Literature review

According to Yun Yue & Quynh Le of University in Tasmania “ In the context of globalization, intercultural contact is not a new concept. It commonly occurs when people from one tribe or ethnic group encountered another one from another tribe or ethnic group and discover that they are different. These differences would be misinterpreted or misunderstood and elicit the two groups of people’s negative feedback or responses to each other. However, under the circumstance of considering political alliance, business cooperation, and other types of cross-cultural collaboration, people have to learn how to understand and even accommodate the opposite culture. Hence, intercultural contact related research, including people’s behavioral and psychological reaction to the unfamiliar culture and its influential factors at societal and individual levels have drawn great interest of the scholars from the various disciplines, including culture studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, etc. The paper reviews literature and give an explicitly timeline of the development of intercultural contact research from 1960. It is found that the three concepts or theoretical frameworks - cultural shock, acculturation theory, and ABC theoretical framework - are salient in the literature and have substantially influential effects on the intercultural contact research.” (From “Cultural Shock” to “ABC Framework”: Development of Intercultural Contact Theory)

According to the Oxford Dictionary a shock is "a sudden and disturbing impression on the mind or feeling, usually one produced by some unwelcome occurrence or perception, by pain, grief, or violent emotion, and tending to occasion lasting depression or loss of composure, in weaker sense, a thrill or start of surprise, or of suddenly excited feeling of any kind." In my opinion to understand the term Culture Shock one might assume Culture Shock is a sudden and disturbing impression on the mind or the own concept of culture produced by some unwelcome occurrence or perception in a foreign culture lasting depression, a thrill, or an excited feeling of any kind.

According to Kalvero Oberg, in his article (1960) he defined Culture Shock as follows: "Culture Shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs or cues include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situations of daily life."

“The word shock fits for the actual event of Culture Shock, the state of distress after an initial enthusiasm. However, besides this rather narrow interpretation of Culture Shock there is also a broader point of view, which includes the whole process of adaptation during an international encounter. This process is also known as acculturation, referring to "changes that occur as a result of continuous firsthand contact between individuals of differing cultural origins." Acculturation as a state means the extent of adaptation to a foreign culture and as a process it refers to the change over time. Intercultural encounters can expose individuals to heavy acculturative stress that in most cases leads to Culture Shock. Almost everybody who spends some time abroad experiences the problem of Culture Shock. This holds true for tourists, as well as exchange students, sojourners, expatriates, migrants and refugees. ” (Culture Shock - Causes, Consequences and Solutions: The International Experience, Sonja Manz.)

“ Raising a child is difficult enough to merit thousands of books on parenting. However, raising a child in a language-intensive environment is even more confusing. Monolingual and bilingual households differ in that they expose their children to a different number of languages. A seemingly innocent difference like this, however, has serious implications on how the child develops, especially in terms of brain development.

When you hear the phrase, “Here is beautiful; there is not so beautiful;” as a native English speaker, you know when a phrase is correct and when it is not. Yet, most native speakers cannot explain why they know a specific mistake is grammatically wrong. Bilingual children, however, excel at seeking out and applying rules. The reason is that bilingual children are exposed to two sets of grammatical rules, which essentially taxes her rule-seeking skills twice as hard. This development spills over into other areas of life, which relate to language. For example, bilingual children notice rules of logic and math more quickly than do their nonlinguistic peers.” (Child Development in a Bilingual vs. Monolingual Household by Damon Verial, Demand Media)

Key terms:

· Monolingual - of a person or society speaking only one language: monolingual families;

· Bilingualism - a person fluent in two languages;

· Multilingualism – a person who speak fluently in several languages

· According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), international students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of tertiary study. However the definition of "international student" varies in each country in accordance to their own national education system.

“International students suffer more psychological and social distress than local students (Ward, 2001). Culture shock, social isolation, conditions in the home countries, cross-cultural relationships, financial difficulties, immigration laws and accompanying anxiety, employment for self and spouse, stress, and depression, are examples of problems international students have to deal with.” (Lin & Yi, 1997; Sarkodie-Mensah, 1998).

