The Use of Materials for the Teaching of Culture in ELT

The aim of this study is to access the experiences of teachers of English (i.e. English as a foreign language teachers) when teaching cultural elements through coursebooks which are assigned by their schools/universities, and the materials which they use to deliver these lessons plus the activities that they normally select for their classes. Moreover, teachers’ opinions concerning the learning and teaching of cultural elements are studied in this research. Teachers, both native and non-native speakers of English, participated in this research and have EFL teaching experience from 2 years to 30 years. An open-ended questionnaire (85) followed by semi-structured interviews (28) were conducted to learn more of teachers’ experiences and to obtain further details of their opinions on teaching and learning cultures through coursebooks. All data from questionnaires were coded manually and Nvivo 9 and 10 were also utilised while processing and analysing the findings (i.e. to store interview transcripts and extracting participants’ words and coding them appropriately. The details can be found in the Data Analysis section). The study has clearly shown that EFL teachers use the internet, youtube and other kinds of websites through electrical devices such as computers and smart boards and other sorts of authentic materials (e.g. current newspapers or magazines). Youtube is used for authentic material, and the BBC and some other news channels are also accessed for listening tasks. Written materials are less applied in classrooms since teachers think that electronic media materials are more visual for students, thus helping them to understand more easily , encouraging motivation and gaining more attention in lessons. Teachers recommend that learning cultures through coursebooks would benefit students, as language and culture are interlinked, and it would make students not only become fluent speakers of English but also help them to become interculturally competent persons.