Intercultural Education

ISSN: 1467-5986 (Print) 1469-8439 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20

Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs and perspectives on

incorporating culture in EFL classes

Maedeh Ghavamnia

To cite this article: Maedeh Ghavamnia (2020): Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs and
perspectives on incorporating culture in EFL classes, Intercultural Education, DOI:
10.1080/14675986.2020.1733862

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2020.1733862

Published online: 26 Mar 2020.

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INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2020.1733862

Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs and perspectives on

incorporating culture in EFL classes
Maedeh Ghavamnia
Department of English, Art University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Researcher and teacher beliefs towards culture and teaching Received 19 February 2018
culture have changed over the last decade. Nowadays, the Accepted 30 October 2018
main objective of language teachers has shifted from teaching KEYWORDS
communicative competence to intercultural communicative Culture teaching; EFL teacher
competence. The purpose of this study was to investigate beliefs; foreign language
the beliefs and perspectives of a number of Iranian EFL tea- education; intercultural
chers towards incorporating culture teaching into their class- communicative competence;
rooms. More specifically, the study strived to reveal what language learning
Iranian EFL teachers thought about the concept of culture,
what cultural information they focused on in their classes, and
what obstacles they believed should be removed in order to
allocate more time to culture teaching in their classes. The
non-random purposive sampling method was used to select
the participants for this study. A total number of 10 Iranian EFL
teachers with a PhD degree in Applied Linguistics participated
in this study. Data were collected through a semi-structured
interview and a closed-ended questionnaire based on
a 5-point scale. The main finding of this study indicated that
even though the Iranian EFL teachers favoured including cul-
tural information in their classes, a number of obstacles pre-
vented them from teaching culture in their English classes.
Implications for further study have been provided in the
article.

Introduction
For many years, the main objective of foreign language teaching has been for
foreign language learners to become communicatively competent. However,
researcher and teacher beliefs towards culture and teaching culture have chan-
ged over the last decade (Piatkowska 2016). In other words, non-native speakers
not only require to attain linguistic competence but they also need to acquire
cultural competence. Hence, the focus of foreign language education has
shifted from communicative competence to intercultural communicative com-
petence (ICC) (Corbett 2003; Liddicoat and Scarino 2013; Nguyen, Harvey, and
Grant 2016). The language under consideration is English, an international
language, used among people from all around the world to communicate

CONTACT Maedeh Ghavamnia ghavamniam@yahoo.com; m.ghavamnia@aui.ac.ir

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 M. GHAVAMNIA

with one another. The new role of English which is focusing on ICC has caused
major changes in education, including foreign language education (Czura 2016).
As such, teachers are now required to teach ICC (Sercu 2006) because the
demands of foreign/second learners of English are no longer strictly linguistic.
Rather, they require to be competent in terms of intercultural communicative
competence. According to ICC theorists, language teaching should aim to
educate language learners to become competent in communicating with
both native and non-native speakers of English (Byram 2009). As Risager
(2005) claims, cultural competence encompasses the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes associated with the target language countries, whereas intercultural
competence takes into consideration the knowledge, skills, and attitudes
needed to take part in cross-cultural communication. According to Gu (2016)
the best known and the most cited model in foreign language education that
integrates culture, communication, and language was proposed by Byram
(1997). Byram (1997) identifies five factors that affect intercultural communica-
tion, namely, Savoirs (knowledge), Savoir-comprendre (skills of interpreting and
relating), Savoir-faire (skills of discovery and interaction), Savoir-etre (attitudes
of openness and curiosity) and Savoir s’engager (critical cultural awareness)
(1997, 34). He claims that these factors along with linguistic, socio-cultural,
and discourse competence make up ICC.
Scholars believe that culture and language are inseparable (Nguyen, Harvey,
and Grant 2016) and are intrinsically bound (Stapleton 2000). Because of this,
language learners are required to become intercultural speakers, that is, they
must gain ‘a complex number of abilities needed to perform effectively and
appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally
different from oneself’ (Fantini 2006, 12). Hence, language teachers have to take
on a new role in their classrooms. In other words, they not only have to assist their
learners in acquiring linguistics knowledge, but also non-linguistic knowledge in
order for them to communicate in a variety of social contexts and situations
(Czura 2016). Often, misunderstanding and miscommunication among native and
non-native speakers of English arise not because of linguistic flaws but rather
because of non-linguistic gaps that exist among the interlocutors.
In this regard, teachers’ beliefs should be taken into account. According to
Pajares (1992), teachers’ views and perspectives affect their approach to language
teaching. Research has shown that a clear relationship exists between teachers’
beliefs and teaching practices (Carter and Doyle 1995; Knowles and Holt-Reynolds
1991; Nespor 1987; Pajares 1992). According to Sercu and St. John (2007, 51)
‘beliefs have been identified as pivotal to the task of achieving change in teachers
and therefore, logically, need to be targeted, focused on strategically, in order to
facilitate professional development and foster effective classroom practice’. For
a complex area such as ICC, educators’ beliefs and perspectives are necessary and
highly relevant (Young and Sachdev 2011). According to Borg (2003) ‘teachers are
active, thinking decision-makers who make instructional choices by drawing on
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 3

