TEACHING CULTURE THROUGH MOVIES

İsmail ÇAKIR, Turkey, LLCE2016-375;        Teaching foreign language is not always possible only through coursebooks and other traditional materials in this digital era as the learners are mostly busy with technology in their daily life.  Foreign language learners, therefore, need to be treated with different teaching techniques and materials in order to expose them to the target culture appropriately.  It is a highly observed fact that learners, particularly those at tertiary schools, spend a great amount of time on watching American or British serials or movies. In this way, they quickly become acquainted with the target language along with its culture. Considering the impact of serials and movies on foreign language learning, this study aimed to explore to what extend they contribute to the development of cultural competence of the learners.  To do this, participants of the study were required to pick up some certain cultural expressions from the movies they watched.  Idioms, superstitions and proverbs were three main types of cultural components that the participants needed to pay attention to while watching. Then, the students in groups presented their tasks in the class displaying the extracts with the cultural expressions along with their meanings.  The study proved that the participants had a great benefit from the task in developing their cultural awareness and communicative competence. Based on the findings, it can be asserted that the more students are exposed to the target language through authentic materials such as movies and TV serials,  the better they achieve the pragmatic language use. 

Key Words:  Movies, culture, serials, cultural expressions, target language, competence