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-datematerials about other cultures, and access to cultural materials. This paper searched for a way to promoteintercultural competence in an innovative way, that is, by using Twitter, the second most popular social networkingsite. Twenty-one pre-service teachers took part in the study by doing research about other cultures in six differenttopics, namely, food and drink style, clothing style, leisure time activities, family relationships, body language andmarriage/wedding traditions during six weeks and by sharing what they found via Twitter. Pre (prior to theimplementation) and post (following the implementation) interviews were conducted in order to see the differencesin their opinions. Reports were required from the pre-service teachers weekly in order to check their remarksduring the process. The analysis of the interview and reports revealed that pre-service teachers considerablyincreased their intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in terms of knowledge and attitude dimensions withthe help of Twitter. Therefore, this study suggests that Twitter is effective in developing ICC of pre-serviceteachers regarding knowledge and attitudes dimension.