An Assessment of the Challenges of Teaching English Language Culture in Algeria

Abstract

Language teaching has undergone numerous changes due to the various global transformations of recent decades. The debate over what should be included in such teaching has gone unabated. Foreign language educators have long advocated that language and culture should be integrated in the language classrooms. This study sheds light on the difficulties and obstacles that the teachers and the learners face with the foreign cultural items included in the third–year secondary English language Textbook ‘New Prospects’ and the curriculum in general. It is hypothesized in this research that culture is not well-covered in the textbook, that the teachers are not fully conversant with foreign culture, that they lack effective techniques with regard to English language culture teaching, and that the learners are not really motivated to learn foreign culture. In order to verify these hypotheses, an empirical study was conducted in the secondary schools of Laabani Ahmed and Boumendjel Ahmed in Taher. The empirical study made use of a questionnaire that was administered to the teachers of both secondary schools. The findings show that culture is not well-covered in the third year textbook ‘‘New Prospects’’. The answers collected from the questionnaire converge on the fact that the learners are not motivated due to the ineffective techniques that are used by the teachers. The hypotheses have thus been confirmed.