Intercultural Education in English-as-a-foreign-Language (EFL) Teaching: What Do Pre-Service EFL Teachers Think about It?

Abstract

A plethora of research exists in the field of intercultural education, yet the scarcity of research into investigating the views of pre-service foreign language teachers about the provision of intercultural education within foreign language teaching requires conducting further studies on it. For this reason, this mixed-methods case study explored 155 pre-service English-as-a-foreign-language teachers’ (PSEFLTs) perceptions of giving intercultural education in EFL teaching, and whether their perceptions change significantly with reference to their year of study. The findings obtained from the analysis of the quantitative data collected from a questionnaire and the qualitative data gathered from a semi-structured interview revealed the participants believed the teaching of the target culture should be conducted in EFL teaching along with improving students’ linguistic knowledge. The findings also showed aside from the use of mother tongue in the teaching of the foreign culture, there was no statistically significant difference between participants’ perceptions about intercultural education with reference to their year of study. Additionally, the findings demonstrated participants’ enthusiasm for providing intercultural education in their future teaching.

Keywords

EFL EFL teaching foreign language teaching intercultural education PSEFLTs

Introduction

The perpetual globalization and concomitantly unceasing internationalization in the world of education have functioned as a driving force for the increase in the number of research into intercultural education and intercultural communicative competence (Borghetti, 2013). In this world where borders have begun to disappear, developing exclusively students’ linguistic competence is inadequate. Consequently, sharpening the skills paramount for success in intercultural experiences has become mandatory (Piatkowska, 2015), and a growing interest in heightening students’ cultural awareness has been witnessed (Byram, 2012; Lem, 2025). Foreign language education is contended to serve a prominent role in the development of intercultural communicative competence (Valencia & Michelson, 2023; Wang et al., 2025), and thus, in endorsing students in becoming intercultural speakers (Avgousti, 2018) inasmuch as language is attested to be a medium for broadening intercultural understanding (Liddicoat, 2008; Svarstad & Risager, 2024).

Considering the crucial function fulfilled by foreign language teaching in providing intercultural education, EFL teachers obviously need to shoulder responsibility for raising their students’ intercultural awareness. EFL teachers’ perceptions with respect to giving intercultural education could determine their intercultural teaching practices. However, it should be noted that there remains the possibility of the incongruence between what they think about integrating intercultural education into EFL teaching and what their instructional practices are. Even though a great deal of research on how to develop intercultural communicative competence has been carried out thus far, the literature on PSEFLTs’ approaches towards intercultural education should be broadened. Hence, this study aims to contribute to the literature through investigating PSEFLTs’ perceptions with regard to intercultural education in EFL teaching and through exploring the probable differences in their perceptions according to their year of study. Bearing in mind the fact that today’s PSEFLTs are tomorrow’s practicing EFL teachers, the significance to be attached to this research becomes conspicuous. That is to say, since PSEFLTs’ perceptions of providing intercultural education in English language teaching can be acknowledged to be the predictor of their future classroom practices, they might be modified, if necessary, by teacher educators via concentrating on the importance of intercultural education in improving communicative competence of EFL learners and on how to provide intercultural education effectively in EFL lessons.

Theoretical Framework

Intercultural Education

Intercultural education necessitates the teaching of culture to help develop one’s sensitivity to cultural differences and diversity, and related to that, to enhance their ability to facilitate successful communication with people from different cultures (Baraldi, 2012). According to Castro and Sercu (2007), culture learning objectives in foreign language teaching are

promoting pupils’ familiarity with the culture, and the civilization of the countries where the language, which they are learning, is spoken, promoting the acquisition of an open mind and a positive disposition towards unfamiliar cultures, and assisting pupils to develop a better understanding of their own identity and culture (p. 21).

For Sayer and Meadows (2012), the assumptions about the place of culture in second language teaching are that culture component should be present in second language lessons, target culture tallies with target language, and second language teachers have the responsibility for fostering students’ cultural awareness.

The papers produced on intercultural teaching reveal that it is not purged of difficulties. For instance, language teachers could find themselves in a predicament of balancing the focus they place on the target culture and language teaching. In other words, they may feel like jeopardizing student language learning as a result of devoting considerable lesson time to culture teaching at the cost of spending it on the teaching of the target language (Biebricher et al., 2019; Diaz, 2013). In spite of the important role assumed by intercultural education, successful implementation of it compels surmounting a number of obstacles such as insufficient teacher training and the lack of a coherent policy on it (Hajisoteriou & Angelides, 2017).