complex practically-oriented, personalized, and context-sensitive networks of

knowledge, thoughts, and beliefs’ (81). Based on previous research conducted
by various scholars, there seems to exist a uniformity of beliefs and practices
regarding ICC and incorporating it into English classes (Czura 2016; Luk 2012;
Nguyen, Harvey, and Grant 2016; Sercu 2006; Stapleton 2000; Young and Sachdev
2011). However, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions and
practices in relation to integrating culture with English learning have been
investigated mainly in Europe and the USA, whereas these issues seem to have
been less explored in Asian countries (Luk 2012). Thus, research is now moving
beyond the western context in order to identify the attitudes and beliefs of
language teachers around the world.
Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs
and perspectives in regards to culture and ICC in EFL classrooms in order to add
new insights from an Iranian context to existing findings present in the litera-
ture. Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes are important because they affect their
approach in teaching, professional development, and students’ learning out-
comes (Wong 2013). The participants of this study were ten assistant professors
in Applied Linguistics working at a state or private university in the province of
Isfahan, Iran. Data for this study were collected through a semi-structured
interview and a closed-ended questionnaire. Although this study was carried
out on a small scale and was not representative of all non-native English
language teachers in Iran, it still revealed a great deal of information regarding
Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes and beliefs relevant to ICC and teaching culture. It
was quite necessary to conduct such a study in the Iranian context because
based on the researcher’s experience many people living in Iran either want to
move to an English speaking country to continue their education or they plan to
immigrate to countries like America or Canada to work. Hence, learning English
as a foreign language has become a number one priority for many Iranians. In
order to be successful in the foreign country, they must gain both linguistic
knowledge and ICC.

English teachers’ beliefs about ICC

In the past, culture was not the focus of language teaching and language
teachers mainly focused on teaching the grammatical points and new vocabu-
lary (Sercu 2006) which were integrated in listening, reading, speaking, and
writing tasks. In order for language teachers to implement culture into their
language classrooms, investigations have been conducted by researchers
around the world to identify the teachers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding
what the teachers’ think about culture and how they might incorporate culture
into their language classrooms. This is because of the fact that a clear relation-
ship exists between teacher beliefs and teaching practice (Carter and Doyle
1995; Knowles and Holt-Reynolds 1991; Nespor 1987). Based on previous
4 M. GHAVAMNIA

