Investigating the Integration of Culture Teaching in the Foreign Language Classroom: A Case Study

Many scholars argue that language and culture are closely related to each other and hence the teaching of a foreign language cannot take place without the teaching of its corresponding culture which helps promoting language learning and enhancing learners’ motivation and performance (Corbett, J. (۲۰۰۳); (۱۹۹۶); Hinkel, E. (۱۹۹۹); Kramsch, C. (۲۰۰۶)). This being the case, the present study aims at putting emphasis on the importance and significance of integrating culture teaching in foreign language classroom in the Algerian school. It seeks to investigate whether foreign language teachers grant significant value and interest to the foreign language culture. Therefore, a descriptive analysis of the English and French textbooks of the secondary education was carried out to identify and examine the way the cultural dimensions are being dealt with. In addition, a survey was conducted by addressing a questionnaire to a number of secondary school teachers of English and French to investigate to what extent they consider culture teaching in their classroom. The research results revealed that despite the fact that there is a move towards fostering culture teaching, the textbooks still offer few tasks that deal with cultural aspects and teachers are still unfamiliar with the techniques to promote it in the classroom, thus they neglect culture teaching and prefer to focus on other aspects in the class like accuracy, fluency and language skills development. In light of these findings, a number of considerable implications and recommendation are presented to foreign language teachers and language policy decision-makers to stress the importance of integrating culture teaching and adequately implement it in the classroom.

Keywords:

Foreign Language , Culture , Teaching , Integrating , Classroom