Despite the expanding popularity in the teaching of intercultural dimension of foreign language teaching, how it could be taught effectively still appears to be blurry (Naidu, 2020). Nonetheless, how to provide intercultural education in the classroom environment should be exemplified (Byram et al., 2013) for teachers to enable them to have a clear understanding of it. Intercultural education could be integrated into foreign language teaching rather than presenting it as a separate topic to be dealt with during lessons (Porto, 2013). Lawrence (2013) suggested a model for intercultural learning in hybrid language learning including ‘collaborative planning and preparation, building identity investment and active intercultural work’ (p. 307). Migrant literature is recommended to be resorted to in intercultural language teaching as a means of raising students’ intercultural sensitivity and appreciating the differences between their own and target culture (Wang, 2014). The teaching and learning materials to be used in intercultural language education can occupy an important place in intercultural learning, as was stated by the Chinese college students in Borghetti and Qui’s (2022) research. In addition, critical reading could shape students’ intercultural understanding (Escudero, 2013). In the research undertaken by Truong and Tran (2014), it was reported that films of the target culture reinforced tertiary level EFL learners’ intercultural learning.

Intercultural Communicative Competence

Proposed by Hymes (1971) and developed by Canale and Swain (1980), communicative competence means the ability to communicate effectively with the help of harmoniously displaying linguistic, discourse, strategic and sociolinguistic competence during communication. Communicative competence brings along the need for attending to intercultural communicative competence, the ability to communicate in a culturally appropriate manner with people from different cultures. Not only does intercultural communication necessitate making endeavours to learn target culture but also to comprehend one’s own culture (Basílio et al., 2016). Commonly-cited in the literature on intercultural aspect of language teaching, Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence involves five saviors: savoir etre which means curiosity and openness to learn, saviors which means knowledge about diverse aspects of culture, savoir comprendre which means the interpretation of savoirs, savoir apprendre/savoir fair which means gaining knowledge of culture and practicing them during interaction, and savoir s’engage which means critically evaluating the target and one’s own culture.

The contribution of the foreign language classroom to the development of intercultural communicative competence is expounded by Aguilar (2009) as ‘the foreign language teaching classroom is a kind of microcosm of the real world where languages and cultures are put into contact with one another, thus offering some characteristics and possibilities which are denied to other disciplines’ (p. 253). At higher education, student mobility programs can support college students in developing their intercultural communicative competence, leading to the production of papers on the effect of student mobility programs on the improvement in students’ intercultural communicative competence (e.g., Martínez et al., 2016). To illustrate, the research carried out by Almarza et al. (2015) showed that the students who would join the Erasmus program found themselves ready for adjusting to the new cultural environment of the host university; nevertheless, they deemed misconceptions and conflicts they were likely to confront in the host university as a challenge for them. In addition, seminar course was also suggested to enable international students’ transition to the university and to develop their intercultural competence (Senyshyn, 2019). Moreover, translation tasks could serve as authentic materials for students to contact people from different cultures (Fois, 2020).

Variables affecting intercultural communicative competence were reviewed by Bagwe and Haskollar (2020), which involved intercultural training programs, previous intercultural experiences, study abroad, and cultural immersion. Drawing on intercultural competence in the context of English as a lingua franca, Baker (2011) highlights that intercultural communicative competence ‘needs to be viewed to be situated and emergent’ (p. 197). The use of technology in intercultural communicative competence is explored such as the use of digital storytelling (Ribeiro, 2016), social networking technology (Ruan & Medwell, 2020), and the use of TV drama (Zhang, 2020). Social-networking sites are presented to be the platforms in which users engage in online intercultural experiences, helping them develop their intercultural understanding (Chen, 2017). Similarly, taking part in an international project through the use of wikis is shown to enhance seventh grade students’ both language learning and critical cultural awareness (Chen & Yang, 2016). The study conducted by Chun (2015) with the participation of college students concluded that telecollaboration helped them attain significant gains not only in linguistic knowledge but also the cultural one. Likewise, Lázár’s (2015) study yielded that web collaboration project conducted on Moodle helped 10^th and 11th grade students develop their intercultural competence. College students’ intercultural competence is considered to be positively affected by internationalization at home institution (Aba, 2016). The development in intercultural competence is believed to take place in a sociocultural learning environment (Forsman, 2010) and to be enabled by the implementing specific approaches like content and language integrated language learning (Garcia, 2013). The research by Ghasemi et al. (2020) demonstrated that internationally-oriented and motivated students were more confident about their abilities to engage in intercultural encounters. In addition, willingness to communicate is found to predict intercultural communicative competence (Munezane, 2021). Moreover, reflecting on cultural experiences is considered to raise one’ awareness of the self and others (Kennedy, 2020). Tandem language learning could also contribute to the development in intercultural competence (Taylor, 2021).

Teachers’ Perceptions of Intercultural Communicative Competence

There are likely to be contradictions between teachers’ beliefs associated with how effective teaching can be conducted and how they teach in the classroom. Similarly, there may not be compatibility between what teachers’ attitudes towards and beliefs regarding developing students’ intercultural competence are and whether they conduct intercultural teaching in the classroom (Sercu, 2002). For instance, Ghavamnia’s (2020) study exploring Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of the teaching of culture revealed that even though the practicing EFL teachers believed culture teaching was important, their classroom teaching did not project their perceptions. The teachers stated that they did not have enough class time to teach culture, teacher education programs did not concern training teachers in how to teach culture, and they were under an obligation to stick to the syllabus determined by the Ministry of Education. Similar results were reported in Munezane’s (2025) research in that though the majority of the Japanese foreign language teachers believed the importance of culture teaching as a part of foreign language teaching process, they could not realize it. The teachers pinpointed the requirements of the curriculum and the lack of knowledge about how to incorporate culture teaching into foreign language teaching.