research, for many language teachers, culture still plays a minor role in their
teaching (Nguyen, Harvey, and Grant 2016) because perhaps they might still not
see the necessity for incorporating culture into their syllabus. In what follows
the results of a number of studies which have examined teachers’ beliefs and
attitudes towards incorporating ICC into English classrooms has been presented
chronologically.
In a study conducted by Stapleton (2000), twenty-eight native English speak-
ing teachers (seventeen Americans, five British, four Canadians, one Indian, and
one New Zealander) in Japan were asked to respond to a questionnaire about
the amount of culture they taught in class. Twenty-four of the teachers taught at
universities and the other four taught at junior colleges. The results revealed
that even though they felt culture had an important role in their classes the
Japanese teachers included cultural points randomly in their classes. This might
suggest that culture plays a secondary, supportive role to language. When
cultural elements were instructed, the teachers approached them overtly rather
than covertly.
Similarly, foreign language teachers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico,
Poland, Spain, and Sweden perceived teaching culture in terms of teacher-
centred transmission of cultural-knowledge (Sercu 2006). The criteria used to
select the respondents were: language taught and sector of education (second-
ary). Sercu’s (2006) study revealed that even though a large number of teachers
are amenable towards integrating ICC into their curriculum, in reality they believe
the objective of language teaching and learning is communicative competence.
Hence, the results of the study revealed that ‘teachers’ current foreign language
and culture teaching profiles do not yet meet those of the envisaged foreign
language and intercultural competence teacher’ (Sercu 2006, 55).
In another study, Bayyurt (2006) investigated Turkish English teachers’ perspec-
tive on culture in EFL classrooms in Turkey. The twelve non-native English speak-
ing teachers worked in public and private schools in Turkey. Seven teachers were
from Anatolian high schools and five teachers were from private schools. The
participants varied in respect to the involvement of culture in the EFL classroom
from not providing any information about the target language culture to provid-
ing information about the culture of all English-speaking cultures. The proficiency
level of their students ranged from beginners to upper-intermediate. According to
Bayyurt’s (2006) study, one reason Turkish EFL teachers mentioned for not imple-
menting culture in their classes was the lack of motivation of the learners. This
study also showed that ‘the context of teaching and the background of individual
teachers influenced their attitude towards the incorporation of culture into their
language teaching’ (Bayyurt 2006, 243).
Young and Sachdev (2011) investigated the beliefs and practices of experi-
enced teachers from America, England, and France in relation to teaching ICC in
their English classes. All of the participants in the three countries worked in
private language schools with fee-paying adult students. Teacher participants at
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 5

the schools in the UK and the USA taught multinational, multilingual classes of
sojourners from various nationalities. The French teachers taught EFL predomi-
nantly to other French nationals. The results of their study revealed that even
though teaching ICC may be successful and appropriate, they were not willing
to incorporate it into their programmes. This was related to a lack of learner
interest, lack of curricular support, inappropriate material, and not having
a standard test to assess learners’ ICC (Young and Sachdev 2011).
Luk (2012) collected views through interviews about culture and language
teaching from twelve secondary schools English teachers in Hong Kong, includ-
ing native and non-native English teachers. The findings revealed that the
participants felt uncertain and insecure in integrating culture into their EFL
classes. In other words, they did not know whether the purpose of teaching
culture ‘should be the acquisition of exam-oriented skills, the development of
critical thinking and intercultural awareness, or simply to arouse the students’
interest in learning English’ (Luk 2012, 260). The informants incorporated cul-
tural material into their class incidentally (Luk 2012).
In a more recent study, Czura (2016) investigated the student teachers’
perceptions of ICC in a Second Language (L2) classroom and examined whether
their attitudes are affected by their major. The participants were one hundred
and sixty-two undergraduate student teachers of English from three depart-
ments at the University of Wroclaw who attended the TEFL course. The results
revealed that even though future teachers believed language and culture could
not be separated, in situations where they do not have much teaching time they
‘are willing to resign from cultural teaching’ (Czura 2016, 94). Hence, it was
concluded that pre-service teachers did not believe that intercultural education
could be integrated into language teaching.
Finally, Nguyen, Harvey, and Grant (2016) investigated Vietnamese EFL tea-
chers’ beliefs about the role of culture in language classrooms in a Vietnamese
university. The data obtained from semi-structured interviews were analysed
thematically. The results revealed that most of the teachers did not allocate
much time to culture teaching (less than 30%). They also did not think teaching
cultural points would be important. In regards to the teachers’ role in teaching
culture, the participants in the study stated that they believed it was someone
else’s responsibility to teach culture. In the first place, they believed their most
important role was to address language learning. Moreover, some participants
stated that they were not teachers of culture. They also mentioned the teacher
developmental programmes they had attended did not help them develop their
cultural knowledge. From the analysis of the interview data it was clear that the
participants saw culture as an element separate from language and they did not
give much attention to it in their EFL teaching (Nguyen, Harvey, and Grant 2016).
Despite the findings of the aforementioned studies, many teachers of English
question the sense and the need of teaching culture in language courses. The
relationship between culture and language teaching is even more complex due to
6 M. GHAVAMNIA

