Obstacles Affecting Teaching English/American Culture in the EFL Classroom (Published)
This study is an original contribution to the issue of how English/American culture may be integrated into the teaching of English in the Saudi EFL classroom. Unlike other studies it explores the challenges that teachers face from both their own perspective and their supervisors’. Furthermore it provides guidelines to teachers in designing their materials in ways that may gain the approval of the Saudi educational authorities. In order to explore the views of teachers and their educational supervisors, a mixed-study method of qualitative and quantitative approaches was adopted. A semi-structured interview with seven educational supervisors of teachers in the city of Makkah was carried out and a structured questionnaire survey was distributed to 85 English teachers. The results show that teachers experience constraints in teaching English/American culture in EFL classrooms. In identifying and exploring such constraints the research aims to support teachers in overcoming the challenges they encounter.
Keywords: Challenges, English/American Culture, Saudi Schools., authentic materials