Abstract
In the twenty-first century, education does not merely focus on information exchange; additionally, it does so on various abilities and living in harmony. To materialize such acquisition among students, cross-cultural competence is an essential vehicle in a rapidly globalizing world. This calls for integrating comprehensive cross-cultural education as an independent subject into teacher training programs alongside the applied practices that go with it. Against this backdrop, the current study aims to determine the cross-cultural competency capabilities of Turkish language teacher candidates studying at one of the major universities in Turkey. In this article, initially cultural dimensions, scope of culture, and aspects of cross-cultural competency are addressed on a theoretical basis. In addition, learning materials are developed by the candidates, based on the instructions provided by the researcher, and analyzed according to their content of cross-cultural competency. The paper also discusses the cultural background of the candidates and their cross-cultural competency capabilities. The findings show that the participants have major difficulty presenting sufficient information or content in developing their cross-cultural competency. In the end, there are recommendations for enhancing the cross-cultural competency capabilities, while shedding light on the inadequate focus devoted to improving these skills within the training programs.
Highlights
Human mobility among countries and continents is greatly accelerated as a result of globalization and changing living circumstances, leading to cultural diversity to become indispensable for nations hosting immigrants
It becomes even easier for people from different cultures to have interpersonal interactions as technology advances and creates new means of communication
In the context of language teaching, it is essential to understand the target culture's scope and dimensions besides comparing it with both other local cultures and cross-culturally in order to create a foundation for cultural learning
Summary
Human mobility among countries and continents is greatly accelerated as a result of globalization and changing living circumstances, leading to cultural diversity to become indispensable for nations hosting immigrants It becomes even easier for people from different cultures to have interpersonal interactions as technology advances and creates new means of communication. For teaching a target language, assessing the diversity in local cultures and comparing them with others is known to contribute to the individuals' cultural identity, harmony, and peace within a society that hosts these diverse cultures (Byram, Gribkova & Starkey, 2002) In this sense, targeted cross-cultural learning aims to make students aware of their own culture and sustain their socialization while promoting their interpersonal relationships with people from different cultures (Banks et al, 2001).
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