Learning a foreign language is not limited to teaching only theknowledge of vocabulary and grammar since studying a foreignlanguage cannot be considered as only naming objects. Each and everylanguage interprets the world in distinctive ways and develops a varietyof value systems, and different perception and thinking skills. As aconsequence of this fact, considerable cultural differences appearamong languages especially in terms of art, sociology, semantics, andpragmatics. All these differences both reflect and are reflected on thelanguage itself. An individual who learns a foreign language findshimself in a foreign culture. In the context of globalism, today whenconcepts such as multiculturalism have a greater importance, the aimof teaching a foreign language is not only to develop linguisticcompetence but also to impart cultural competence which furtherfacilitates communicative competence. Therefore, in the textbookswhich are basically used to teach a foreign language, it is necessary togive a place to literary texts in which the cultural aspect of language isfocused more. Nonetheless, to achieve instructional goals in the light ofthis idea, these literary texts should be presented with activities andexercises which can enable their stylistic and contextual forms to beexamined thoroughly. Of all literary texts, poetry has a unique placethanks to its characteristics to reflect the feelings, thoughts, andviewpoints of societies in a few words and to express the aesthetic useof language through various meanings loaded on the words themselves,artistic harmonization, and finally through images. It furthernecessitates the need to prepare poetry activities and exercises throughvarious practices.The aim of the study is to analyze how and why poetry is used totransfer culture in Turkish as a foreign language (TFL). The subthemesof the study are as follows:o Which cultural elements do poems include in terms ofstructure and content?o What types of activities could be prepared to reveal culturalelements in poetry?o Based on cultural properties of poems, what are the strategiesto prepare creative activities?o What are the affordances of poetry activities containingcultural elements for TFL learners?In this qualitative study, the activities and materials in TFLtextbooks are categorized by using document analysis, and evaluatedin terms of developing cultural awareness. The scope of the study islimited to the textbooks written for TFL learners in Turkey. Poetryactivities in TFL textbooks are investigated through random samplingmethod. The researchers have analyzed all poetry exercises in thetextbooks with a specific focus on culture transfer via poetry activities.Yabancı Dil Olarak Türkçe Öğretiminde Şiir Etkinliklerinin Kültürel İşlevi 817Turkish StudiesInternational Periodical For the Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or TurkicVolume 10/7 Spring 2015As part of action research, several activities based on using poetry todevelop intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in TFL. Theseproposed activities are tested for their effectiveness and efficiency atthe department of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at theUniversity of Arizona in US. A group of foreign students studyingTurkish for various purposes were selected as participants of the studybased on simple random sampling and the activities were implementedfor a total of three class hours. Afterwards, ten participants wereinterviewed in focus groups regarding the activities implemented. Inthese structured focus group interviews, participants were asked torespond to open-ended questions. Each participant was givenapproximately 10-15 minutes and the sessions were recorded by amoderator.The findings of the study suggest that poetry is mostly ignoredand underestimated in TFL textbooks. While some textbooks give nospace for poetry and poetry activities, some other books use poems,but those poems are used for solely reading purposes and no follow-upexercises are planned based on them.The fact that there is not any comprehension exercises based onpoems makes comprehension check impossible. Furthermore, exercisesprepared based on poems in the textbooks investigated are not aboutthe content of poems and fail to transfer cultural elements, the onlyaim being grammar and such linguistic elements. Although few innumber, there seems to be an effort to successfully transfer culturethrough rhetoric, comparison of different poem types, specific focus onvocabulary and etymology with regard to intercultural communicationand the display of the viewpoint of a target culture.The study also presents a sample activity prepared with the aimof culture transfer based on communicative competence in TFL. Thesample exercise is prepared for C1 level language learners in mindbased on CEFR language level standards since learners at this levelcan comprehend long and challenging texts and deal with impliedmeaning (CEF, 2000:30). The findings suggest that the activitiesprepared as part of the study based on poetry and culture transfer arethought to be effective both in the transfer of cultural elements, anddeveloping an awareness of properties of poetry and various uses oflinguistic elements.Based on the findings of the study, below are several useful andhelpful suggestions in TFL:1. Culture transfer is a significant component of TFL classes andcourse content should be organized accordingly,2. The use of literary texts should be increased and poetryshould not be neglected,3. In order to most effectively benefit from the affordances ofusing poetry in foreign language education, TFL instructors should betrained so that they are equipped with the necessary skills both inselecting appropriate poems and in preparing in-class activities.