The teaching of English and its culture in EFL contexts : a case study of English language instructors and students in the language centre at Al Al-Bayt University, Jordan

Abstract

The problem of attitudes towards teaching English and its culture in the educational and academic institutions in Jordan is a nascent area of research, and there is a scarcity of studies in this area, so far. Hence, the main purpose of conducting this study was to fill the noticeable gap in the literature regarding the teaching of English and its culture in a foreign language context and to make a step further in this direction. This study investigated the attitudes of the instructors and students of English at Al al-Bayt University Language Centre towards the teaching of English and its culture when teaching English as a foreign language. It also examined the presence of English cultural aspects in the textbooks used for the teaching of the English language courses at the Language Centre. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected in this study by using three main techniques: (1) questionnaires; (2) interviews; and (3) content analysis. All of the ten instructors of English language courses (English 1 and English 2) filled out the questionnaires, and six of them participated in the interviews. The student respondents to the quantitative questionnaire of the study consisted of 550 students enrolled in 14 sections chosen randomly from the 45 sections of English language courses offered by the Language Centre in Semester I of the 2006/2007 academic year. 20 informants were selected purposefully to be interviewed, taking into consideration that they varied in gender, field of specialization, place of residence, and proficiency in English. Overall, the findings of this study revealed that all participants placed a higher priority on learning English for instrumental reasons. Another finding of this study is that incorporating cultural aspects of the Englishspeaking countries was considered as being essential for improving the students’ understanding of the language and its culture. Also, this study revealed that teaching English and its culture was not viewed as a potential threat to Arabic or to the Islamic cultural values. Finally, the analysis of the textbooks used in the English language courses at Al al-Bayt University Language Centre concerning their cultural contents revealed that there was an abundance of cultural information in these textbooks with an exclusive focus on the English-speaking people and countries. In light of the findings of the study, two kinds of recommendations were made. First, it was recommended that instructors of English, university administrators, and curriculum designers should take into consideration the students’ objectives of learning English and direct their teaching activities and materials towards these objectives. Secondly, it was recommended that further research into the teaching of culture in English as a foreign language context should be conducted.