The Critical Analysis of Cultural Values in American English File Textbook Series

In spite of the quintessential significance to integrate language and culture, there have been few attempts to investigate the cultural elements of English teaching textbooks based on a valid framework. Consequently, the purpose of this exploratory study was to describe how culture has been addressed in the second edition of six textbooks of American English File Series (Latham-Koenig, Oxenden, & Boyle, 2013), taught in the private institutes in Iran. To this end, a model of cultural patterns, developed by Zarei and Khalessi (2011), was utilized to analyze the content of the series. The model has four constituents of value, norm, institution, and artifact. Overall, the results indicated that textbooks are artifacts which are strongly grounded in cultural assumptions and biases. Moreover, results revealed that these instructional materials are filled with cultural values unique to the Western world, the most prevalent of which include girlfriend-boyfriend relationship, consumerism, lack of studying, Western music, artifacts, lack of trust between the couples, rate of divorce and break-up, and inculcation of Western culture. It is concluded that textbooks are carriers of cultural values that not only transfer knowledge but also inculcate the cultural values of the native speakers of that language. Therefore, the role of the English teachers in prompting intercultural competence is to preserve the Iranian cultural heritage and values and make a balance between the integration of culture and language.