A Study on Culture Teaching and Learning through the Analyses of ELT Materials and Survey

This paper compiles definitions on culture and types of culture along with discussion on limitations in existing theories and research on culture teaching in ELT. Then, based on the analysis of 11 college English textbooks, the cultural contents are examined and classified into four types of culture. A survey was also done with 179 college English learners to investigate their experiences and opinions of learning culture in class. The results showed that though some diverse cultures were included in the textbooks analyzed, culture learning was still based on discrete facts or information regarding macro and micro culture and were not well linked to language activities in interesting and purposeful manners. More seriously, a perennial bias toward the non-Western cultures was apparent in the English textbooks examined and culture teaching which the students experienced. In fact, there has been little efforts to present diverse and hidden cultures in a critical way in ELT. Accordingly, this paper calls for a critical approach using a problematizing practice in culture teaching and presents some suggestions and implications in developing a more context-specific culture teaching in Korea.