Cultural Representations in Algerian English Textbooks

Author(s):  
Hayat Messekher

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Zhang ◽  
Xiaoli Su

AbstractCulture learning is complicated in teaching English as an international language (EIL), given the global contexts in which English is being used for various purposes. This study aims to examine cultural representations in four series of high school English language textbooks distributed in China and Germany. It categorized cultures into four cultural types and four cultural elements within each type of culture in order to question the breadth and depth of cultural representations. The findings indicate that China’s English textbooks seem to balance among different cultures, but they still present factual knowledge and static information. The underlying value orientations are therefore underestimated. Germany’s English textbooks encompass the majority of contents about the target culture and put the emphasis on students' multicultural perspectives, communicative competence and intercultural skills. Thus, target cultures dominate cultural contents and source cultures are rare in Germany’s textbooks. Lastly, the findings are discussed and some recommendations for textbook writers and English teachers are suggested.



2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Jia Li ◽  
Juan Dong ◽  
Wei Duan

Language textbooks play an important role in bridging learners’ understanding between the source culture and target culture. This study explores how the Cambodian and foreign characters are produced and how the source and target cultures are represented in three English language textbooks published by the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS). The data were collected from textbook passages, exercises and images presented in the textbooks and the data were analyzed based on the emerging themes in language and cultural representations of the textbooks. The findings indicate that regarding the distribution in the target communities, Anglophone and their postcolonial countries are prominently highlighted in the textbooks with the exception that Japan is exclusively introduced as imagined interlocutor for cultural communication; concerning the representation of the source culture, Buddhism and Khmer are constructed as legitimate forms of Cambodian practices. Based on the findings, we argue that English textbooks produced in Cambodia have not provided Cambodian youth with balanced exposure of cultural diversity. The study has implications for designing English textbooks with the consideration of diverse identity options and cultural representations.



2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  

The issue that underlies a worrying question of maternal and child health in Côte d'Ivoire is that of social logic. Social logic is perceived as "cultural constructions of actors with regard to morbidity that cause to adopt reproductive health care". Based on this understanding, the concept of social logic in reproductive health is similar to a paradigm that highlights the various factors that structure and organise sociological resistance to mothers' openness to healthy reproductive behaviours; that is, openness to change for sustainable reproductive health. Far from becoming and remaining a prisoner of blind culturalism with the social logic that generates the health of mothers, new-borns and children, practically-relevant questions are raised. Issues of "bad governance", socio-cultural representations and behaviours in conflict with modern epidemiological standards are addressed in a culturally-sensitive manner, an important issue for the provision of care focused on the needs of mothers seeking answers to health problems. Developing these original community characteristics helps to orient a reading list in a socioanthropological perspective with a view to explaining and understanding different problems encountered, experiences acquired by social actors during the implementation of antenatal, postnatal and family planning care. This context of building logic with regard to reproductive health care is key to identifying real bottlenecks in maternity services and achieving efficient management of maternal, new-born and child health care for the benefit of populations and actors in the public health sector.









Author(s):  
Rinaldi Masda Syahputra And Johan Sinulingga

This research analyzed the readability of reading texts taken from English textbooks for grade VIII students of SMP Negeri 1 Kabanjahe of 2016/2017 entitled English in Focus published by Pusat Perbukuan Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. Being important a textbook as the most used in sources of a class, textbook should be readable and appropriate for the students especially for the reading texts inside it. The goal of this research was to find out how is the readability of those reading texts in the textbook.To describe and investigate the readability, this research used a readability formula measurement called SMOG Grading Formula which is found by G. Harry Mc. Laughlin. The source of the data were 20 reading texts taken randomly from English in Focus textbook.The major findings of the study showed that the readability of 20 reading texts were in the variety level for students within 5th elementary school to the 10th grade high school students level, and it found that 13 of 20 reading texts or about 65% of the data are appropriate for the 8th grade students who are the user of the book. Meanwhile, this research also found reading texts which are not appropriate for the students. There are 3 reading texts are too easy and 4 are too difficult for them. So, 35% reading texts in the data is not appropriate for 8th grade students.



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