the fact that the purpose of learning a foreign language has evolved over the years
from linguistic through communicative to intercultural and intercultural commu-
nicative competence. As such, further research needs to be conducted in different
contexts around the world to be able to identify general beliefs and perspectives
that native and non-native English teachers have in regards to incorporating
culture in English classes and raising the learners’ ICC. Thus, the purpose of this
study was to investigate a number of Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs and perspectives
towards culture and ICC in their EFL classes. In this study, how a number of EFL
teachers define culture, whether they believe it is necessary to include cultural
information in their EFL classrooms, their beliefs and attitudes towards teaching
cultural points and the obstacles they face in this regard have been investigated.

Methodology
Participants

Ten Iranian non-native English speaking teachers took part in this study. All the
teachers had a PhD degree in Applied Linguistics and were assistant professors at
different state or private universities across the province of Isfahan, Iran. The
participants all instructed English for Specific Purpose (ESP) and English for
Academic Purpose (EAP) courses at the universities they taught. The non-
random purposive sampling method was used in choosing the participants of
this study. The approach to sampling was purposeful since the researcher was
after gathering data from the input of the participants who had direct profes-
sional experience teaching English and would be best able to produce data which
would add additional insights in the area under investigation. Furthermore, since
the participants were to be assistant professors in Applied Linguistics teaching in
the province of Isfahan, the researcher came across a limited number of instruc-
tors. Hence, the best option was to adopt a non-random rather than random
sampling technique. As thus, the criterion for selecting the participants of this
study were that the participants have a PhD degree in Applied Linguistics and
also to have been teaching at a university in the province of Isfahan at the time of
the study. The researcher herself contacted the participants in order to ask them
to take part in this study and also to set a time and date with each participant to
take part in the semi-structured interview with the researcher. Fortunately, all the
participants who were contacted accepted to take part in this study. Eight female
and two male teachers took part in this study.

Data collection and data analysis

Data for this study were collected through a semi-structured interview and
a closed-ended questionnaire. The questions on the questionnaire were adopted
from Sercu’s (2006) questionnaire (Section 11). As for the semi-structured
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 7

interview, some of the questions were adopted from Sercu’s (2006) study while
others were posed by the researcher. This form of interview was selected because
it is more flexible in comparison to structured interviews (Berg 2009). The parti-
cipants were interviewed individually by the researcher. The questions on the
interview focused on the beliefs and perspectives of the participants in regards to
how the participants conceptualised culture, whether they thought culture
should be incorporated into EFL classes, how they themselves incorporated
culture into their EFL classes, and the obstacles EFL teachers face in presenting
cultural information in their EFL classes. All the participants were interviewed
once. The place of the interview was agreed upon between the researcher and
the interviewee. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed by the
researcher. Each interview lasted for approximately 60 minutes. The interviews
were conducted in English since both the researcher and the participants were
quite proficient in English.
Permission was kindly granted to the researcher to use and adopt the web-
based questionnaire used in Sercu’s (2006) study. The closed-ended questions on
the final section of the questionnaire (section 11) were used in this study. In this
section the participants ‘were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale to what extent
they agreed (1) or disagreed (5) with a series of statements investigating different
facets of intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education’ (Sercu
2006, 60). The participants in this study were asked to complete 24 questions
based on a 5-point scale after the completion of the semi-structured interview
with the researcher. The participants’ answers were examined and the Mean score
was calculated using the SPSS software. The closed-ended questions on the
5-point scale questionnaire and the open-ended questions from the semi-
structured interview are reproduced in the Appendix (see Appendices A and B).

Findings of the semi-structured interview

The first five questions on the semi-structured interview dealt with general
information related to the participants’ educational background and teaching
hours. Results of the first five questions revealed that all the participants were
between 31 and 36 years old. They had all learned English in Iran. None of the
participants had been to an English speaking country before the start of this
study. This implies that all the participants had learned English in an EFL rather
than an ESL context. All the participants had a PhD in Applied Linguistics from
a state university located in Isfahan. In regards to the number of years they had
been teaching English, all the participants had over 10 years of experience
teaching English to Iranian EFL learners in language institutes in Isfahan. They
also had over 5 years of experience teaching ESP and EAP courses to under-
graduate and graduate students at universities which they were assistant pro-
fessors in at the time of the study. This suggests that the participants of this
study were highly proficient in English. In order for a candidate to be able to
8 M. GHAVAMNIA

