Evaluating the Representation of Cultural Elements in an In-use EFL Textbook

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to evaluate and specify teachers' perception of the cultural elements of Total English book series. Another objective was to study the techniques and strategies that teachers usually use in teaching these elements. To this end, a total of 50 male and female teachers working at Kish Language Institute in Esfahan participated in the study. A questionnaire adopted from Kilickaya (2004) was used for studying teachers' perception. It included 25 items about cultural elements. Some more cultural related options were added to the questionnaire later. An observation scheme was also used to observe teachers' activities in the classroom. After the analysis of the data, it was found that the Total English Series is biased as it promotes the western culture and values much more than other cultures. Moreover, the cultural elements were mostly incompatible with the L1 (Iranian) culture. Last but not least, it was found that the English teachers working in Kish Language Centers do not have a good command of target culture (L2), and use limited number of activates to introduce cultural elements of the books. Keywords: Cultural elements, Source culture, Target culture, Textbook evaluation

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