Cultural implications in Arabic Teaching Methods for Persian speakers: An evaluative study of Sadal Hayat collection

One of the elements of foreign language teaching materials is that they should include the foreign language culture. Experts have reached consensus on cultural recognition in learning any language, because language is the product of culture and it is impossible to separate them. In recent decades, linguistic studies – all of its branches – have witnessed the fact that the study of culture is a necessary capability in addition to linguistic and communicative competencies. Due to its importance, cultural efficiency has become an essential part in international authorities dealing with criteria for learning foreign languages. Despite the significance of the fact that cultural efficiency provides the highest levels of language learning, we still notice shortcomings in presenting Arabic culture to non-native speakers through Arabic language teaching methods. Teaching culture and integrating it within the context of textbooks and special educational materials in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers is still an issue that provokes a lot of challenges. This study seeks to investigate and evaluate the cultural content of instructional collection Sadal Hayat based on an analytic-descriptive approach and by using a statistical content analysis tool. The collection has unprecedentedly been spread at various levels of Persian-speaking Arabic learners and has been well received by Iranian universities. This study was conducted by taking advantage of common criteria among the Rushdi Taima criteria, American Council of Foreign Language Teachers, and European Common Framework, because the mentioned criteria have widely been spread in teaching foreign languages and Arabic language to non-native speakers. The study has obtained significant results, including: The importance of the selected Arabic, American and European criteria for the evaluation of cultural content of the book; and the collection’s focus on Arab’s and Islamic cultures and its inattention to international culture, except in some rare instances. It is concluded that all the examined books aced with lack of balanced cultural elements, and the book’s cultural contents need some modifications for removing their shortcomings.