Incorporating Teaching Culture into EFL Undergraduate Classroom to Raise Kurdish Students' Cultural Awareness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14500/kujhss.v8n1y2025.pp438-449Keywords:
Teaching Culture, EFL Undergraduate Classes, Cultural Awareness, Assessment, Pilot StudyAbstract
ABSTRACT
Language is part of culture and the two are closely intertwined. Effective and appropriate learning and use of a foreign language requires good understanding and knowledge about the culture of that language Teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) does not only require developing the learners' linguistic competence but also developing their communicative and intercultural competence in order to be able to use the language in real meaningful communicative contexts and to achieve mutual intelligibility. This study aims at assessing the EFL teachers' and students' level of cultural awareness and their attitudes towards incorporating teaching culture into the EFL classroom. Data collection was done through two semi-structured questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students, including both quantitative and qualitative questions. The main findings of the study indicate that (100%) of the teachers and the majority (60.6%) of the students have a positive attitude towards incorporating teaching culture into the EFL classes. With regard to cultural awareness, only about (29%) of the teachers and (11%) of the students said they had substantial knowledge about the English culture and despite the fact that the English textbooks contain implicit cultural references, only (20%) of the teachers said they paid regular attention to explaining the cultural elements. Therefore, this study encourages and supports incorporating English culture teaching into the EFL classrooms in general and the undergraduate EFL classroom in particular and suggests strategies regarding how to do that.
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