Abstract:
The present study aimed at evaluating the cultural content of the Algerian first year middle
school textbook of English “My Book of English”. More specifically, it investigates the
adequacy of the cultural components included in the textbook and the extent to which these
components help the learners in developing their intercultural communicative competence. To
achieve the aims of the research, the data were collected by means of a content analysis. The
latter is carried out through using a checklist that heavily relies on Merrouche’
framework(2006). The findings showed that despite of the fact that the textbook includes
different cultural aspects, the representation remains incomplete and imbalanced. The analysis
revealed that there is a preference for big ‘C’ culture at the expense of small ‘c’ culture, that
the textbook focuses on the source culture while it covers to some extent the target culture and
underestimates the presence of the international culture and that the cultural components do
not help the learners to engage in deep reflection as they merely belong to the knowledgeoriented
level. Hence, the textbook fails to promote the learners’ intercultural communicative
competence. Based on the results obtained, some pedagogical recommendations are
suggested.
