Akdeniz Language Studies Conference, Antalya, Turkey, 9 - 12 May 2012, vol.70, pp.1872-1879
The development of plurilingual and pluricultural competence is increasingly noted as an important goal of foreign language education. Consequently, the Turkish Ministry of National Education has emphasized the integration of these principles into the nation's foreign language curriculum. However, little has been done to determine whether these ideas are successfully implemented on a practical level. To address this omission, the researcher investigated the views of Turkish teachers of English as a Foreign Language concerning plurilingual and pluricultural competence, using a series of open-ended survey questions to explore their understanding of its implications and whether they believe the standardized curriculum truly makes room for developing these skills. The results revealed that the respondents lacked familiarity with these concepts; and while they believed that intercultural competence is important, they did not feel that the standardized English language curriculum supports this approach. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ALSC 2012