Guest Lecturer Dr. Gülten Genç Will speak on Becoming Interculturally Competent As An Exchange Student In Turkey

The purpose of my presentation mainly focuses on the difficulties and problems that Erasmus students coming to Turkey may encounter because of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). Common European Framework of reference defines the goal of FLT as the need to develop ICC since the disappearance of cultural borders in business brings that new concept of “intercultural communication competence” to the European education. Intercultural competence is the capacity to change one’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors so as to be open and flexible to other cultures. Byram suggests defining intercultural communicative competence as linguistic, sociolinguistic, and discourse competences combined with intercultural competence. The future communicators within EU therefore need the knowledge, attitudes and skills related to intercultural interaction, i.e. linguistic, pragmatics and cultural awareness. Educational institutions nowadays are supporting the opportunities to develop learners’ intercultural skills. Exchange programs are among them. Through those programs, language learners are not only improving their language skills and increasing understanding and tolerance of other cultures but experiencing the means of using intercultural skills and acquiring new attitudes and values as well. Although those programs aim to provide new skills, new opportunities for exchange students, once they are exposed to different cultures, they are usually faced with the problem of adapting themselves to the new settings. The experience with the host culture, i.e. the cultural experience in the new setting, involves closely interacting with the local people in the host country, practicing their language, becoming familiar with their customs, and thus gradually becoming a member of this culture. This process is not always easy for everyone especially for the ones who go for their first visit abroad.
In brief, the purpose of my presentation is to give some clues to the European students who are planning to visit Turkey as exchange students. Indeed, although EU students share a common culture and heritage and similar political and economic structures to each other, Turkish students who are not yet members of the EU come from a more traditionalist and less flexible culture.

Dr Gülten GENÇ is a lecturer at İnönü University, School of Foreign Languages, Malatya/Turkey. She received her MA degree in ELT department from Atatürk University and MA and PhD degrees in Educational Sciences from İnönü University. Her main interests are, professional development of foreign language teachers, language learners’ psychology, and using technology in foreign language teaching.