La contextualisation culturelle dans les manuels d`anglais : quelle

REPUBLIQUE ALGERIENNE DEMOCRATIQUE ET POPULAIRE
MINISTERE DE L’EDUCATION NATIONALE
Institut National de Recherche en Education
L’Institut National de la Recherche en Education
Journée d’étude sur
L’enseignement de la langue anglaise en Algérie;
Evaluation de certains aspects de la réforme scolaire de 2003
Cultural Contextualisation in Algerian
EFL Textbooks: which place for the
local culture?
Dr YASSINE Souryana
Department of English
Mouloud mammeri University of Tizi Ouzou
Email: [email protected]
Résumé:

L’enseignement des langues étrangères n’implique pas uniquement des choix
d’approches théoriques ou de méthodes didactiques mais aussi celui d’une
contextualisation culturelle appropriée et à même de répondre aux objectifs tracés
afin de permettre l’épanouissement des apprenants qui acquièrent une nouvelle
langue. Ainsi, la question épineuse dans l’enseignement de la langue anglaise en
Algérie reste le choix de la culture à véhiculer dans les programmes et manuels
scolaires. Deux courants se disputent ce champs à savoir ; 1- les défenseurs de la
culture nationale et 2- les adeptes de la culture étrangère. Mais n’y a-t-il pas une
autre voie qui peut réconcilier les deux et qui offre un contexte plus serein où
l’élève Algérien se sent à l’aise avec sa culture et ouvert sur les cultures de l’autre ?

Dans cette communication, nous nous proposons d’examiner les contenus culturels de
certains manuels d’anglais conçus pour le collège et le lycée avant et après la
réforme (ex. Spring One, Spotlight on English, On the Move, Think it Over, Comet,
New Prospects) pour déterminer les images qu’ils reflètent concernant la
représentation de soi et de l’autre. Il est important de comprendre la portée de
cette représentation culturelle qui est un facteur d’identification pour les
apprenants.
Introduction

The teaching of foreign languages does not only require
sound linguistic and psychological theories but also a
relevant cultural framework since the teaching of a
language implies the teaching of culture.

The present study evaluates the development of Algerian
EFL textbooks’ (used in Middle and Secondary schools)
cultural components following the Education Reform.

It further explores Secondary school EFL teachers’
perceptions of the developments relating to cultural
components of three locally designed Algerian English
textbooks : Think it Over (1989), Comet (2001), and New
Prospects (2007)
Research Questions:


1) What cultural contents are displayed in the
Algerian EFL textbooks (before and after the
reform) ?
a)
At the level of texts
b)
At the level of images
2) How do the teachers perceive the developments
of the cultural contextualization in the teaching
materials ?
Culture and EFL

“…culture learning is not an … option for language
learning, and … all language learning (really all
learning) takes place in a cultural milieu”
(Swiderski, 1993: 09)

“…effective learning begins with making learning
culturally relevant and meaningful to learners”
(Hall, 2002: 75).
Culture in EFL materials

Moran (2001) proposes thinking of culture as a whole that has
five dimensions.
 1)
Products: tools, food, cloths
 2)
Practices: verbal and non-verbal language, actions and
interactions, taboos
 3)
Perspectives: values, beliefs
 4)
Communities: race, gender, religion
 5)
Persons: individuals
Cultures represented in EFL materials
Types of Cultural Content in EFL Textbooks
The type of cultural content included in a given EFL textbook depends on the type of the
textbook itself; whether it is a global textbook or a local one.

Global EFL textbooks are produced for the international market and “are
centered on topics with fairly transnational appeal” (Pulverness, 1995: 07). In
other words, these textbooks have an almost ‘neutral’ (non-specific) cultural
content that could be set everywhere.

Local textbooks, on the other hand, are generally designed as part of a
national curriculum of a particular country. They consequently have very
different requirements from the global textbooks. The most demanding
requirement of local textbooks is a need to conform to the national curricular
ideology set by the educational authorities of the country both as relates to
policies of foreign language education objectives and cultural stances.
(Yassine, 2012: 73)
Textbooks Based on Source Culture
• “produced at a national level for particular countries that mirror the
source culture rather than target cultures, so that the source and target
cultures are identical” (Cortazzi and Jin, 1999: 205).
Textbooks Based on Target Culture
• The materials designed along this trend generally focus on one or two target
cultures; mainly British and American.
Textbooks Based on International Culture
• They focus neither on learners’ source culture nor on target language culture but aims at
including a variety of cultures. The latter are set either in English-speaking countries such a
Britain and America or in other countries where English is not a first or second language but,
is used as an international language.
Middle School Textbooks:
Spring One and Spotlight on English

The designer’s notes: the designers’ fore word in Spring One consists of a short text in
English that describes the objectives of the textbook. It does not include any explicit or
implicit reference to the manual’s cultural content. There is no indication to the way the
textbook would be used. On the contrary, in Spotlight on English the fore word consists of
a relatively long text in Arabic addressed to the learners explaining to them their active
role in the learning process. It overtly deals with the notion of culture setting it within an
intercultural perspective.

