User:Azam 2

Azam Namjoo MA Candidate of English language Teaching from Islamic Azad university of Tonekabone. Iran

E.mail. namjoo 1361@yahoo.com Lack of authentic & culture – based Materials as an obstacle on the way of Iranian high school students improvement in reading comprehension.

Abstract. 

The present study is an attempt to investigate the way culture and authenticity are treated in ELT in Iran in general and the place of English culture in ELT in the high school levels. Based on the study, The role of culture was ignored in high school English books, so the students coming out of high school are not fluent enough in reading comprehension questions. To conduct the study, out of one hundred twenty participants, sixty intermediate language learners were selected based on their score on a reading comprehension test and were randomly assigned to two groups. Each group was supposed to receive a certain condition as follows: TC (target culture), SC(source culture) at the end of the experiment, to see whether or not any changes occurred regarding their reading proficiency, a post- test was administered to the two groups. The result suggested that the participants performed differently on the post test indicating that familiarity with culturally- oriented language materials improve the Iranian high school learned reading proficiency. Key word Language culture relationship, Textbooks and culture, ELT in Iran, source culture, target culture.

Introduction.

Nearly every language in the world is a product or combination of cultures, also a language is informed by it’s culture. A culture is informed by its language. The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted. Language is used to maintain and convey culture and culture ties. That’s a fact when an infant is born, it is not unlike any other infant born, in fact, quite similar. It is not until the child is exposed to their surroundings that they become individuals in and of their cultural group. From this, one can see that learning a new language involves the learning of a new culture throughout and original materials. Consequently teachers of language are also teachers of culture (Byram, 1989). Foreign language reading compression is a complex process and important in development of foreign language competence. Careful observation of school English teaching has found that the teaching of reading skills is still the problematic part in language teaching process. Despite students having mastered the basic elements of English grammar and vocabulary their reading comprehension is still weak. Research in reading supports the notion that activating prior knowledge of the world and applying this knowledge to new input greatly facilities processing and understanding (Graves cook, 1980). Language carries knowledge and cultural information and reflects the substantial and particular ways of thinking of that people. Thus culture is embedded in even simplest act of language (Hao, 2000; Kramsch, 1993). In this regard, Kramsch (1993) maintains that every time we speak we perform a cultural act consequently there is now, an emphasis in modern language teaching on cultural knowledge as a basis for language learning according to Aliakbari (2004), in particular, two extreme evaluations of ELT appears in the agenda. One the one hand, English culture as a school subject is seen as representing and introducing western culture to the Iranian students. On the other hand, there are voices postulating that English culture as it is presently taught in Iran is nothing but a representation of the Persian or Islamic ideology. This unresolved controversy promoted many recent investigations onto cultural content of ELT in Iran.

Review of literature.Text books and other materials used in language learning generally present a certain way of looking at the world. They fulfill a crucial role in the process of education and English language teaching the quality of the culture content of the text books and the debate over the culture to be reflected in them are so important ground for study (Mohammad Aliakbari, phD).

Teachers must instruct their students on the culture background of language Usage, if one teaches language without teaching about the culture in which it operates. The students are learning empty or meaningless symbols or they may attach the incorrect meaning to what is being taught (Aubrey Neil, 2001). A large number of EFL text books focus on target culture. An effective example of this approach to social culture realism in elementary level text books is “success communicating in English” (Walker, 1994). Culture is considered to be the fifth language skill (Barry Tomalin, 2008). Role of culture in language learning and teaching was investigated by Genc and Bada (2005). This study was conducted with the participation of the students of the ELT department of Cukurova University in Turkey. As a result of the study, a significant similarity between the student’s view and theoretical benefits of a culture class as argued by some experts in the field was observed, regarding the benefits of learning about culture, attending the cultural class has raised cultural awarness in ELT students concerning both native and target societies. This study illustrate how arguments of language teaching experts in favor of culture class in language learning and teaching are justified by some sound evidence provided by the participants of this study. In another study, the effects of cultural instruction on foreign language learning were investigated by Tsou(2005). For this purpose, the combination of an anthropology process and task-oriented approach was applied to conduct the cultural lesson. Culture instruction was implemented within two elementary EFL classrooms for one semester to see the effects of culture instruction on foreign language learning. When culture lesson were integrated into EFL instruction, student’s language proficiency was significantly improved in addition, they had better interests in language learning.