Teachers’ perceptions of intercultural education have the potential to influence to what extent they place the focus on the teaching of culture. For example, in the study by East (2012), it was reported that the participating teachers deemed the teaching of culture as an important component of language teaching. The research undertaken by Bastos and e Sá (2015) yielded that the participating language teachers stated that in teacher education, the emphasis on intercultural communicative competence needed to be placed upon its affective component. That is to say, the training in it should target promoting the recognition of the worth of cultural and linguistic diversity, firing teachers’ enthusiasm for participating in intercultural encounters.

Czura (2016) examined pre-service teachers’ conceptions regarding intercultural communicative competence, and the influence of their majors on their perceptions as to it. The findings indicated that the pre-service teachers majoring at a language department placed the emphasis on attitudinal, communicative and social aspects of intercultural communicative competence while the pre-service teachers majoring in the department of history put the stress on attaining knowledge of it. Another finding of the study was the inability of the pre-service teachers to select the techniques and materials for improving intercultural communicative competence. The research by Young and Sachdev (2011) reported that the teachers teaching in the USA, the UK and France had principally similar views about intercultural communicative competence as they believed in the importance of acquiring intercultural competence and that good teachers and students had high levels of intercultural competence. Furthermore, the research participants asserted that intercultural competence was ignored in syllabi and there was a lack of support for effective teaching of intercultural competence.

Teachers’ approaches towards intercultural language teaching could be rooted in their interests, personalities and life experiences (Peiser & Jones, 2013). Culturally responsive teachers are the teachers aware of their biases and beliefs that can orchestrate their classroom practices (Izquierdo, 2018). Teachers’ not feeling prepared for teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students could be a big handicap to their success (Tualaulelei, 2021) in intercultural teaching. For instance, in the research conducted by Lu et al. (2024), it was demonstrated that the foreign language teachers teaching at a higher institution in China neglected intercultural education due to their limited knowledge of it, concerns about the probable crises that could arise in the classroom due to the clashes between two cultures and convictions that intercultural education was not their responsibility. University EFL teachers’ perceptions of assessing intercultural communicative competence were examined by Gu (2016), concluding that the way the practicing teachers assessed students’ intercultural communicative competence was unsatisfactory as they were confused about what and how to assess although they assumed it should be assessed.

The pedagogy of the teaching of intercultural dimension of the target language is more important than the related theoretical basis for both in-service and pre-service teachers (Ogay & Edelmann, 2016). Thus, teacher education about intercultural communicative competence must comprise teaching techniques and strategies to be implemented to teach knowledge and skills needed for competently carrying out intercultural communication. Teacher education plays a significant role in preparing teachers for acquiring knowledge of intercultural language teaching (Siqueira, 2017). As such, training English language teachers in intercultural communicative teaching is shown to be effective for igniting their desire to incorporate the teaching of intercultural communication into their teaching (Ngai & Janusch, 2015).

The review of the related literature shows that exploring PSEFLTs’ views about intercultural education is a topic on which new investigations need to be undertaken. In addition, the preceding paragraphs reveal that research into the probable changes in PSEFLTs’ views on intercultural education that may occur due to their year of study in the program needs to be conducted. With these gaps in view, the present study seeks answers to the following research questions:

1- What are PSEFLTs’ perceptions of intercultural education in EFL teaching?

2- Do PSEFLTs’ perceptions of intercultural education in EFL teaching change significantly with reference to their year of study?

Method

Research Design and the Context

This study is designed as a mixed-methods case study. To unearth PSEFLTs’ perceptions regarding intercultural education in EFL teaching and to scrutinize whether their perceptions change significantly in accord with their year of study, quantitative data was collected through administering a questionnaire. In addition, to gain deeper insights into their perceptions concerning providing intercultural education in EFL teaching, qualitative data was accumulated via conducting a semi-structured interview. Gathering both qualitative and quantitative data enabled data triangulation, which strengthens the credibility of the study, as maintained by Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Tracy (2010). Moreover, as posited by Creswell (2012), employing both qualitative and quantitative methods in a study can help understand the research problem better, which explains the rationale behind employing mixed-methods research in this study. Additionally, this study is a case study in that it is carried out in a single university, which is the bounded system (Creswell, 2007), and it aims to explore the participants’ conceptions of intercultural education within the given context. Additionally, it does not intend to generalize the findings to broader population.

The pre-service English teacher education program in the context of this study does not involve a course aiming at training pre-service English language teachers in how to integrate intercultural teaching into the teaching of English to students of different ages. Prior to emailing the questionnaire to the participants, ethical approval was obtained from the Social Sciences Ethics Committee Board of the university in which this research was undertaken. Peer debriefing was employed to ensure the credibility in this research, as suggested by Lincoln and Guba (1985), by asking a teacher educator to check all the processes gone through in the study.

