Developing Cultural Awareness in EFL Classrooms at Secondary School Level in an

Iranian Educational Context

By: Maryam Tafaroji Yegaeh, Hossein Raeesi
Number of words : 1055 words
Reference :
Yeganeh, Maryam Tafaroji and Hossein Raeesi. (2015). Procedia – Social and Behavioral
Sciences 192. Developing Cultural Awareness in EFL Classrooms at Secondary School Level
in an Iranian Educational Context. pp 534-542. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.084

1. The Tittle
Developing Cultural Awareness in EFL Classrooms at Secondary School Level
in an Iranian Educational Context
2. Introduction
Teaching English as a foreign language is more than creating in students’
linguistic and capability in the target language, but also includes transmitting
information about the target culture or the country in which the language is spoken.
This is, as (Englebert, 2004, p.37) claimed, “to teach a foreign language is also to teach
a foreign culture.” Because language and culture are two inseparable objects, it is
certainly suggested that cultural issues be integrated into teaching. If there is no
immediate access to the target language, teachers and the materials being used to play
a key role in delivering cultural information, and textbook can also play a crucial role
in providing rich cultural information to students.
3. The Research Question
a. To what extent do EFL secondary school teacher try to incorporate cultural content
into their learning?
b. What are the major means by which they try to develop cultural awareeness in EFL
Classrooms?
c. What are the main obstacles facing teachers in developing cultural awareeness in
EFL classrooms?
d. How do EFL teachers evaluate the textbooks used as the teaching material with
respect to their cultural content?

4. The Literature Review

 (Mao, 2009) analyzed the factors needing and affecting cultural teaching in EFL
classrooms in order to present a cultural teaching mode in China. In his view, it is
important to reconsider the value of cultural factors in EFL classrooms and in order to
achieve a better understanfing of English language and to ensure effective cross-cultural
interaction in real situation.
(Ho, 2009) studied the place of cultural content in tertiary EFL teaching in Vietnam and
the effect of intercultural language learning on learners’ EFL learning. It was expected
that the proposed cultural compentnts would increase the cultural awareness of learners
and engage them in cultural learning cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively.
(Zhao, 2010) studied about how to foster student’s cross-cultural awareness in EFL
teaching. He says that writing textbooks should be approached from a cultural view.
(Naqeeb’s, 2012) claimed that to provide the EFL teachers with a solid foundation by
inspiring them and exposing them to the essential elements of developing cultural
literacy in EFL classrooms.
(Karbinar and Guler, 2012) mainly aimed at explaining language teachers’ attitude
towards cultural teaching and reported that there was no significant difference in the
overall attitude towards culture between native and non-native English speaking
teachers and teachers working in a state or private university.

5. The Methodology
In this research, the author developed quantitative research. The author also
conducted this research by three subsections that are:
a. .The Participants
The participants of this research were 291 Iranian EFL secondary-
school teachers from three provinces of Ilam, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan
in Western Iran who were randomly selected from three largest cities of
each province.
b. The Instrument
In collecting the data, the author used questionnaires from Evans
(2010) which consisted in five sections. Four parts correspondend with the
study’s four primary and secondary objectives. There were items at the end
of the questionnaire to collect the correspondents’ biodata.
c. Procedures
1) Validity and Reliability
 The procedure began by designing a questionnaire that having being
revised on by expert in the area. The questionnaire was finalized with
66 items relevant to the subject.
2) Entry Data
The whole process of circulating and collecting questionnaires lasted for
three weeks. Then, the data were input into SPSS software version 18
and analyzed by applying KS test and Friedman test.
3) Descriptive Analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the data.

6. Data Analysis
The author analyze the quantitative data to get the findings and conclussion.

7. Results
The research findings were:
a. First section, The place of culture in teaching, it is to find out what extent teachers
integrate cultural content into teaching.
b. Another series of questionnaire in first section dealt with the goal of including
cultural content in teaching is.
c. Second section concerned the major means to which teachers resort in order to teach
cultural contents.
d. Third section addressed the main obstacles facing teachers in teaching culture.
e. Fourth section concerned the cultutral dimension of textbooks used as teaching
materials in secondary-school level.
8. Discussion
a. Regarding the purpose of integrating culture in teaching, the results indicated that
the main goal for teacher is to educate the students about the target language habits
and everyday life.
b. The most common way of developing cultural awareness is to correlate aspects of
students’ own culture with the target culture.
c. The shortage of time is a crucial issue and the teachers request extra time in
teaching.
d. The textbooks are designed for the target culture.

9. Conclusion
Teacher’s attitude towards integrating cultural material in teaching are positive
by comparing aspects of students’ own culture with the target culture as the commonest
way of developing cultural awareness in EFL classrooms. The teachers also saw the
lack of time as their main challenge in teaching culture and the textbooks have been
designed with the target culture.

10. Implications of Study

a. The number of instructional hours should be expanded by language planners.
b. Scools should be equipped with multimedia facillities.
c. EFL teachers should have courses and seminars on teaching cultural material.
d. The textbook should be updated in view of certain aspects of the target culture.
e. Language planners should take EFL teachers’ comment about cultural content when
designing textbooks.

11. Limitations of Study

The scope of this study is limited in two ways. First, the study’s participant who
could not be a comprehensive teacher represantation as a whole population. Second,
the study’s focus was limited to the general culture status of EFL classrooms.

12. The Standpoint

My standpoint of this journal is similar with the author that teaching English as
a foreign language also teaching the culture that related to the language. We are as the
pre-service teacher, when we teach our students it means that we will make an
interaction with them. Learning a new language is not about grammar and vocabulary
but also learning about the society and their behaviour. It has connection that when we
interact with our students, it also interacts with the language-speaking culture, because
we can not understand one’s culture without having direct access to one’s language.