“Interaction between international and domestic students within a business education classroom environment and a social context. It attempts to determine the current level of this interaction and gain an understanding of how attitudes held by these two student groups impact on the interactions between them.” ( Exploring The Interactions And Attitudes Of International And Domestic Students In A New Zealand Tertiary Institution By Justine C Brown& Amanda J Daly, School Of Business)

“When students from Asian countries enter English-speaking nations, they must adjust rapidly and learn fast, coping both academically and socially. No element is more important in this than communication: in the classroom, in dealing with university administration, and in other social sites. These students are reliant on their prior English language-learning experiences – especially at school in their home country – as the base on which their later learning will be built. They are therefore closely affected by the kinds of pedagogies that were used before coming to Australia, the beliefs about language learning that were installed in them, and the numbers of hours of effective experience in conversation already acquired.” (Language difficulties of international students in Australia: The effects of prior learning experience by Erlenawati Sawir)

“Understanding lecture content can be difficult for international students. Listening is an active rather than a passive skill, especially for the second language learner. They are processing the words, attempting to understand the main ideas presented and drawing on what they already know to make sense of the material presented in the lecture, in their second language. This is especially true for first year undergraduate and postgraduate international students, who are developing their English language skills and learning in a western university environment. It has been widely observed that international students may appear hesitant in contributing to group discussions. This is not necessarily because this is their preferred learning style. International students often report that they would like to participate but lack the confidence to do so. This could be in part due to their lack of familiarity with how to contribute to an academic discussion or their perceived lack of English language skills. Contributing to discussions can be seen as a risky undertaking if the students are not comfortable with their English language ability or are unfamiliar with the cultural conventions for ‘breaking into’ the conversation. Academics may need to create ‘safe’ learning environments where students feel that they can make a contribution.” ( Teaching International Students Strategies to enhance learning)

Shortly information about English Language Teaching in Turkey: The most common foreign language in Turkey is English, which in public schools is taught from 4th grade (age 10) onwards, through to the end of high school. In high school a second foreign language is introduced. However, the number of lessons given in public schools is minimal compared to private colleges, which begin teaching English in kindergarten, have two or three times as many English lessons in their timetables, and in many cases employ native speakers of English as teachers. In 2011 the Ministry of Education, under pressure from the Prime Minister to improve the learning of English in Turkey, announced that the approach to language would be thoroughly revised, part of which would include a plan to hire 40,000 foreigners as language assistants in public schools. As a result of the poor standards achieved by the public system many students take an intensive English language study when entering university. These are offered by both state and private universities throughout Turkey. More and more people are aware of the fact that at least some knowledge of English is necessary to get ahead in life. It brings high status to the individual socially as well as extending job opportunities. That's why many join one of the numerous language schools in the country.

“Over 10 thousand foreign students, including 250 students from Turkey, study in Kazakhstan universities. There are currently around 30 thousand students in Kazakhstan-Turkish educational facilities; over 500 Kazakhstan students study in Turkey under different programs every year. Lately, 1,085 of our students got education in Turkey. Over 10 thousand foreign students from 45 countries, including 250 students from Turkey, are studying in Kazakhstan." (The press-service of Kazakhstan Education Ministry stated after the meeting of Minister Zhumagulov with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkey to Kazakhstan Omer Burhan Tuzel.)

Conclusion of Literature Review:

The process of searching for specific information was very long process: reading different books, reading different research of my topic and search different websites. Every time, I tried to focus on my problem: I saw big cultural difference between local and Turkish students; also different between other countries and I was surprised when I saw that Turkish students know only one language (monolingualism develops in Turkey). I want to say that teacher should be psychologists, philosopher and should be perfect teacher. Nowadays, we have a lot of different methods and technologies for teaching English language for International and local students (for ex.: audio-lingual method or direct method is good for Turkish students). All these methods can help to improve the warm atmosphere and good relationship in the classroom between local and International students. Also one of the most effective way for teaching International students are using tradition, culture, habits or behaviors other countries.

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