Participants

A total of 155 PSEFLTs studying at a state university participated in this study. Convenience sampling was used in the selection of the participants. In the department of English language teaching, there were 267 enrolled students when this research was conducted, but 155 of them accepted to take part in the study and filled out the questionnaire. Demographic information about the participants is displayed in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

Demographic Information about the Participants.

Year of study	Female (n)	Male (n)	Mean Age
First-year	25	17	18.7
Second-year	25	16	19.3
Third-year	23	14	21.1
Fourth-year	24	11	22.6

As seen in Table 1, there were 42 first-year participants (female = 25, male = 17), 41 second-year participants (female = 25, male = 16), 37 third-year participants (female = 23, male = 14), and 35 fourth-year participants (female = 24, male = 11). According to the year of study, the mean ages of the participants are 18.7, 19.3, 21.1, and 22.6, respectively. Participants were briefed about the study and their consent was obtained before commencing the research. No information that could reveal their identity is shared throughout the study to preserve their privacy. As extracting quotations from their responses in the semi-structured interviews, expressions such as interviewee 1 and interviewee 5 are used.

Data Collection Tools and Analysis

Questionnaire

The questionnaire developed by Sercu et al. (2007) with a view to examining foreign language teachers’ perceptions of intercultural education in foreign language education was used to collect the quantitative data. Permission was received before using it as the data collection tool in this study. The questionnaire has a five-point Likert scale, ranging from agree completely (1) to disagree completely (5) in the original version. The direction of the options in the questionnaire was changed before its online distribution and ranged from disagree completely to (1) to completely agree (5). The questionnaire was emailed to the first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students, and they were asked to respond to it and email it back in 10 days. The data collected from the questionnaire was analysed though running descriptive statistics to find an answer to the first research question of what PSEFLTs’ perceptions of intercultural education in EFL teaching are, and one-way ANOVA was run to be able to answer the research question of if participants’ perceptions of intercultural education in EFL teaching change significantly in accord with their year of study.

Semi-Structured Interview

A semi-structured interview was carried out with 12 randomly chosen participants who volunteered to attend the interview following the due date for the submission of the questionnaire. In an attempt to investigate whether participants’ answers to the interview questions vary in accordance with their year of study, the interview was conducted with three-randomly-selected first-year participants, three-randomly-selected second-year participants, three-randomly-selected third-year participants and three-randomly selected fourth-year participants. The semi-structured interview containing six questions was carried out on the phone with each interviewee. The questions in the interview were produced after reading the related literature on intercultural education and intercultural communicative competence. To ensure the validity of the questions and increase the credibility of the qualitative data, peer debriefing was applied, as recommended by Lincoln and Guba (1985). They were evaluated by a fellow teacher educator to make sure they were not leading and served for finding answers to the research questions. The teacher educator suggested changing the wording of one of the questions to prevent the interviewees from being led. After rephrasing that question, the interview was piloted with three PSEFLTs who were not the interviewees in this research. Afterwards, the interviews were scheduled according to the availability of the interviewees. Each interview lasted 10 to 15 min and all the interviews were completed in 6 days. An interview protocol was kept in order to take notes of the answers of the interviewees. The collected data was subjected to thematic analysis, carried out by two coders manually, one of whom is one of the researchers. The coding process commenced by the selection of one of the interview protocols, reading it in detail and coding it, which helped the coders conduct coding in the same way. Then, coding was completed individually by the coders, and after that, they compared and contrasted the codes they found and/or created to reach a consensus on them. Following that, themes were developed from the codes.

Findings

PSEFLTs’ Perceptions of Intercultural Education Uncovered through the Analysis of the Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Table 2 below displays descriptive test results of the data gathered from the questionnaire, developed to explore foreign language teachers’ perceptions of intercultural education in foreign language teaching. The quantitative data is shown with the items in Table 4 in a descending order of the mean scores considering the cut-off points of the options “completely disagree, disagree to a certain extent, undecided, agree to a certain extent, and completely agree”, which helped make the interpretations accordingly. These cut off points for the mean ranges are: agree completely (4.21–5.00), agree to a certain extent (3.41–4.20), undecided (2.61–3.40), disagree to a certain extent (1.81–2.60) and disagree completely (1.00–1.80).

Table 2.

Descriptive Test Results of the Questionnaire.

