Equipping students with intercultural competence (hereafter IC) is a critical aim of English foreign language classrooms nowadays, and EFL teachers have emerged as essential players for accomplishing this. These teachers should essentially be competent in their intercultural skills so that they can pass these on to their students in order to foster interculturally competent language learners. However, teachers' perceptions regarding IC remain uncertain, particularly in the Turkish context. Thus, before asking teachers to apply methods and strategies so that they can enhance students’ IC in the classroom, it is vital that we investigate what they understand about IC. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to reveal middle and high school teachers’ understanding of the IC phenomenon and their description of the characteristics of an interculturally competent foreign language learner and teacher. In addition, teachers’ perceptions regarding their own and their learners’ IC were also explored in this study. The participants were 30 middle and high school English language teachers teaching at state schools in Turkey. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data. MAXQDA was exploited in order to analyse the data, primarily to code, categorize, and systematize the findings. The results indicated that the teachers considered IC to be the ability to communicate with people from various cultures effectively, having knowledge about one’s own, target, and other cultures, and developing positive attitudes toward other cultures and societies. They also emphasized the inseparability of language and culture and the importance of English as an international language. The teachers also indicated why they viewed themselves and their learners as interculturally competent or incompetent, which could provide insight into where to start intercultural learning and teaching in foreign language classrooms and how to train EFL teachers about different dimensions of IC.

Thanks to technological advances, migration, and globalization, English has become the language of internationalization. Therefore, many schools prioritized learning English to ensure and sustain international communication. However, in order to communicate well with individuals all around the world, bestowing English language learners with intercultural competence is also required in the teaching and learning of English. In Türkiye, one of the countries that host many immigrants, the experiences of foreign language teachers regarding intercultural issues might provide many insights into intercultural language learning and teaching. Therefore, this study aimed to expose EFL state schoolteachers’ perceptions and practices regarding intercultural language teaching and having foreign students in their classrooms. The methods that teachers adopted to promote intercultural competence in their classes were also explored. The semi-structured interviews were carried out with 30 English language teachers in middle and high schools in Türkiye. For data analysis, the computer program MAXQDA was benefited to categorize the codes and reveal the common themes. The findings revealed certain teacher practices that might contribute to students’ intercultural competence development and challenges experienced during that process. It can be concluded that teachers are in need of professional guidance and resources to further develop their learners’ intercultural competence.

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As teachers primarily rely on textbooks in the teaching of foreign languages, one way of helping and encouraging them to focus on intercultural competence (IC) is to provide them with the textbooks that facilitate intercultural language learning process. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the New Language Leader Pre-intermediate textbook from an intercultural perspective. This evaluation was primarily based on 132 students' and 15 instructors' perceptions of the textbook after they used it for two months in language classrooms at a preparatory school of a state university. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire adopted from a previous study. Data analysis was conducted with the help of SPSS 20.0. Descriptive Statistics was run to identify the frequencies and mean scores. Mann-Whitney U test was used to discover any possible significant difference in students' and instructors' perspectives. The results indicated that although most of the IC components such as knowledge, attitudes, awareness, and linguistic means existed in the textbook according to the participants, the extent of the representation of these in the textbook varied. Whereas the aims and goals of the textbook were thought to be in accordance with the conceptual framework of the students to a large extent, both students and instructors indicated that it did not provide much insight into learners' own culture. Considering the findings, the stakeholders might have necessary revisions on the textbook and instructors might adapt some resources to fulfil the needs of their learners in the development of IC in similar contexts.

The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive understanding of Vocational School students’ experiences of learning English at a state university in Türkiye. After the application of a pre-survey which aimed to reveal the background of the students, four students took part in an interview about their English learning experiences in Vocational School. Interviews were also conducted with two instructors to obtain information about their perspectives of the Vocational School students’ English language learning motivation and process. Observations were also carried out in the real language classrooms. In data analysis categorical aggregation is used in order to have patterns in the qualitative data. The study unearthed the challenges that the students experienced in language learning process which were insufficient English background of students, their lack of motivation to general education, disregard to English education, and feeling of inferiority accompanied with low self-esteem. Furthermore, physical problems (students who are full or part-time workers), discontinuity in curriculum and limited lesson hours were also among the problems. The study implicated that information transmission which is still prevalent in lessons should be supported with other methods of teaching, the students need consciousness raising in terms of the place of English in their work life and some improvements are needed in the English curriculum.