. Statement of the problem . Iranian students in high school levels four language skills act poorly in language skills besides, they are not that much interested in learning English therefore the major purpose of this study is to find out, on the hand, whether the available English materials provide sufficient content for student’s cultural understanding or, on the other, whether the high school student’s weakness in English language reading comprehension occurs because of lack of authenticity and culture. What's more, high school students do not have any idea of the native culture of language they are learning since their books do not contain authentic materials, draws and prints. More specifically, this study is motivated to investigate the relationship between cultural background knowledge and reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners.

Research Hypotheses .

The purpose of the present study is to reveal the effect of cultural familiarity on the Iranian EFL student’s reading comprehension. The result will, therefore, Shed lights on the following hypotheses: HO1 : Materials with the target language (English and American) culture orientation do not have any significant influence on the reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. HO2: Materials with Persian culture orientation do not have any significant influence on the reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners.

ELT in Iran.

English language teaching in Iran has passed through a so many ups are downs prior to Islamic Revolution in 1979 because of the relations between the Iranian government and the west, specially the u.s and England. English language teaching attracted a great deal of attention in the way that some national universities were called American universities. At present time the trend moved Toward teaching English language according to the heart of Iranian society. English language is taught in Iranian schools through Iranian culture. But the question is that, can the teachers teach a language without considering it’s culture? Our school students are not faced with authentic materials. English language is mostly seen as a school subject rather than tool for communication in fact, language is not applied in it’s real meaning, communication. Because language is so closely entwines with culture. Language teachers entering a different culture must respect that culture values. I have found in my study that most of the students are interested in understanding culture of the language they are learning in this way, they can find similarities or contrasts between their own culture and the culture of the new language. Sometimes it can be observed that EFL learners can not benefit from their schematic because the foreign values and cultures are in contrast with their owns for instance, a dog is known as the bet friend for men in American while Muslims Try to be far from that dirty animal. Let me put it in that way, when making policies regarding language teaching, one must consider the culture ideologies of all and every student the teacher, as well as the culture in which the target language is being taught. For instance, I gave found, during my teaching in different English institutes, that it is necessary to contrast different language usage. The students wanted to know the English equivalents for the word “khastenabashid” , in English while they are not fully aware that the native students never say that word to their teachers. Thus, there is a need to explain the native culture and values to our students and increase their culture warless.

 Methodology. 
Participants. 

As previously noted, this study was undertaken to investigate the state of culture and authenticity in the Iranian high school of ELT textbooks. For this present study, out of one-hundred twenty students learning English at two different places; one in high school and the other in language institute of Ghaemshahr city in north of Iran, sixty participants (Female) with the age of 15-21 were selected based on a proficiency test.

Instruments

The following instruments were applied in the study: 1) first, a reading comprehension test containing 25 multiple-choice items were extracted from test of English as a foreign language. The reliability of the test was 0.732 based on KR-21 method. 2) second, there were materials selected from originally made book such as (true color) and Iranian published English book and also from reliable sites in internet to account for the influence of culture on reading comprehension.

Procedures. 

First, the proficiency test was given to one hundred two EFI learners including females of two different educational setting (high school and English institute) in Ghaemshahr. Calculating the scores, 60 participants, who scored between 36 and 64 out of 100 in the proficiency test were selected as intermediate language learners; later, based on systematic random sampling, they were divided into two group: Group A (Target culture= TC) group B (source culture = SC) Over the course of 10 weeks (40 hours), classes were conducted two times a week by an experienced teacher (11 years experience in English teaching). The participants in each group practiced reading comprehension materials that reflect a particular culture. Finally, the two groups took a reading comprehension test which included sample authentic reading comprehension materials as noted earlier in this paper. The scores obtained by the two groups were compared with one another to see whether or not there were possible differences between the groups in their reading comprehension test.

Results; The percentage of correct responses on the post- test questions, revealed that the high school books do not focus on the native cultures of values and they are ignored in high school books. The analysis of variance of participant’s post- test score in two groups illustrates the mean scores gained by each group in the pre-test and post-test respectively. As is observed, the participants who received target culturally- oriented materials score higher that the other group. Additionally post-hoc dependent T-Test indicated that, in regard to the effect of cultural background knowledge, the performance of two groups differed significantly (P<0.001).

