Intercultural Competence in Crisis: An Analysis of the Cultural Content in Palestinian EFL Textbooks
Intercultural Competence in Crisis: An Analysis of the Cultural Content in Palestinian EFL Textbooks

Summary/Abstract: There is hardly anyone in the EFL field who would not agree on the necessity of culture as a core component of any EFL textbook. One of the main benefits of including foreign cultural aspects is the development of intercultural competence, i.e., the ability to successfully interact with people from other cultures. Thus, the aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of teaching the form of culture that would enable students to engage in successful intercultural communication using English as a foreign language. To do so, the paper presents a descriptive analysis of the cultural content of four textbooks that are used to teach the fifth and sixth grades (ages 11 to 12 years) in Palestinian state schools. The findings reveal that all cultural aspects found in the textbooks are elements of surface culture, which include all visible aspects of culture (e.g. food, festivals, monuments, tourist attractions, etc.) with no single reference to any deep cultural aspects which can help students construct attitudes and values towards other international cultures. The study stands out as a call for abandoning the traditional way of presenting shallow cultural information in EFL textbooks by adopting an approach that focuses on promoting deeper intercultural attitudes and values instead.

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