Abstract

In today's globalized world, more interaction exists among people from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is essential to be open-minded about cultural diversity to prevent speculative assumptions about others and to be able to interact positively with various people--one approach to addressing this problem might be through language teaching and learning. This exploratory study focused on critically analyzing foreign news reports to improve students' understanding of other cultures and reduce possible ethnocentric views. Results from the revised Generalized Ethnocentrism (GENE) scale pre-post survey indicate a slight decrease in students' ethnocentrism scores from the beginning to the end of the semester. Also, interview data after the intervention report increased awareness and understanding of other cultures, according to participants. Although this study is limited to a small sample, the results show that critical analysis of foreign news reports in foreign language learning can help increase intercultural understanding and reduce ethnocentric views. Future studies integrating a similar intervention with a larger sample of foreign language learners from diverse language levels and cultural perspectives could determine a more significant outcome difference.

Degree

MS

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Instructional Psychology and Technology

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2024-04-18

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd13596

Keywords

intercultural competency, ethnocentrism, critical analysis

Language

english

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