Turkish culture in the metaphors and drawings by learners of Turkish as a foreign language

Abstract

Language teaching is a practice of teaching a culture. What is learnt is not only a language but also the culture of the target language. It is important to examine the way learners perceive Turkish culture in this learning process. That is because the way they perceive the culture will affect their enthusiasm, attitude and motivation for language learning. Therefore, this study intends to reveal Turkish as a foreign language (TFL) learners' perception of Turkish culture through the metaphors and images in their drawings. This qualitative study employs phenomenology. The participants include 180 learners studying TFL at B1, B2 and C1 levels. To collect data, a form reading the prompt "Turkish culture is like… because…" (in order to reveal metaphorical perception towards Turkish culture), and the question "What image appears in your mind when you think of Turkish culture? Please draw." (in order to reveal associative perception towards Turkish culture) was used. Content analysis was employed to evaluate the data. The learners' metaphors were classified under 7 different categories which are Turkish Culture in Terms of Cultural Transmission, Turkish Culture in Terms of Richness, Turkish Culture in Terms of Being Connective, Turkish Culture with a History, Turkish Culture as a Pathfinder, Turkish Culture in Terms of Values and Turkish Culture as a Living Creature. Accordingly, the learners' drawings were classified under 14 different categories: Religious Elements, Elements Related to Drinks, Natural Elements, Elements Related to Dishes, National Elements, Architectural Elements, Artistic Elements, Traditional Elements, Elements Related to Language Teaching, Elements Related to Animals, Metaphorical Elements, Elements Related to Notable Personages, Historical Elements and Other Elements. The results showed that although TFL learners had a positive attitude towards Turkish culture, they were not able to associate language with culture.

Reasons and Opinions of Students Learning English as a Foreign Language about Learning the Target Culture

“…In the literature, there are various studies on culture teaching in foreign language learning in Turkey (Belli, 2018;Genc & Bada, 2005;Göçen & Özdemirel, 2020;Karakuş, 2021;Kuru-Gonen & Sağlam, 2012;Tomak, 2012) and in second language learning abroad (Byrd, 2016;Sasani, 2018). All these studies will be summarized below.…”

“…Another different study in Turkish context is the study of Göçen and Özdemirel (2020), in which metaphorical perceptions of 180 students about Turkish culture who were studying Turkish as a foreign language in Turkey were revealed through the images and drawings. Content analysis method was employed in the study.…”

“…Consequently, culture incorporates members of a group (Brown, 2007), it helps the learners to survive in the new context in order to be a "globalized citizen" (Kuru-Gonen & Sağlam, 2012, p.26). Due to the other important concepts such as World Englishes as an international language (Matsuda, 2003), pluralism (Yumatle, 2015), global mobility in ELT (Codo, 2018) and multi-culturalism (Song, 2020), culture teaching is a must to see differences and similarities between different cultures (Genc & Bada, 2005), to become a whole person (Kim, 2020), to behave accordingly in a foreign culture (Thanasoulas, 2001), and to increase language learning motivation (Göçen & Özdemirel, 2020)…”