Item	M	SD
1. In a foreign language classroom, teaching culture is as important as teaching the foreign language.	4.69	.70
20. I would like to teach intercultural competence through my foreign language teaching.	4.68	.88
3. A foreign language teacher should present a positive image of the foreign culture and society.	4.54	.78
22. Providing additional cultural information makes pupils more tolerant towards other cultures and people.	4.40	.87
12. All pupils should acquire intercultural competence, not only pupils in classrooms with ethnic minority community children.	4.36	.80
7. I would like to promote the acquisition of intercultural skills through my teaching.	4.35	.75
24. Foreign language teaching should not only touch upon foreign cultures, It should also deepen pupils' understanding of their own culture.	4.30	.78
9. The more pupils know about the foreign culture, the more tolerant they are.	4.29	.91
11. Foreign language teaching should enhance pupils' understanding of their own cultural identity.	4.13	.87
15. A foreign language teacher should present a realistic image of a foreign culture, and therefore should also touch upon negative sides of the foreign culture and society.	4.09	1.03
10. In international contacts misunderstandings arise equally often from linguistic as from cultural differences.	3.96	.85
14. Every subject, not just foreign language teaching, should promote the acquisition of intercultural skills.	3.86	.98
2. Intercultural education is best undertaken cross-curricularly.	3.76	.81
13. When you only have a limited number of teaching periods, culture teaching has to give way to language teaching.	3.61	.84
21. Intercultural education reinforces pupils' already existing stereotypes of other people and cultures.	3.56	1.15
4. Before you can teach culture or do anything about the intercultural dimension of foreign language teaching, pupils have to possess a sufficiently high level of proficiency in the foreign language.	3.20	1.08
23. Language problems lie at the heart of misunderstandings in international contacts, not cultural differences.	3.07	1.23
16. If one wants to be able to achieve anything at all as regards intercultural understanding, one should use texts written in the mother tongue and discuss these texts in the mother tongue, even when in a foreign language classroom.	2.68	1.21
17. In the foreign language classroom pupils can only acquire additional cultural knowledge, they cannot acquire intercultural skills.	2.43	1.09
18. Only when there are ethnic minority community pupils in your classes, you have to teach intercultural competence.	2.42	1.31
6. It is impossible to teach the foreign language and the foreign culture in an integrated way.	2.23	1.26
5. Intercultural skills cannot be acquired at school.	2.23	1.03
19. Language and culture cannot be taught in an integrated way, you have to separate the two.	2.13	1.27
8. Intercultural education has no effect whatsoever on pupils' attitudes.	1.69	.89

As can be seen in Table 2, the participants completely agreed with the statement that teaching culture is no less significant than teaching the foreign language (M = 4.69, SD = .7), indicating the importance they attached to the teaching of culture in English language teaching. In addition, item 1 has the highest mean value, denoting that it is the one on which widespread agreement was reached. Item 20 with the second highest mean value (M = 4.68, SD = .88) shows that the participants had the desire to integrate the teaching of intercultural competence into that of the English language, in line with their complete agreement with item 1. Similar findings were obtained from the analysis of the data offered by the first question in the semi-structured interview. In the semi-structured interview, the interviewees were asked to state their views about the place of intercultural education in EFL teaching. The answers of all the interviewees led to the development of the theme intercultural education assumes a significant role in successful EFL teaching. Participants’ statements indicated that regardless of their year of study, all the interviewees believed intercultural education took on importance in reinforcing EFL teaching due to the reason that culture and language were interwoven. Senior interviewee 10 said: “Culture and EFL teaching cannot be separated from each other because language shows the traces of culture”. In line with the perception of senior interviewee 10, junior interviewee 2 emphasized: “We cannot separate culture from language or vice versa. Because of this, target culture needs to be taught in English lessons besides teaching language skills”.

The participants’ responses to items 3 (M = 4.54, SD = .78), 22 (M = 4.40, SD = .87), 24 (M = 4.30, SD = .78) and 9 (M = 4.29, SD = .91) point to the participants’ complete agreement with the statements meaning that they believed developing intercultural competence could support pupils in not only understanding the target culture but also their own. Additionally, they contended that developing pupils’ intercultural competence could help them be more tolerant towards people from different cultures.

The mean value of item 10 (M = 3.96, SD = .85) indicates that the participants agreed with the statement that cultural differences should not be disregarded in the occurrence of the misunderstandings in international exchanges, which could be viewed to be another reason for the participants’ belief in the necessity of the teaching of intercultural competence. The mean values of item 14 (M = 3.86, SD = .98) and 2 (M = 3.76, SD = .81) display the participants’ agreement with the need for the involvement of the school subjects other than English in intercultural competence teaching. The questionnaire includes an item, item 4, that provides information about teachers’ ideas concerning the role of language proficiency in the teaching of intercultural competence. The mean value (M = 3.20; SD = 1.08) shows that the PSEFLTs were undecided about the necessity of pupils’ having a high level of language proficiency before being instructed on intercultural competence. The participants’ responses to item 16 (M = 2.68, SD = 1.21) indicate that they were unsure about using solely the mother tongue in intercultural teaching.

The mean value of item 17 (M = 2.43; SD = 1.09) shows that the participants disagreed with the statement that foreign language classes could not cater for the teaching of intercultural competence, in congruence with the findings provided by items 1 and 20. Furthermore, the participants’ conceptions about item 6 (M = 2.23, SD = 1.26), 5 (M = 2.23, SD = 1.03), and 19 (M = 2.13, SD = 1.27) indicate that they were against the statements that intercultural teaching could not be taught at schools in an integrated way in foreign language classes. Also, they disagreed with item 18 (M = 2.42, SD = 1.31) which states that it is necessary to teach intercultural competence only if there are pupils from minority communities in the classroom. The mean value of item 8 (M = 1.69, SD = .89) indicates that the participants believed intercultural education could lead to changes in pupils’ attitudes.

