Exploring Pre-Service and Novice EFL Teachers’ Intercultural Sensitivity

Abstract

One of the advantages of teaching culture is to display different cultural frames to develop language awareness and pragmatic usage. Culture is a phenomenon to be searched deeply in terms of English language teaching on the grounds of a scarce number of studies on it. Accordingly, this study examines pre-service and novice EFL teachers’ perception of teaching “culture” and its instructional effect on multicultural settings. Accordingly, a 24-item intercultural sensitivity questionnaire developed by Chen and Starosta (2000) was used. Besides, interview and focus group sessions were carried out for the triangulation of the data. In the findings, it is concluded that participants who know more than two languages had more confidence in intercultural interaction. Besides, it was put forward that experience has a positive role in cultivating intercultural sensitivity. It was also recognized that novice English teachers are highly motivated to integrate intercultural elements into language teaching. Additionally, some suggestions, including culture-specific activities, informative multicultural materials, and methods have been provided. © 2021 Children Research Center. All right reserved.