@article{2017,title={TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE ROLE OF CULTURE TEACHING IN ELT AND THEIR FAMILIARITY WITH THE TARGET CULTURE},abstractNode={This study aims to determine the perceptions of the English teachers in Turkey towards the role of target culture in learning and teaching a foreign language, and their familiarity with the target culture. Considering that the majority of the English teachers in Turkey are non-native speakers of English and they teach culture either directly or indirectly in their classes, a necessity to analyze their perceptions towards target culture teaching arose. With this purpose, a questionnaire with 26 items including statements focusing on the role and importance of culture teaching, and cultural aspects of the target culture was developed and administered to 40 English Language Teachers. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-test. The findings of this study revealed that most of the teachers viewed culture teaching as crucial as language teaching; however, novice and experienced teachers differed in some aspects like culture’ motivating students, changing the student’s attitude towards her/ his own culture, and possessing high level of proficiency before teaching the target culture. Besides, it shows that almost all of the teachers have a tendency to view themselves as sufficiently familiar with the target culture especially in youth culture and literature of the target culture; however, they did not view themselves as not sufficiently familiar with the target culture in values and beliefs of the target culture. Also, novice and experienced teachers differed in their familiarity with the target culture in some aspects like daily life and routines, traditions and folklore, tourist attractions, and international relations (political, economic, and cultural) with students’ own country and others. It is suggested that another study can be replicated through using interviews and observations of teachers in the aspect of target culture teaching.},author={Gamze SARIYILDIZ},year={2017},journal={International Journal of Language Academy}}