Does the Year of Study Affect PSEFLTs’ Perceptions of Intercultural Education in EFL Teaching?

Table 3 below displays one-way ANOVA results of the analysis of the data collected from the questionnaire, used to investigate if PSEFLTs’ perceptions about intercultural education in EFL teaching change significantly in accordance with their year of study.

Table 3.

One-Way ANOVA Results of the Questionnaire.

Item		Sum of Squares	df	Mean square	F	p
1	Between	1	3	.33	.66	.58
	Within	75.28	151	.49
	Total	76.28	154
2	Between	.15	3	.05	.07	.97
	Within	101.48	151	.67
	Total	101.63	154
3	Between	1.62	3	.54	.87	.45
	Within	92.85	151	.61
	Total	94.47	154
4	Between	2.89	3	.96	.81	.48
	Within	178.49	151	1.18
	Total	181.39	154
5	Between	3.97	3	1.32	1.23	.29
	Within	162.18	151	1.07
	Total	166.16	154
6	Between	4.63	3	1.54	.96	.41
	Within	243	151	1.06
	Total	247.6	154
7	Between	1.9	3		1.12	.31
	Within	85.57	151
	Total	87.48	154
8	Between	4.26	3	1.42	1.8	.14
	Within	118.86	151	.78
	Total	123.13	154
9	Between	2.03	3	.68	.81	.48
	Within	125.89	151	.83
	Total	127.93	154
10	Between	.35	3	.11	.15	.92
	Within	112.48	151	.74
	Total	112.83	154
11	Between	2.72	3	.9	1.18	.31
	Within	115.43	151	.76
	Total	118.15	154
12	Between	4.38	3	1.46	2.03	.07
	Within	95.65	151	.63
	Total	100	154
13	Between	1.25	3	.41	.57	.63
	Within	109.28	151	.72
	Total	110.54	154
14	Between	.48	3	.16	.16	.93
	Within	147.67	151	.97
	Total	148.15	154
15	Between	6.97	3	2.32	2.26	.86
	Within	157.75	151	1.04
	Total	164.73	154
16	Between	17.23	3	5.74	4.12	.008
	Within	210.27	151	1.39
	Total	227.51	154
17	Between	1.54	3	.55	.42	.73
	Within	184.62	151	1.23
	Total	186.16	154
18	Between	8.11	3	2.7	1.56	1.95
	Within	257.78	151	1.7
	Total	265.9	154
19	Between	11.71	3	3.9	2.45	.06
	Within	240.44	151	1.59
	Total	252.15	154
20	Between	.56	3	.18	.23	.87
	Within	119.01	151	.78
	Total	119.57	154
21	Between	3.54	3	1.18	.89	.44
	Within	200.49	151	1.32
	Total	204.03	154
22	Between	2.28	3	.76	.98	.40
	Within	116.91	151	.77
	Total	119.2	154
23	Between	.42	3	.14	.09	.96
	Within	235.79	151	1.56
	Total	236.21	154
24	Between	.52	3	.17	.27	.84
	Within	94.22	151	.62
	Total	94.74	154

Note. The items in Table 3 are the same as the ones in Table 2.

As could be seen in Table 3, there was not a statistically significant difference in participants’ perceptions regarding intercultural education with reference to their year of study, except item 16 (F(17, 210) = 4.12, P = .008). Tukey post hoc test was run so as to find out which group’s mean value led to the statistically significant difference between groups in item 16. Below is Table 4 depicting Tukey post hoc test results of item 16.

Table 4.

Tukey Post Hoc Test Results for Item 16.

Item 16	Group	Group	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
Item 16	Group	Group	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
If one wants to be able to achieve anything at all as regards intercultural understanding, one should use texts written in the mother tongue and discuss these texts in the mother tongue, even when in a foreign language classroom.	First year	Second year	.678	.259	.048	.005	1.351
		Third year	.863	.266	.008	.171	1.554
		Fourth year	.643	.270	.085	−.059	1.344
	Second year	First year	−.678	.259	.048	−1.351	−.005
		Third year	.185	.267	.900	−.510	.880
		Fourth year	−.035	.271	.999	−.740	.671
	Third year	First year	−.863	.266	.008	−1.554	−.171
		Second year	−.185	.267	.900	−.880	.510
		Fourth year	−.220	.278	.858	−.943	.503
	Fourth year	First year	−.643	.270	.085	−1.344	.059
		Second year	.035	.271	.999	−.670	.740
		Third year	.220	.278	.858	−.502	.942

Table 4 shows there is a statistically significant difference between first-year and second-year participants’ conceptions of using students’ mother tongue in providing intercultural education (p = 0.48), and a statistically significant difference between the first- and third-year students’ conceptions (p = .008). Table 4 also shows that there is no statistically significant difference between first- and fourth-year participants’ beliefs and between the perceptions of the second-, third-, and fourth-year participants in the use of students’ mother tongue in offering intercultural education. To gain deeper insights into participants’ beliefs about the use of mother tongue in intercultural education, Table 5 illustrating the mean values of item 16 according to the groups is given below.

