The Analysis of L1 Teaching Programs in England, Canada, The USA and Australia Regarding Media Literacy and Their Applicability to Turkish Language Teaching

Two basic approaches namely independent lesson approach and integration approach appear in teaching media literacy. Media literacy is regarded as a separate lesson in the education program like mathematics and social sciences in independent lesson approach. However, in integration approach, activities and outcomes of media literacy are related in an existing course. It has been observed that by the 1990s, media devices and messages started to have a stronger impact on the life of a society which in turn resulted in adoption of integration approach in teaching media literacy by developed countries. Such countries specifically related media literacy specifically with teaching L1. In this study, the countries which were regarded as leaders in teaching media literacy namely England, Canada (the state of Ontario), USA, and Australia L1 teaching programs were taken into consideration in terms of relating L1 teaching with teaching media literacy; therefore, common themes were identified in their programs. A total number of 487 pages of document and 497 gains of L1 teaching programs of these countries were investigated by means of document investigation method. To analyse the data, content analysis was used. In this respect, the first analysis dealt with countries and further analysis identified the common themes of media literacy gains in L1 teaching programs. To analyse the data a qualitative data analysis program MAXQDA (R) was used. The results indicated that the investigated teaching programs involved media literacy gains and activities at an important level with the ratio of 37.2%. Approximately, two thirds of media literacy gains are related with comprehension component of media literacy whereas the rest deals with its production component. The component of comprehension includes the gains in four basic themes namely understanding the genre of the text, questioning the text, identifying the information and ideas in the text, and thinking the impact of media messages on the other people in 21 sub-themes. The component of production includes the gains in four basic themes namely forming content, using methodological information in production, common production and interaction, evaluating the own product of message in 14 sub-themes.