A Comparison of how Interculturality is Presented in both At the Crossroads and Getting Through Textbooks.
Loading...
Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
The present research aims at investigating the teaching of Intercuturality in the Algerian
secondary school English textbooks At the Crossroads and Getting Through. Three objectives
have motivated our research. The first objective is to examine whether Byram’s (1997)
dimensions of ICC are incorporated in At the Crossroads and Getting Through textbooks. The
second objective is to inquire both about EFL teachers’ and textbooks’ authors’ views about
the intercultural content in the two textbooks. The third objective is to check whether one
textbook favors intercultural learning more than the other and why. In order to meet the
objectives of the study, Byram’s framework of Intercultural Communicative Competence (1997)
is adopted. In fact, the importance of ICC as a crucial factor for successful cross-cultural
communication and interaction has motivated us to go further and find out its implementation
in the English textbooks at the secondary school. The data are gathered from the textbook
evaluation of the schoolbooks under investigation, from a questionnaire distributed to teachers
and from an interview conducted with three authors of the textbooks in order to get more
reliable data. As far as data analysis is concerned, a mixed method research combining both
qualitative and quantitative methods is adopted. The qualitative data are analyzed using
Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) while the SPSS is used to analyze the quantitative ones.
Our research findings reveal that the four dimensions of Byram’s model of ICC are included in
the two textbooks and are presented through different forms: texts, tasks, pictures, project works
etc. However, regarding the lack of intercultural content in the textbooks, learners are not given
opportunities to develop the intercultural competencies. Accordingly, EFL teachers’ answers
to the questionnaire supported this point. Indeed, their answers show their dissatisfaction with
the limited amount of information, topics and tasks that deal with the intercultural dimension.
Thus, they wish to enrich and vary the content in order to develop the learners’ intercultural
abilities. Conversely, the results of the interview with the textbooks’ authors indicate that the
two textbooks are equipped with the necessary materials, but it is the teachers’ responsibility
to find the right methods through which they can transmit the needed intercultural knowledge.
Finally, from the comparison between the two textbooks in terms of incorporating intercultural
content, it has been concluded that At the Crossroads for (SE1) favors more intercultural
learning than Getting Through for (SE2) because in this latter the big share is given for
linguistic objectives.
Description
30cm ; 105p.
Keywords
Culture, EFL secondary School Textbooks, Interculturality, Intercultural Communicative Competence.
Citation
Language and Communication