Investigating the Iranian EFL Teacher's Perception of Critical Cultural Awareness

Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice

دوره 15، شماره 30، آذر 2022، صفحه 47-69   

نوع مقاله: Research Paper

شناسه دیجیتال (DOI): 10.30495/jal.2022.694408

نویسندگان

Mostafa Ghaffari¹؛ Davud Kuhi^{* 2}؛ Morteaz Asl Rasuoli²

¹گروه انگلیسی، واحد مراغه، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، مراغه، ایران

²English Language Department, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh Branch, Maragheh, Iran

چکیده

This study was an attempt to investigate the perception of Iranian senior high school teachers toward critical cultural awareness. The participants of the study comprised of 307 teachers in different high schools in Qazvin. All the participants filled in the Critical Cultural Awareness Questionnaire. The data were then fed into SPSS software and were subjected to Principal Components Analysis. Three factors were extracted and named as CCA in ELT Programs, CCA in ELT Textbooks and Materials, and CCA in General Terms, and the participants’ responses were analyzed based on these factors. The results indicated that the teachers’ critical awareness perception toward ELT Textbooks and Materials was the highest factor. The results of the item analysis revealed that teachers indicate all cultures should have an equal status in ELT textbooks and materials. It was concluded that the teachers’ cultural awareness regarding the integration of culture into mainstream teaching should be raised and they should pay more attention to culture in their classes. One significant implication of this study for EFL teachers and also syllabus designers is that an intercultural curriculum can enable learners to have a better understanding of the target materials.

کلیدواژه‌ها

critical cultural awareness؛ intercultural communicative competence؛ culture؛ EFL teachers

مراجع

Alptekin, C. (1993). Target-language culture in EFL materials. ELT Journal, 47(2), 136-143.

Ary, D., & Jacobs, L. C. Razavieh.(1990). Introduction to research in education.  Holt Winston inc.

Atai, M. R., Babaii, E., & Taghipour Bazargani, D. (2017). Developing a questionnaire for assessing Iranian EFL teachers’ critical cultural awareness (CCA). Journal of Teaching Language Skills, 36(2), 1-38.

Bartlett, M. S. (1954). A note on the multiplying factors for various chi square approximations. Journal of Royal Statistical Society, 16, 296-298.

Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching. Prentice Hall Regents.

Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Longman.

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters.

Byram, M. (2012). Language awareness and (critical) cultural awareness – relationships, comparisons and contrasts. Language Awareness, 21(1-2), 5-13.

Byram, M. (2009a). Intercultural competence in foreign languages. In Deardorff, Darla K. (ed.). 2009. The Sage handbook of intercultural competence. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, pp. 321-332.

Byram, M. (2009b). Multicultural societies, pluricultural people and the project of intercultural education. Council of Europe Publishing.

Byram, M., Zarate, G., & Neuner, G. (1994). Teaching and learning language and culture. WBC.

Byram. M., & Grundy, R. (2003). Context and culture in language teaching and learning. In M. Byram & P. Grundy (Eds.), Context and culture in language teaching and learning (pp.1-3). Multilingual Matters.

Cakir, I. (2006). Developing cultural awareness in foreign language teaching. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education – TOJDE, 7(3), 154 -161.

Council of Europe (2001). Common European framework of reference for language learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press.

Cunningsworth, A. (1995). Choosing your course book. Oxford University Press.

De Bot, K., & Lowie, W., & Verspoor, M. (2005). Second language acquisition: An advanced resource book. Routledge.

Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Assessing intercultural competence in study abroad students. In M. Bryam & A. Feng (Eds.), Living and studying abroad: Research and practice (pp. 232-256). Multilingual Matter.

Derenowski, M. (2011). Strangers in paradise: The role of target language culture in foreign language teaching materials. In Extending the boundaries of research on second language learning and teaching (pp. 77-91). Springer, Heidelberg.

DeVellis, R. F. (2003). Scale development theory and applications (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.

Ellis, R. (1998). The evaluation of communicative tasks. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching (pp. 217‐238). Cambridge University Press.

Gence, B., & Bada, E. (2005). Culture in language learning and teaching. The Reading Matrix, 5(1), 73-84.

Guilherme, M. (2002) Critical citizens for an intercultural world: Foreign language education as cultural politics. Multilingual Matters.