teach at a language institute in Iran, one must obtain a high score on a standard
English test (TOEFL or IELTS). In order to be hired as an assistant professor at any
university, one must take part in a scientific interview. The participants
instructed English between 10 to 15 hours per week in an academic setting
(university) and around 6 hours in a language institute.
The rest of the questions on the semi-structured interview were more
detailed, relating to the concept of culture and how the participants tackled
this concept in their EFL classes. Results of the sixth question indicated that all
the participants believed that their number one priority in class was to improve
the EFL learners’ proficiency in English. In other words, they wanted their
students to become proficient in the four main skills: listening, speaking, read-
ing, and writing. The participants did not mention anything in regards to culture
or informing their students of cultural information. Rather, they explicitly stated
that they wanted their students to be able to read texts in English fluently and
be able to comprehend them accurately. They also mentioned that focusing on
speaking was a major concern for them as teachers. Iranian EFL teachers who
teach in Iran know that people who want to learn English have two main
objectives. The first is to be able to get a passing mark on English exams at
the end of an English course at school or university or on the MA/PhD entrance
exams. The other reason, especially for those who attend English institutes is to
get a satisfactory score on the TOEFL or IELTS exam in order to go abroad
(mostly to Canada or the US). As such, Iranian EFL teachers try to improve the
linguistic knowledge of their students. Since cultural information is not that
necessary on these tests, teachers perhaps omit them in their teaching
programme.
Question seven explored the amount of time teachers distributed to lan-
guage teaching and culture teaching. All the teachers claimed that they spent
most of their class time teaching language rather than spending time on
teaching cultural information. None of the teachers stated they did not spend
any time on teaching culture, however if culture was taught by the participants
of this study, it was limited to mentioning a cultural fact about the foreign
culture and moving on with the main agenda of the class which was language
teaching for the participants of this study. This finding suggests that the
participants might not be aware of the importance of incorporating culture
teaching in class. Even though they themselves might think cultural points are
helpful, they do not think of them as necessary to include in English classes.
Nguyen, Harvey, and Grant (2016) also stated in their study that even though
most of the participants reported that they knew the importance of culture in
language teaching, they allocated a low percentage of class time to culture
teaching. This could imply that teachers in the Asian context (e.g. Vietnam and
Iran) still pay more attention to language teaching (i.e. vocabulary, grammar,
listening, speaking, reading, and writing) which could result from a lack of
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 9

confidence or knowledge to teach cultural points. It could also suggest that

teachers are still unaware of the importance of culture teaching.
In question eight, the participants were asked to state their opinion about the
importance of ICC for EFL learners. Most of the EFL teachers (8 teachers) were
not quite sure about what the researcher meant exactly by ICC. They asked the
researcher to state the question more clearly. The other 2 participants thought
ICC was another term for communicative competence. After the question had
been clarified by the researcher, all the participants believed that improving
Iranian EFL learners’ ICC is quite necessary since most of their students want to
continue their education abroad (mainly in Canada and America). According to
one of the participants of this study ‘most of my undergraduate students aim to
take part in the TOEFL or IELTS exam and receive a scholarship from a Canadian
or American university. Therefore, I personally think that even though we do not
get to incorporate much cultural information into our classrooms, it does not
decrease the importance of improving Iranian EFL learners’ ICC’. The data
obtained from this question somehow contradicts the finding from the previous
question. If the participants in this study believe that improving ICC is impor-
tant, why then is class time mainly dedicated to language teaching. This contra-
diction might suggest that EFL teachers do not think it is their responsibility to
improve their students’ ICC. It could also be concluded that time limitations and
expectations of stakeholders and students from the EFL teachers prevent them
from dedicating class time to culture teaching.
The next question aimed to investigate how Iranian EFL learners defined the
concept of culture. The participants believed that culture is the way people live,
their customs and traditions, their lifestyle, food, clothing, religion, and of course
literature. The participants in this study all stated that they strongly believed
that cultural information should be instructed in Iranian EFL classes. However,
the problem mentioned by all the participants was that the agenda of their
classes and the curriculum set by the Ministry of Education did not point to
‘culture teaching’ in Iranian EFL classes in the academic context. They also stated
that they lacked enough time in their classes and culture teaching was sacrificed
for language teaching. As for language institutes, the teachers mentioned they
would point to cultural information if and when stated in the students’ books
(e.g. Top Notch, Four Corners, . . .). Perhaps teacher education programmes
should explicitly point out the importance of including culture teaching in EFL
classes so that teachers incorporate cultural information into their classes.
In regards to question ten, all the participants believed that they were able to
teach cultural points to their EFL learners, but since they had never been to an
English-speaking country, they could never transfer cultural information the
same way a native English teacher could. In other words, they thought a native-
speaker could do a much better job at culture teaching than a non-native
speaker. One of the teachers stated ‘not all EFL teachers are knowledgeable
about the English culture. Their information varies and is dependent on the
10 M. GHAVAMNIA

