Promoting Intercultural Competence and Speaking Ability Through Developing Language Learning Materials

Coursebooks are normally written to contain information, instruction, exposure, and activities that learners at a particular level need to enhance their communicative competence in the target language (Tomlinson, 2013). However, many global coursebooks make attempts to include content, topics, and texts that do not advantage any learner around the world. That is why, they usually wind up being dull, sanitized, and bland, deprived of little meaningful efforts to promote intercultural competence among learners. Therefore, this study aims at investigating the impact of developing language learning materials on enhancing EFL learners' intercultural competence and speaking ability. To this aim, of 40 homogenous EFL learners, 20 students were chosen into experimental groups and other 20 students were chosen into control groups. Both two groups had Intercultural Competence Questionnaire, and Preliminary English Test (PET) as a pretest for checking their cultural awareness and speaking ability. Whereas the experimental group benefitted from the framework of Text driven approach suggested by as Tomlinson (2013), the control group did not have manipulation in their instruction. The results show differences in experimental classes and control classes, in intercultural competence and speaking ability. In total, the findings indicated that developing language learning materials by Text driven approach encouraged the students to have information about other cultures. In addition, it helped the learners to improve their speaking skills.