Investigation of Iranian and Turkish English language teachers’ views, perspectives and experiences of teaching cultural content in English courses

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays, English has been considered as an International language or a Lingua Franca as a result of its widespread use among non-native speakers. English now is spoken by various people with different languages and diverse cultures. Thus, learners need to know the culture of different people of various countries. As stated by Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (1999). Cultural mirrors: Materials and methods in the EFL classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching (pp. 196–219). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, learners should have knowledge about source culture, target culture, and international culture. In this regard, teachers have a great responsibility in including cultural content in their English language classes. Therefore, the main purpose of this pilot study during Azimzadeh’s PhD journey (Azimzadeh, M. (Unpublished). Representation of cultural elements in EFL textbooks used in Iranian EFL high schools [PhD dissertation]. Adana, Turkey: Cukurova University) is to investigate Iranian and Turkish English language teachers’ views, perspectives, and experiences of teaching cultural content in their English language classes. This study was conducted as a mixed-method design. The data collection was done by using a questionnaire and an interview. The questionnaire which was used in this study adopted from CULTNET project (a network of researchers of inter-culture in foreign language education), Byram and Risager’s projects, and Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) three cultural sources. Participants of this study were 16 teachers who were teaching English language in high schools in Iran and Turkey. The data collected from questionnaires and interviews were analysed by using a series of descriptive statistics and interviews were analysed by using thematic analysis (Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. London: Sage Publications, Inc). The findings of this study have indicated that both Iranian and Turkish teachers were aware of the importance of teaching culture in their English language classes. They generally claimed that culture was important in language classes and the cultural subjects should be taught in English language classes.