The representation of the anglophone cultures in the Algerian EFL textbooks: teacher’s beliefs and classroom practices

This qualitative study investigates the representation of the Anglophone cultures in Algerian secondary school (2006), and middle school (2016) English language textbooks. It also explores teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. In order to figure out how culture is represented in these teaching materials, and comprehend teachers’ views concerning culture teaching, this study made use of the qualitative research methodology. Data in this study were collected using three data sources, they are: the current Algerian EFL textbooks (four middle school textbooks and three secondary school textbooks), semi-structured interviews with fifteen EFL teachers, and observations in eleven classrooms of different levels. The data were analysed using the qualitative content analysis method which was the best choice to deal with that varied and large and amount of data.

The main findings of this research show that textbooks depict an imbalance in the representation of culture. Middle school textbooks are dominated by the local culture; it is presented mainly as Big C cultural products giving a limited scope to look at Algerian culture. Whereas secondary school textbooks give more prominence to the British and American cultures which are presented in an outdated and stereotyped way. Other foreign cultures are not fairly introduced. And other cultural categories: practices, persons, perspectives are rarely found. Moreover, it was concluded that Algerian EFL teachers hold positive attitudes towards including culture in their teaching practices, but they are controlled by the textbooks and the curriculum which give more prominence to linguistic competence, Therefore, even if there is a potential to develop ICC in their classroom practices, they are obliged to focus more on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

At the end, it is suggested that policy makers give more importance to the cultural content lied in the textbooks and the progress of students’ Intercultural Competence. Without ignoring teachers’ voice which needs to be heard for a successful English language teaching based on co-ordination.