Promoting intercultural competence of Turkish EFL pre-service teachers via Twitter

Abstract

Promoting intercultural competence of learners during language learning process has been found crucial recently. However, this side of language learning has been neglected. Teachers complain about lack of time, up-to-date materials about other cultures, and access to cultural materials. This paper searched for a way to promote intercultural competence in an innovative way, that is, by using Twitter, the second most popular social networking site. Twenty-one pre-service teachers took part in the study by doing research about other cultures in six different topics, namely, food and drink style, clothing style, leisure time activities, family relationships, body language and marriage/wedding traditions during six weeks and by sharing what they found via Twitter. Pre and post-interviews were conducted in order to see the differences in their opinions. Reports were required from the pre-service teachers weekly in order to check their remarks during the process. The analysis of the interview and reports revealed that pre-service teachers considerably increased their intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in terms of knowledge and attitudes dimensions with the help of Twitter. Therefore, this study suggests that Twitter is effective in developing ICC of pre-service teachers regarding knowledge and attitudes dimension.