Table 5.

Mean Values of the Groups for Item 16.

Item 16	Group	Mean	SD
If one wants to be able to achieve anything at all as regards intercultural understanding, one should use texts written in the mother tongue and discuss these texts in the mother tongue, even when in a foreign language classroom.	1	3.21	1.25
	2	2.53	1.12
	3	2.35	1.2
	4	2.68	1.21

Table 5 demonstrates the first-year participants were undecided about using students’ mother tongue in providing intercultural education (M = 3.21, SD = 1.21). The second-, third- and fourth-year participants did not believe in the need for the use of mother tongue to offer intercultural education as a part of EFL teaching.

PSEFLTs’ Perceptions of Intercultural Education Uncovered through the Analysis of the Qualitative Data

The second question posed in the interview served for learning about PSEFLTs’ thoughts about what the teaching of culture includes. The responses given by the interviewees showed that there was a consensus among them over what culture teaching included. According to the interviewees, culture involved food, costumes, traditions, songs, movies, literature and lifestyles of a community. The following question in the semi-structured interview was asked to discover interviewees’ conceptions of how to teach target culture in EFL lessons. Interviewees’ responses to the question produced the theme technology should be used to teach target culture. Sophomore interviewee 6 stated: ‘I think we can use videos illustrating the target culture in lessons. Visual materials can help students understand the target culture’. Similarly, senior interviewee 11 stated: ‘We can play traditional songs, play movies and use literary works in the classroom to teach target culture to our students’. Highlighting the importance of reacting and responding appropriately in intercultural contacts, junior interviewee 8 stated that English language teachers should use videos showing what people from the target culture did when they were happy, sad et cetera., and the sense of humour they had.

The interviewees were also asked to share any instance of the teaching of target culture in their prior English language learning experiences. The content analysis of participants’ answers created the theme no past target culture learning experiences. What senior interviewee 12 said exemplified all interviewees’ previous target culture learning experiences: ‘I don’t remember a lesson in which my English teachers taught the target culture to me’. Seeing that the English lessons they had in their prior educational lives were not considered to be the medium of the teaching of the target culture led the researchers to ask the question of why they thought the teaching of the target culture was ignored in their past educational lives. The responses of the participants to the question produced the theme teachers unknowledgeable about target culture and how to teach it are the obstacles to intercultural education. The interviewees expressed that their English teachers’ lack of knowledge of the target culture and how to teach it was the principal reason behind not being provided intercultural education, indicating the critical role to be played by EFL teachers in the provision of intercultural education. The analysis of the data obtained from the last question of whether they would be a teacher trying to develop their students’ intercultural skills produced the theme ‘I will include intercultural education into my future teaching’. The interviewees pointed out that they were aware of the importance of intercultural teaching in EFL teaching, and for this reason, they would provide intercultural education for their prospective students. For instance, junior I7 said: ‘I will definitely teach target culture to my students in the future because I believe that can improve my students’ communicative competence’. One of the interviewees, while answering the last question, stated that the pre-service English teacher education program had to equip student pre-service EFL teachers with the knowledge and skills they would need when they began to teach English after graduation.

Discussion

The findings obtained from the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data showed the participants believed in the significance of the teaching of the intercultural dimension of the target language as well as providing linguistic knowledge. They also indicated their desire to include the teaching of culture in EFL lessons. This result is consistent with the ones in the studies conducted by Ghavamnia (2020), East (2012), and Munezane’s (2025) in which the participating teachers also deemed culture teaching as an important component of language teaching. Participants’ viewing the teaching of the target culture as an essential component in EFL teaching could be construed to be promising in that, as was illustrated in the analysis of the interviewees’ responses, they will be teachers devoting the lesson time not only to developing their students’ linguistic knowledge but also to improving their intercultural communicative competence. In line with this finding, the participants also believed intercultural competence could be developed at school, supporting the contention of Aguilar (2009) conceiving the foreign language classroom as the place where intercultural education could be provided.

Intercultural communicative competence requires proper use of language, necessitating cultural knowledge. Tolerance towards diversity and eliminating biases against different cultures are amidst the most favourable outcomes of intercultural education, as has been stated in the literature (Baraldi, 2012; Castro & Sercu, 2007). The participants also thought that failure in intercultural communication stemmed from the lack of intercultural knowledge besides the inadequacy of the linguistic knowledge. This explains why they thought intercultural education was crucial for carrying out successful communication in intercultural encounters. The participants also believed the teaching of the foreign culture helped students better comprehend their own culture, which is in line with what is stated by Basílio et al. (2016). The PSEFLTs contended that the foreign language teacher should present not only a positive image of the target culture but also its negative sides, indicating their belief in the need for an objective presentation of the target culture.