amount of research they have done in their spare time, the amount of movies
they have watched, or the number of documentaries they have seen about the
English speaking country and its culture.’ This data suggests that some pre-
paratory courses could be held for EFL teachers to familiarise them with English
speaking countries’ culture.
As for the final question, the teachers were asked to mention any obstacles
they believed should be removed in order to incorporate more culture teaching
in Iranian EFL classes. The obstacles stated by the participants included the
following matters: 1) not having enough class time for incorporating culture
teaching, 2) including culture teaching in classroom curriculum, 3) defining
‘culture’ by stakeholders and managers of universities and language institutes
in Iran, and 4) including and introducing cultural information through supple-
mentary resources.

Findings of the closed-ended questionnaire

After the semi-structured interview, the participants were asked to complete
a closed-ended questionnaire based on a 5-point scale. The Mean score for the
participants’ responses to each question was calculated with the help of the
SPSS software in order to better understand the participants’ attitudes towards
intercultural foreign language teaching. According to the results of the closed-
ended questionnaire (Table 1) most of the participants ‘agreed to a certain
extent’ on more than half of the questions on the questionnaire (questions: 1,
2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24). In other words, they mostly agreed

Table 1. Results of the closed-ended questionnaire (5-point scale).

Student A B C D E F G H I J Mean
Question 1 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 4 2 5 2.3
Question 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 2 3 2 5 2.7
Question 3 5 4 4 4 5 4 5 2 2 5 4.0
Question 4 5 4 5 4 2 2 5 5 4 1 3.7
Question 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 5 2 4 1 3.6
Question 6 4 5 5 4 4 4 5 4 4 1 4.0
Question 7 3 4 5 3 3 2 1 4 2 5 3.2
Question 8 4 5 4 4 4 4 5 5 4 1 4.0
Question 9 2 1 3 2 2 3 2 1 4 4 2.4
Question 10 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 5 1.5
Question 11 1 2 1 2 3 1 1 3 3 5 2.2
Question 12 2 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 2 5 2.0
Question 13 2 2 1 2 2 1 4 1 2 2 1.9
Question 14 2 3 2 4 3 3 2 1 2 3 2.5
Question 15 1 2 1 3 1 1 1 1 2 2 1.5
Question 16 4 4 5 4 4 3 4 5 4 4 4.1
Question 17 4 5 4 3 4 3 5 2 4 4 3.8
Question 18 4 5 5 4 4 4 5 5 4 4 3.9
Question 19 4 5 4 4 4 4 5 5 4 5 4.4
Question 20 2 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 1 1.8
Question 21 1 1 2 2 5 5 2 5 2 1 2.6
Question 22 1 1 2 2 1 3 2 1 4 1 1.8
Question 23 4 4 5 4 3 4 5 1 2 4 3.6
Question 24 2 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1.4
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 11

