Multicultural content in English language teaching textbooks

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore two sets of widely used English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks in Iran – an American ESL series known as Top Notch and an indigenous Iranian series of high school EFL textbooks known as Vision – in terms of their representation of multicultural elements at the surface and deep cultural levels, and their potential to promote language learners’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Interpretive content analysis is used to identify the cultural patterns in the ELT textbooks. The findings reveal that the Vision series only limitedly presents cultural elements associated with both the local and international community, and covers fewer categories and subcategories of cultural elements, whether at the surface level or at the deep level of culture. In addition, its deep culture representation is confined to the local (i.e., Iranian or Islamic) cultures. In contrast, the Top Notch series presents many cultural elements associated with the international community and embraces more categories and subcategories at the surface level. It also includes more multicultural elements at the deep level. Consequently, the Vision series limits the development of language learners’ ICC, while the Top Notch series is a better resource for multicultural education and intercultural communication. One common ground between the two series, however, is that they both present culture mostly at the surface level; thus, both series could benefit from the incorporation of more cultural elements at the deep level. This study deals with the cultural features that are presented in these two series.