FACTORS AFFECTING INTEGRATION OF LOCAL CULTURE IN SAUDI ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS

Authors

  • Intakhab Alam Khan Dr., King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-Saudi, Arabia
  • Nadia Azeddou Master’s student, Faculty of Letters, Ibn Zohr University, Morocco
  • Qudsia Iqbal Hashmi Dr., CCS University, Meerut, India
  • Fariha Asif King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-Saudi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.692

Keywords:

learning environment, foreign language learning, local culture, factors affecting integration, L2 teachers

Abstract

Language and culture are perhaps inseparable; however, foreign language and local culture may not be compatible with each other. Therefore, integration of local culture (Arab) in foreign (English) language teaching is cynically questioned. Studies support the notion that foreign language teaching can be boosted by the incorporation of foreign (British) culture in the target language (English) classroom. But, the application of local culture in the target language classroom poses great challenges as many factors affect the process such as: teachers’ native background, L2 teachers’ experience in native countries, L2 teachers’ preferences, teachers’ lack of local culture’s perception, lack of bilingual or multicultural awareness, administrators’ attitude towards local culture integration, students’ liking for native teacher and native contents, and traditional method of teaching English. Integration of local culture is required if the current books don’t have enough local material, and books are written by foreign authors. In short, the paper explores factors affecting integration of local culture apart from initially eliciting some advantages of Arab culture in English classrooms, and teachers’ preparedness to incorporate local culture. The study is of descriptive type which includes 2 samples: 3 types of teacher-group, and a group of students. The findings of the study lead to innovation of a teaching strategy by incorporating local culture in L2 class for motivating the students further.

 

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Author Biographies

  • Intakhab Alam Khan, Dr., King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-Saudi, Arabia

    Dr Intakhab Alam Khan, an internationally acclaimed educationist and trainer, is associated with King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-Saudi Arabia. He has almost 24 years of experience in teaching/training/research at various universities. An author of a dozen of academic and research books, and around 65 papers in different international online and print journals, Dr Khan has taught medical/health/business English in Saudi Arabia. His presentations at international conferences have already been published in ISI indexed proceedings. He is honorary chief editor/associate editor/asst. editor of many online educational journals published worldwide.

  • Nadia Azeddou, Master’s student, Faculty of Letters, Ibn Zohr University, Morocco

    Nadia Azeddou is a master’s student at Faculty of Letters, Ibn Zohr University, Morocco. She is currently conducting a research in the area of availability of local culture in the textbooks of English in Morocco. She has developed an interest in the area of sociolinguistics.                                                            

  • Qudsia Iqbal Hashmi, Dr., CCS University, Meerut, India

    Dr. Qudsia Iqbal Hashmi is Ph D in Education in the area of Education/comparative linguistics (English-Urdu/Hindi). She has some papers to her credit in the area of English language teaching in India and Saudi Arabia.

  • Fariha Asif, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-Saudi

    Fariha Asif is a teacher trainer, certified mentor, researcher, presenter and an English Language lecturer at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. She is pursuing her doctoral work at the University of Terengganu, Malaysia. Fariha has presented many papers in different international conferences. She has been honored with many awards including one-year Leadership Mentoring Program by TESOL Arabia 2017. She is conference ambassador for TACON 2017. She also has the honor to meet Mr. Noam Chomsky, father of modern linguistics in the Congress of Linguists held at Geneva, Switzerland.

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Published

2017-04-22

Issue

Vol 3, No 4 (2017)

Section

Articles

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