A Shift toward an Intercultural Stance in EFL Material

While learning the language skills and components of a given language, students are needed to learn the intercultural communicative competence and this can be achieved through textbooks. To this aim, the present study is an attempt to analyze different EFL textbooks taught in Iran based upon the models conceptualized by both Paige et al. (1999) and Lee (2007) to investigate (a) how culture is used and presented in these textbooks; and (b) the way they develop an intercultural competence in Iranian learners. The findings of the research revealed that the majority of the themes used in Big C and small c which focused on surface level of culture leaning. Most of the textbooks neglect the teaching of the culture-general aspect of culture learning which are appropriate for communication with people of other cultures. These findings show a need for the presence of more cultural issues in the textbooks and it highlights that more attention should be paid to develop the students’ intercultural competence through the presence activities directed to other cultures and communities.