The quantitative data analysis revealed there was no statistically significant difference between the participants’ conceptions of intercultural education in EFL teaching according to their year of study other than the 16th item, claiming the use of mother tongue is a prerequisite for enhancing intercultural understanding. The statistically significant difference resulted from the first-year students’ perceptions regarding the use of mother tongue because they were undecided about it while the second-, third-, and fourth-year participants did not agree the use of mother tongue was mandatory for enriching intercultural understanding. The statistically significant difference might root in the courses the participants have taken and will take in the pre-service English language teacher education program, and their belief in the need for using the target language in the classroom to teach it. Their point of view on using English in EFL teaching could have the second-, third-, and fourth-year participants disagree with the use of the mother tongue in intercultural education. Since the first-year participants have not taken courses as much as the ones the other participants have taken, they could be undecided about the use of mother tongue in the teaching of the foreign culture.

Curriculum designers developing curricula for EFL teaching in primary, secondary, and high schools, in collaboration with teacher educators, practicing foreign language teachers and students, might try to explicate how to conduct intercultural teaching in curricula. The degree to which mother tongue can be used in intercultural education and whether or not it could be enabled through utilizing texts in the mother tongue needs to be clarified in curricula. Since teachers are the key stakeholders in the successful implementation of the curriculum (Richards, 2001) and teachers play a significant role in teaching intercultural communicative competence (Valencia & Michelson, 2023; Wang et al., 2025), curriculum developers’ awareness of teachers’ perceptions as regards intercultural education in EFL teaching appears to be crucial.

The analysis of the qualitative data on how to provide intercultural education revealed that there was not a difference between the participants’ perceptions of the ways to teach it in accord with their year of study. The interviewees highlighted the necessity of the use of technology in teaching the foreign culture. Similar to the perceptions of the interviewees with respect to the use of technology, the research carried out by Ribeiro (2016), Ruan and Medwell (2020) and Zhang (2020) yielded the positive effect of the use of technology in developing language learners’ intercultural communicative competence. In addition, the participants in Borghetti and Qui’s (2022) research affirmed the importance of the use of proper teaching materials in offering intercultural education. The interviewees also noted covering the literary texts of the target culture could facilitate their target culture learning. Aligning participants’ perceptions of using literature, Wang (2014) concluded that the use of migrant literature helped raise students’ intercultural awareness. Additionally, the semi-structured interviews brought to light that the interviewees, being devoid of target culture teaching in their prior English language learning experiences, were willing to provide intercultural education in their future English lessons. They highlighted their previous English teachers’ lack of knowledge of target culture and how to teach it was the reason behind their being subjected solely to the teaching of grammar and vocabulary. This unpacks the importance of the pre-service EFL teacher education program in training pre-service EFL teachers in the techniques to be employed in developing intercultural communicative competence, which is in line with the suggestions as to conducting effective intercultural teaching in the literature (e.g., Ogay & Edelmann, 2016; Siqueira, 2017).

Conclusions

This research investigated PSEFLTs’ perceptions concerning intercultural education in EFL teaching. The findings indicated the study participants regarded the teaching of the target culture as significant as EFL teaching, and they could teach them in an integrated way. Viewing raising students’ intercultural awareness as a medium for achieving success in EFL learning and teaching, the PSEFLTs offer hope for the future English language teaching practices in the context of the present study because their responses to the items in the questionnaire and to the questions in the semi-structured interview demonstrate that they will be teachers whose English lessons will be rich in intercultural education. Contributing to the literature through uncovering the PSEFLTs’ perceptions regarding intercultural education, this study strongly suggests enriching the content of the pre-service EFL teacher education program via offering a course on the significance of intercultural education and how to provide it. Moreover, it recommends giving training to practicing English language teachers in how to heighten students’ intercultural awareness. The findings could provide the professional development unit of the Ministry of National Education in the context of the present study with useful insights into why give training as to how to integrate intercultural education into EFL teaching. As well as this, the results may lead curriculum designers into pondering over the techniques and materials effective for intercultural education. The researchers are planning to conduct a follow-up study with the fourth-year participants when they start to teach English to examine if or not their instructional practices as a novice teacher serves for raising students’ intercultural awareness aside from developing their linguistic competence.

Further research is needed to delve deeply into PSEFLTs’ views about intercultural education in EFL teaching. This research was conducted in one university, which is the major limitation of it, and therefore, further investigations could be conducted with an eye to exploring the perceptions of PSEFLTs studying at different universities and in different countries to gain a complete understanding of their beliefs about intercultural education. In addition, it needs to be pointed out that because this study was designed as a case study, the findings presented in it cannot be generalized to other contexts, which reiterates the need for more research on PSEFLTs’ perceptions regarding intercultural education in English language teaching.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Gülten Koşar

Yunus Emre Akbana

Ethical Considerations

Ethical approval was obtained from the Social Sciences Ethics Committee Board of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University (Document no: 902-01-FR 006; document date: 07.01.2021, decision no: 04)

Consent to Participate

Participants’ consent was obtained before the start of the study.

Author Contributions

Authors equally contributed to carrying out the research and producing the paper.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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