The result of group A (TC): Regarding group A performance, there was a significant Difference between the participants mean scores in the pretest and post-test to make sure that the difference in the mean was statistically significant, the statistical T-Test was administered for group A, the T-observed was calculated as 4.03 for a degree of freedom of 56 which was higher than the t-critical of 1.661. the results, therefore, proved that group A of the participants performed differently in the two tests. In other words, the difference between the mean scores of group A (TC) is statistically significant (P<0.01, T-Value=4.03) this shows that the participants in TC group performed better in the test and this better performance seems to be the result of their familiarity with the target culture- oriented materials which was fulfilled during the instruction period of the study. So the participants in group A improve their reading comprehension. According to the above mentioned information, as the critical value of group A was 1.661 indicating a significant difference between the T-observed and T-critical, there fore HO1 emphasizing that texts with English and American culture orientation do not have any significant influence on the reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners was rejected.

The result of group B (SC) There was not any significant difference between the mean scores of group B in the pre-Test and the post – test. The T-observed was calculated as 0.55 which was less than the T-critical (1.661). the results, there fore, proved that group B participants performed nearly the same in the two tests (P<0.01,T-Value=55). This shows that the participants in SC group failed to improve their reading comprehension during the semester through having exposure to source culture texts. So HO2 suggesting that source- culture texts do not have any significant influence on reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners was not rejected in other words, the t-value revealed that the two groups performed differently on the post-text which indicated that greater cultural familiarity with language reading materials improves the Iranian EFL learners reading comprehension.

DISCUTION.

The result cited above suggest that when we discuss the teaching of cultural awareness in language teaching, we have to consider the materials, draw’s and pictures. The challenge is how to initiate teaching culture and authenticity to our high school students. It seems likely that the result of the study can be applied in ministry of education for providing the students with useful materials. According to Sasaki, Yoshinori and Gakuin (1991) two general views exist in relation to culture and material designing in ELT. Advocates of the first view believe in teaching English without culture or culturally sterile teaching. Assigning no role to culture in teaching English as a second or foreign language. they rejected inclusion of culture in the school curriculum. In Iran, this idea has resulted in the expulsion of culture from the state- school curriculum on the basis that : 1. Persian culture is a mixture of national and Islamic culture national culture is based on old and traditional costumes. 2. The western culture will be a threat to our local culture. 3. Teaching western culture may result in cultural conflict. On the other hand, supporters of the second view believe in the inclusion of culture in the curriculum, because they believe language and culture are not separable and all language is interpreted in relation to the culture and, therefore, teaching language irrespective of culture is impossible. This notion was to some extent confirmed in the present study that is, the results were indicative of the fact that cultural familiarization of the text has a significant effect on reading comprehension. 11. Limitation of the study 1. time limitation: the study was conducted in period of 10 weeks and this short- term period is not sufficient enough for teaching reading comprehension. 2. age and gender were not considered as the intervening variables in the study. 3. Place limitation: this is related to the fact that the participants of the present study were coming from one particular area of the country. Therefore, it seems reasonable to deduce that a big nationwide research project is needed to confirm the result of the study.

. Conclusion ; As previously mentioned, culture and language are linked and as such cannot be separated. Numerous authors (Byram, 1997, Harum,2002, Kramsch,1993) have highlighted the impossibility of teaching English with out teaching culture. The content of what we teach will always be in some ways linked to culture, as Tseng (2002) points out “every lesson is about something and that something is culture” (P.20)

REFERENCE;

1. Sapir, Edward. Hypothesis in language and culture 2. Lando, Robert. Language teaching, A scientific approach. Georgetown university. 3. Nostrand, Howard lee. Deseribing and teaching the sociocultural content of a foreign language. 4. Kim J. (2004) coping with cultural obstacles to speaking English in the K. 5. Englebert (2004) character or culture? An EL Journal. 6. Hui Du (2005). Implications for china of teaching English. 7. Schank, R. Abelson, R. (1977). Scripts, Plans, goals, and understanding Reading Research Quarterly. 8. Tseng, Y. (2002). A lesson in culture. ELT Journal, 56(1), 11-21. 9. Tsou, w.(2005). The effects of cultural instruction on foreign language learning. 10. Kramsch, c.(1993). Teaching Culture in literature in the ELS/EFI classroom. 11. Graves, M. & Cook.C.(1980). The effects of previewing difficult short stories for high school students. 12. Sasaki, K. Yoshinori, J. and Gkuin, A.(1991). The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension.