engleski

The Acquisition of Cultural Contents in EFL: Does the Teaching Method Make a Difference?

There is no doubt that language and culture are deeply intertwined and that teaching and learning a foreign language would be impossible without teaching and learning culture. That is why cultural literacy plays an important role in second language acquisition. Results of a small-scale experimental research study conducted on a sample of Croatian primary school learners are presented in the research part of this paper. The aim is to investigate differences in two samples of fifthgraders, a control group (N=15) and a test group (N=17), in the acquisition of cultural contents and the intensity of task motivation depending on the teaching method they were exposed to - the traditional one or the more contemporary one supported by digital media. The acquisition of cultural contents was examined by means of a written test given to the learners in three stages. In the first stage, the learners were given a pre-test in order to gain insight into their prior knowledge on the topic. In the second stage, each group was exposed to the topic by means of a different teaching method after which a posttest was carried out. In addition, during the class the learners marked the degree of their motivation on a five-point scale after each of the five completed activities. In the third and last stage, which was conducted six weeks later, the retention of knowledge was tested. Interestingly, statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of learners, pointing to certain practical implications as well.

English as a foreign language, cultural literacy, digital media, task motivation

nije evidentirano