Jedynak, M. (2011). The attitudes of English teachers towards developing intercultural communicative competence. In Aspects of culture in second language acquisition and foreign language learning (pp. 63-73). Springer, Heidelberg.

Jiang, G. D. (2006). Necessity of Teaching Culture in Foreign Language Classroom. Sino-US English Teaching, 3(2), 55-57.

Jiang, Y. (2009). On the integration of culture into EFL teaching. Asian Culture and History, 1(2), 144-147.

Kachru, B. B. (1986). The power and politics of English. World Englishes, 5(2‐3), 121-140.

Kaiser, H. F. (1974). An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika, 39, 31-36.

Kramsch, C. J. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford University Press.

Kramsch, C. (2004). The language teacher as go-between. Utbildning & Demokrati, 13(3), 37-60.

Lazaraton, A. (2003). Incidental displays of cultural knowledge in the nonnative‐English‐speaking teacher's classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 37(2), 213-245.

Lessard‐Clouston, M. (1996). Chinese teachers’ views of culture in their EFL learning and teaching. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 9(3), 197-224.

McKay, S.L. (2003). Toward an appropriate EIL pedagogy: Re-examining common ELT assumptions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13(1), 1-22.

Modiano, M. (2001). Ideology and the ELT practitioner. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 159-173.

Mostafaei Alaei, M., & Nosrati, F. (2018). Research into EFL teachers’ intercultural communicative competence and intercultural sensitivity. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 47(2), 73-86.

Naji Meidani, E., Pishghadam, R., & Ghazanfari, M. (2015). The role of home culture in English language classes: Comparison of three different viewpoints. Language and Translation Studies, 47(4), 91.

Pennycook, A. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. Oxford University Press.

Piasecka, L. (2011). Sensitizing foreign language learners to cultural diversity through developing intercultural communicative competence. Aspects of culture in second language acquisition and foreign language learning (pp. 21-33). Springer, Heidelberg.

Pishghadam, R., & Sadeghi, M. (2011). Culture and identity change among Iranian EFL teachers. Ozean Journal of Social Sciences, 4(3), 147-162.

Prodromou, L. (1992). What culture? Which culture? Cross-cultural factors in language learning. ELT Journal, 46(1), 39-50.

Puente, J.C.V. (1997). Different views on sociocultural competence. The IATEFL Newsletter, 15, 3- 5.

Risager, K. (2007). Language and culture pedagogy: From a national to a transnational paradigm. MPG Books.

Salehi, H., & Amini, M. (2016). Critical analysis of a new English textbook used in Iranian junior high schools. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 3(3), 42-54.

Scarino, A. (2010). Assessing intercultural capability in learning languages: A renewed understanding of language, culture, learning, and the nature of assessment. The Modern Language Journal, 94(2), 324-329.

Sharifi, Z., Motallebzadeh, Kh., & BemaniNaeini, M. (2017). EFL learners’ home culture attachment and their attitudes toward English language learning: A Structural Equation Modeling approach. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 6(7), 161-168. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.7p.161

Soodmand Afshar, H., & Yousefi, M. (2019). Do EFL Teachers ‘Critically’ Engage in Cultural Awareness? A Mixed-Method Investigation. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 48(4), 315-340.

Soomro, S., Kazemian, B., & Mahar, I. (2015). The importance of culture in second and foreign language learning. Dinamika Ilmu: Journal of Education, 15(1), 1-10.

Stern, H. H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford University Press.

Tajbakhsh, P., & Ghapanchi, Z. (2017). The relationship between home-culture attachment and FL teachers' success in high school. International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World, 15(4), 23-37.

Tang, R. (1999). The place of culture in the foreign language classroom: A reflection. The Internet TESL Journal, 5(8), 128-140.

Thanasoulas, D. (2001). The importance of teaching culture in the foreign language classroom. Radical Pedagogy, 3(3), 1-25.

Volkmann, L. (2011). English as a lingua franca: Boon or bane? First annual conference of challenges and necessities regarding culture in the quality of teaching foreign languages. Tehran.

Zeinivand, T., Azizifar, A., & Gowhary, H. (2015). The relationship between attitude and speaking proficiency of Iranian EFL learners: The case of Darrehshehr city. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 199, 240-247.

Zhou, Y. (2011). A study of Chinese university EFL teachers and their intercultural competence teaching. http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-00/2-00moser-e.htm