A Comparative Intercultural Analysis of Two English School Textbooks from Iran and Egypt

The present study aimed to analyze two secondary English school textbooks from Iran and Egypt to see to what extent these two middle-eastern countries with similar religious, historical, and social backgrounds include culture in their official textbooks.  For this purpose, Vision I, the Iranian secondary school textbook, and Hello I, the Egyptian English school textbook, were chosen. Four aspects of culture (topics, cultural dimensions, international/intercultural issues, and cultural references) were investigated in these two textbooks. The results show that Vision I has a more limited number of cultural content compared to Hello I. However, a lack of in-depth cultural information could be observed in both textbooks. Thus, it is necessary to take special measures concerning Vision I by including a greater array of cultural content and giving this content depth and detail. For Hello I, the cultural content needs to exceed in quality. The present study's findings might be insightful for syllabus designers, textbook publishers, and teachers to reconsider the essential role of culture qualitatively and quantitatively.

Keywords:

Intercultural Analysis , Textbook analysis , Vision I , Hello I , EFL Curriculum