English Teachers’ Attitudes towards Cultural Teaching through Short stories in English Language Institutes in Iran

There has been a growing interest in the place of culture in language teaching. A large number of researchershighlighted the value of using literature in culture teaching. Despite the increasing attention to cultural instruction inlanguage teaching programs through literature, the number of investigations dealing with culture teaching through shortstories in the EFL contexts is still remarkably scarce. This research is to investigate the status of cultural teachingthrough short stories in English language teaching programs in Iran. To do so, it explored the underlying beliefs andjustifications of the teachers regarding the application of stories in cultural instruction. The data were collectedqualitatively. First, it was conducted through a researcher-made open-ended questionnaire administered to 30 Englishteachers of intermediate and advanced levels of Iran, Pardisan and Talash language institutes in Kazeroun. To do datatriangulation,semi-structured interviews with eight English teachers of the same institutes were conducted more openlyand individually. Qualitative content analysis was conducted focusing on the role and content of storybooks in culturaleducation as well as their impacts on cultural learning. All participants highlighted the significant role of short stories intransmitting cultural values, raising learners’ cultural competence as well as developing their intercultural competence.While some preferred to teach intercultural-related knowledge, others focused on target language culture as the initialstage of cultural teaching. Language institutes can benefit from the results and findings of the study. The resultsassociated with the teachers’ general attitudes can contribute to selecting the storybooks of maximum benefits. Thisstudy can be considered as one of the attitudinal works on the impact of culture integration on foreign language teachingand learning.

کلیدواژه ها:

Cultural teaching ، intercultural competence ، culture integration ، short stories