to a certain extent that teaching culture is important and that pupils should
acquire intercultural competence. However, they (most of the participants) also
agreed to a certain extent that when teachers do not have enough time, culture
teaching gives way to language teaching. As for questions 3, 6, 8, 16, and 19
most of the participants ‘disagreed to a certain extent’. That is, most of the
participants disagreed to a certain extent in regards to the fact that it is
impossible to teach foreign language and foreign culture in an integrated
way. The Iranian EFL teachers who participated in this study had different
attitudes and perspectives in regards to questions 4, 5, 7, 17, 18, and 23.
These six questions related to issues such as: not being able to promote
students’ intercultural skills in language classes, that intercultural skills cannot
be acquired in foreign language classrooms, and the fact that misunderstanding
is the result of language problems not cultural difficulty. It seems as though
teachers are not quite sure about these issues and do not have a certain idea.
This might be caused by the fact that they do not pay much attention to culture
in their foreign language classes and because of this they really do not know
whether intercultural skills can be acquired in foreign language classes or not.
Generally speaking, the result of the close-ended questionnaire was in line with
the participants’ responses on the semi-structured interview. That is, the impor-
tance of incorporating culture into EFL classrooms was accepted and felt
needed by most of the participants of this study who were Iranian EFL teachers.
However, because of lack of time and the importance given to language teach-
ing, culture teaching is sacrificed for language teaching.

Discussion and conclusion

Teacher beliefs in regards to culture and culture teaching in EFL classes to
a great extent affects how teachers react to cultural information that comes
up in their classes. Because of this, it is felt necessary by scholars around the
world to identify how non-native and native teachers of English feel about
incorporating culture into their classes. This study was conducted in order to
identify how Iranian EFL teachers feel about incorporating culture into their
English classes. In line with previous studies (e.g. Czura 2016; Luk 2012; Nguyen,
Harvey, and Grant 2016; Sercu 2006; Stapleton 2000; Young and Sachdev 2011),
the analysis of the data obtained from the semi-structured interview and the
closed-ended questionnaire indicated that the participants believed that culture
was necessary and should be included in their classes. However, the EFL
teachers did not include much culture teaching in their actual classes even
though they felt that culture and language should be integrated and could not
be separated.
The findings of this study, which was conducted in an Asian setting, support
the following studies which indicated similar results. Czura (2016) found that the
participants’ perception of the role of culture in a language classroom was
12 M. GHAVAMNIA

based on traditional knowledge-oriented approaches. Luk (2012) mentioned

that even though the participants had a positive attitude towards culture in
language teaching, they were uncertain about how to incorporate culture in
language classes. Nguyen, Harvey, and Grant (2016) stated that priority was still
given to teaching language skills and knowledge. In Sercu’s (2006) study the
findings indicated that the teachers considered themselves sufficiently familiar
with the foreign culture. In addition, the teachers were skilled to teach within
the foreign culture approach but may have lacked the skills necessary to teach
towards the full attainment of intercultural competence. Stapleton’s (2000)
study concluded that the native English speaking teachers believed culture
was important but included cultural points randomly in class. Young and
Sachdev (2011) findings indicated an obvious disparity between teachers’ atti-
tudes to and beliefs about ICC and their current classroom priorities. They also
mentioned a lack of support for culture learning.
In summary, the data obtained in this study from a semi-structured interview
and a closed-ended questionnaire indicated several issues which are in line with
the aforementioned studies conducted in other contexts. The most important
finding of this study was that even though the Iranian EFL teachers believed it
was necessary to incorporate ‘culture teaching’ in English classes and that
language and culture could not be separated, their number one priority in
class was to teach language rather than culture. In other words, most class
time (80%) was dedicated to language teaching. The second major finding of
this study was that the teachers stated one of the obstacles that prevented them
from teaching cultural information was not having enough time to teach
cultural information in class. Thus, the Ministry of Education should include
‘culture teaching’ in English teachers’ agenda in order for teachers to allocate
time for this feature. Moreover, they should provide material which includes
cultural information for English courses at universities and language institutes.
Furthermore, the teachers mentioned that no attention was given to ‘culture
teaching’ in teacher education programmes. Hence, decision makers in the
realm of teacher education should start focusing on a new area which is culture
teaching. This is because of the fact that a fixed syllabus is prepared beforehand
and teachers must cover the material mentioned in that syllabus. Hence, EFL
teachers are not free to do whatever they wish in their English classes.
This paper has presented an investigation into Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs
and perspectives about incorporating and teaching culture in their English
classes. The findings of this study are in line with previous studies in which
culture is not yet treated the way it should be in English classrooms. It seems
as though teachers are aware of the importance of including culture teach-
ing in their classes but they face some problems. These problems and issues
need to be resolved by decision makers in the realm of education and
teachers themselves. Hence, culture teaching material, methods for teaching
culture, and time for including culture in English classes are the issues that
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 13

