Source Culture vs. Target Culture: A Survey of Iranian English Language Teachers' Attitudes toward the Cultural Content of Newly-developed English Coursebooks in Iranian Education System

Due to the significant position of English Language Teaching (ELT) coursebooks in Iranian education system which have been developed on the basis of the macro educational documents and consequently have paid attention to the Iranian-Islamic culture, we can see some research on studying the cultural content of such books. Reviewing such works reveals that such coursebooks have not been studied from the teachers' attitudes. Because of the importance of teachers' perceptions and attitudes, in this paper, based on two opposing important camps of thought, namely the liberal and critical approaches, which the former insists on integrating the English-speaking cultural content and the latter insists on incorporating the culture of learners' society, a qualitative survey on the topic of culture, its dimensions and representations in newly-developed ELT coursebooks was conducted. The findings reveal that their perceptions on the topic are mostly limited to the surface aspects of culture and in general they tend to the liberal approach. As a result, they have a negative view toward the books. Undoubtedly, they cannot accompany the new program and consequently obtaining the goals of such transition and change in ELT program in Iranian education system will face some challenges.