Samira Tirnaz & Dr. Mehry Haddad Narafshan
Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran
The current mixed methods study investigated whether the provision of intercultural TV advertisements have a positive impact on classroom climate in the EFL context of Iran. To address this issue, two intact classes were assigned to control and experimental group, each containing thirty-seven students. This quasi experimental study was implemented on the pre-test-post-test equivalentgroup design. The results of a pre-test indicated that the participants of the two groups were homogenous with regard to their proficiency level and classroom climate. Quantitative data was collected using Fraser, McRobbie and fisher (1996) What Is Happening In This Class questionnaire (WIHICQ) before and after intercultural TV ad implementation. Coupled with the quantitative data, a semi-structured interview was designed for the aim of qualitative data collection to elicit more information about the effectiveness of ICTA implementation. Descriptive and inferential analyses of the collected data, over a four-month period, revealed that the use of intercultural TV ads appears to provide a significant improvement in the classroom climate for the experimental group but not for the control group, having said that, using TV advertisements as an authentic material at class can prompt students to experience differing viewpoints, thoughts and feelings in a healthy comfortable classroom climate. Moreover, the current study following Lave (1990) situated learning demonstrated that TV ads with attractive content within realistic contexts and authentic settings affected the classroom climate and encouraged a more creative and healthy environment since the students learned to accept and respect differences, and work with and support the classmates who held different beliefs and behaviors.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.