must be considered in future studies in order for EFL teachers to be able to

incorporate culture teaching in their classes in order to improve their stu-
dents’ ICC.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Maedeh Ghavamnia has a PhD in Applied Linguistics and is currently an Assistant Professor at
the Art University of Isfahan. She teaches EAP and ESP courses to undergraduate and
graduate students majoring in Architecture, Urbanism, Industrial Design, Painting,
Handicrafts, and Miniature. She is interested in SLA, L2 reading, L2 culture, and pragmatics.
She has published a number of articles in international journals such as: The Language
Learning Journal, Reading Psychology, and Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching.

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Appendix A. Questionnaire adopted from Sercu’s (2006) study

In this section, we would like you to score a number of statements on a 5-point-scale, ranging
from ‘I agree completely’ to ‘I do not agree at all’. The statements concern intercultural
foreign language teaching.

Agree completely 1
Agree to a certain extent 2
Undecided 3
Disagree to a certain extent 4
Disagree completely 5

1. In a foreign language classroom, teaching culture is as important as teaching the foreign

language.
2. Intercultural education is best undertaken cross-curricularly.
3. A foreign language teacher should present a positive image of the foreign culture and
society.
 INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION 15

4. Before you can teach culture or do anything about the intercultural dimension of
foreign language teaching, pupils have to possess a sufficiently high level of proficiency
in the foreign language.
5. Intercultural skills cannot be acquired in language classes. (In the original questionnaire
the context was school.)
6. It is impossible to teach the foreign language and the foreign culture in an integrated
way.
7. I would like to promote the acquisition of intercultural skills through my teaching.
8. Intercultural education has no effect whatsoever on pupils’ attitudes.
9. The more pupils know about the foreign culture, the more tolerant they are.
10. In international contacts misunderstandings arise equally often from linguistic as from
cultural differences.
11. Foreign language teaching should enhance pupils’ understanding of their own cultural
identity.
12. All pupils should acquire intercultural competence, not only pupils in classrooms with
ethnic minority community children.
13. When you only have a limited number of teaching periods, culture teaching has to give
way to language teaching.
14. Every subject, not just foreign language teaching, should promote the acquisition of
intercultural skills.
15. A foreign language teacher should present a realistic image of a foreign culture, and
therefore should also touch upon negative sides of the foreign culture and society.
16. If one wants to be able to achieve anything at all as regards intercultural understanding
one should use texts written in the mother tongue and discuss these texts in the
mother tongue, even when in a foreign language classroom.
17. In the foreign language classroom pupils can only acquire additional cultural knowl-
edge. They cannot acquire intercultural skills.
18. Only when there are ethnic minority community pupils in your classes do you have to
teach intercultural competence.
19. Language and culture cannot be taught in an integrated way. You have to separate the
two.
20. I would like to teach intercultural competence through my foreign language teaching.
21. Intercultural education reinforces pupils’ already existing stereotypes of other peoples
and cultures.
22. Providing additional cultural information makes pupils more tolerant towards other
cultures and peoples.
23. Language problems lie at the heart of misunderstandings in international contacts, not
cultural differences.
24. Foreign language teaching should not only touch upon foreign cultures. It should also
deepen pupils’ understanding of their own culture.

Appendix B. Semi-structured Interview

1. How old are you?
2. Where did you learn English?
3. Could you talk about your educational background?
4. How long have you been teaching English? Where have you taught English?
5. How many hours do you teach English in a week?
6. What is your number one priority in teaching English to EFL learners?
16 M. GHAVAMNIA

7. How is your teaching time distributed over ‘language teaching’ and ‘culture teaching’?
Why is that?
8. Do you think it is necessary for Iranian EFL learners to gain intercultural communicative
competence?
9. How do you define ‘culture’? Do you think it is necessary to include cultural information
in EFL classrooms?
10. Do you think non-native English teachers are capable of teaching cultural points of the
foreign language to EFL learners?
11. What obstacles should be removed in order for EFL teachers to include more cultural
information in their EFL classes?