboutcourse books focusing on merely target cultural elements while some think that EFL coursebooks should only consist of native cultural elements. Results of some comparative studiesindicate that the quantity of target culture-specific elements is not enough for learners to makethem culturally competent language learners. There is no doubt that it is the language learnerwho is at the centre of the discussions. For this reason, students reactions to culture specificelements in the course books and the impact of these reactions to their language learningdevelopment are extremely important.The present study, therefore, aims (a) to analyse the reactions of the students to target culturalelements, (b) to determine whether their majors have an impact on their perceptions of culture,and (c) to get an idea about whether to include native culture-specific elements in the coursebooks as well. In order to reach some conclusions about these topics, the following researchquestions have been posed. 1. Should native cultural elements be integrated into the coursebooks? 2. Are the students motivated enough to learn target cultural elements? 3. Do targetcultural elements have a demotivating effect on students? 4. Do students majors and facultieshave an effect on their perception of cultural elements in the course books?Within these questions in mind, data were collected from 100 freshman students studying in theFaculties of Theology and Engineering in Ondokuz Mayis University in 2011-2012 academicyear. As a data collection tool, a Likert-type questionnaire was employed to get the reactions ofstudents to culture specific elements available in Foreign Language 1 (English) course book. Thecourse book students were following was chosen by a committee in School of ForeignLanguages at the beginning of the academic year. T-test was employed to analyse the data.According to the results of the study, there existed statistically significant difference in theresponses of students in two faculties especially for five items. The first issue, which revealed asignificant difference, was about the relationship between the two groups worldviews and the content of the course book. Theology students reactions to the item related to the consistency oftheir worldviews with the cultural elements in the course book were different from the ones inthe Faculty of Engineering. The other significantly different issue was about contribution ofspecial days and names of the target culture to students language development, and advantageof these elements in interacting with the target culture. In addition, results revealed that targetcultural elements were not motivating and interesting enough from students points of view.Some open-ended questions were also addressed to the students to get an idea of what theywould like to see in foreign language course books. Results from open-ended questionsindicated that most of the students were eager to learn culture specific elements and they hadsome suggestions on native cultural elements to be added in the course books. Another strikingresult obtained from open-ended questions was that almost half of the Theology studentsdeclared that target culture-specific elements had demotivating effect on their languagelearning process.