A DISCUSSION OF IMPLEMENTATIONS OF LITERACY ON SCHOOL PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSE IN TURKEY AND TAIWAN

Hsiung, Hsiang-Yu¹, Hsiung, Tao-Tien²*
¹Dr. of National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan, cutebear0706@gmail.com
²Dr. of Turkish Language and Culture Department of National Chengchi University, Taiwan, bear1096@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of sports literacy has gained more and more attention in many countries and is included in education and sports policies. The original meaning of "literacy" is a kind of reading ability, which refers to the skills of individuals to read and understand relevant knowledge in the field of learning, including the functions of absorbing, sharing, transforming and creating knowledge. Sports literacy refers to lifelong participation and attention to physical activity, and demonstrates motivation, confidence, physical ability and knowledge. Many scholars have already conducted research on literacy-oriented school physical education curriculum. The development process of sports in Taiwan and Turkey is quite similar. There are also many overlapping in the international competitive sports of the two countries. Furthermore, the attitudes toward sports participation in these two countries are similar, but the reasons behind them may be different. Therefore, this study compared the differences in physical education curriculum between the two countries to understand the similarities and differences of physical education in different cultures. This study used document analysis to analyse the content of the physical education curriculum from elementary school to high school compiled by Taiwan and Turkey in 2018. This study found that Taiwan and Turkey both believe that the assessment method should be diversified, and students should be the core element in PE class. Both curriculums emphasized the interaction with the environment and culture. However, Taiwan's 2018 latest curriculum emphasized literacy orientation. Instead, Turkey’s curriculum does not include “literacy” as vocabulary. Turkey values the use of games in the curriculum of the primary school. But there are no games in Taiwan’s curriculum. In addition, Turkey’s curriculum didn’t emphasize gender equality, marine education, healthy diet and sports appreciation, but Taiwan’s curriculum did. Last but not least, Turkey’s curriculum emphasized that since “literacy” is a reading ability, it must be combined with other disciplines, such as Turkish, mathematics, nature, music and other social sciences. However Taiwan’s curriculum didn’t mention this part. In summary, regardless of the wording, the internal spirit of the two courses is quite close. The sports participation rate of Taiwan and Turkey is not high, and the public's concept of sports needs to be strengthened. Therefore, through the implementation of the new curriculum, we can observe whether the next generation of students can generally have higher sports literacy and promote the popularity of national health and sports participation. It is recommended that follow-up studies can further investigate the effectiveness of the implementation of the new curriculum and analyzes the cultural background and other factors behind the changing of curriculums. It is also suggested that interviews and observation methods can be conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of the implementation of physical education courses in the two countries.

Keywords: curriculum, culture difference, PE, literacy, sport participation