Culture: while Spring One includes exclusively national culture in Spotlight on English the
perspective is rather one of intercultural scope. In the first textbook all the settings and
characters are made up Algerian. There is hardly a reference to a foreign character. But
Spotlight on English adopts an intercultural perspective. Reference is made both to the
learners’ first culture and to a set of other foreign cultures. It points to the parallels that
are to be drawn among various world cultures. International communication too is present
through Internet chat.

The analysis of the explicit and the implicit content of these textbooks would sort out
which values they hold. It hence, explains the implied and unjustified fear from the
learners’ acculturation if exposed to the foreign culture translated by an open
rejection of all that comes from the other culture in Spring One. It further reveals
negative attitudes towards cultural content resulting in a kind of over
"instrumentalization" of the English language. The latter is almost reduced to a set of
structures and the learners nearly never know when, where, how and with whom to
use this new language they are taught.

However, the change in the adopted paradigm in the context of the recent Educational
Reform can explain the emerging of positive attitudes towards the foreign culture
which is no longer seen as a threat. The move from a structural approach to a
communicative and even to competency-based paradigms can account for fostering of
a certain intercultural awareness.

In fact, the competency-based teaching relies basically on project works, problemsolving situations and task-based-teaching or practices that require more interaction
and call for cultural competencies to cope with new situations and negotiations. It is
then for the sake of intercultural awareness that Algerian textbook designers have
included an important amount of the national culture besides to the others cultures
within the materials for the teaching of foreign language.
Secondary School Textbooks
A questionnaire addressed to 30 EFL teachers
working in 17 different Secondary schools.
Cultural elements prevailing in Think it Over (1989-2000)
Cultural elements prevailing in Comet (2001-2006)
Cultural Elements Prevailing in New Prospects (2007)
Teachers’ comments

T1: “Culture must not be viewed as something consisting of facts to be learnt,
but a helpful tool to make learners feel the need to speak and use the target
language.”

T2: “As far as the cultural elements are concerned, there is no particular
emphasis in the three textbooks on foreign culture. In fact, the three textbooks
are based on themes or topics which deal with the problems and changes of life.”

T3: “The schoolbook remains one of the most important sources of learning a
foreign language. However, knowing how to use it is more important. I am certain
that there are teachers who do not know what does culture awareness mean? A
teacher’s book will be useful too.”
Implications

The teachers’ answers to the questions about the cultural content of the three textbooks
revealed how cultural contextualisation is important to teaching English as foreign
language in the Algerian Secondary Schools. They also pointed out the fact that the three
textbooks are alike in including a higher rate of international/universal culture
compared to target/foreign and local/national but differ considerably in their visual
display.

However, their evaluations of the type of cultural elements prevailing in each of the
textbooks made it plain they hold different attitudes towards the local/national culture,
the foreign/target culture, and the international/universal culture and this both at the
linguistic and visual levels.

Actually, most of them remained sceptical about including the learners’ local culture in
EFL textbooks. They did not seem to recognize the role it may play in learning the foreign
language. But, they explained that their learners reacted positively to the visual
elements that were referring to the local culture or portraying local people.

Most of the teachers preferred the international/universal culture which sounds
‘neutral’ and indicated that the full colour visual design of the recent textbook
contributes to motivating their learners.
Developing attitudes towards the representation of the
local culture in Algerian EFL textbooks
Reconsidering Issues of Selfing, Othering and
Negotiation of Third Spaces


English language teaching in Algeria during the 1990’s and early
2000’s adopted forms of linguistic and visual representations that
led to Othering learners rather than encouraging their Selfing.
They contributed to denying the Self either through making it
invisible in the materials or by providing a negative representation
which can lead to alienation.
There is a timid move towards integrating Thirdness mainly at the
linguistic level as regards the reading materials. The learners are
no longer exposed to texts which denigrate their local culture or
language(s) as it was the case few years before, but still it is not
possible to affirm that necessary affordances or resources are
provided to create a Third Space.
Conclusion

The unbalanced and biased cultural contextualisation which characterises the
teaching of English during the 1990s and early 2000s and which starts to change
slightly recently as a result of the shift in overall paradigm and educational
orientation unveil the different ideologies which shape EFL teaching in the
country.

Therefore until recently, though locally designed and subject to Ministry of
Education approval, Algerian EFL textbooks seem to reproduce NativeSpeakerism and Centre vs. Periphery discourses which establish a hierarchy
among different cultures. As a result they promote transmission ideologies
where culture is reduced to its surface aspects and packaged as a set of facts.

These ideologies portray the contact of cultures in a negative way suggesting
evaluative stances wherein the ‘culturally different’ is either better or worse.
They accordingly distort the relation of the Self (C1) and the Other (C2) by not
giving opportunities for Thirdness to emerge.
Thank you!
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