The inclusion of cultural information in civilization course : motivating students or frustrating them

Abstract EN

The use of cultural content, in EFL classes, has recently driven a rising interest among language instructors.

A lot see that these classes are mere attempts to develop linguistic competencies while many others, university lecturers particularly, see that cultural knowledge should be the main concern rather than language skills.

They do believe that the mastery of language is secondary compared to critical thinking and textual analyzing making EFL classes more than a language hub for developing reading, writing and speaking.

This eventually calls the content of culture based lessons, tasks and more particularly, teaching techniques to inquiries.

The course of civilization has lately incited talks about teaching methods that go in accordance with the nature of the course.

Some lecturers think that teacher centred methods are ideal for teaching culture unlike others who focus on variety and learning autonomy to help students explore both the language and its culture.

Many others have endlessly, and often enthusiastically, opened fierce debates about what sort of objectives this course should target: developing the learners’ linguistics ability, enriching their cultural knowledge or both.

In this vein, the teaching of the course is a bit far away from what it should be.

This attempt is made to introduce change, if not refine the way the course is taught, revise its content and suggest relevant tasks that engage students in class.

The current paper tries to advocate the fact that cultural studies courses should be professionally and sensitively carried out to serve linguistic and cultural objectives alike.

It emphasizes the importance of cultural content in teaching English as an international language, and its pivotal role in diversifying teaching materials and motivating learners if handled appropriately.

Using a survey, this work tries to shed the light on what might make civilization course very appealing as it stresses what might go wrong with teaching culture.

Added to this, exploring some scholars’ views about teaching culture might help handle challenges in this kind of classes and speculate what might wholly turn British civilization class around.