Revealing Intercultural Communicative Competence in an EFL High School Textbook

Abstract

Since the goal of teaching English is now shifted from communicative competence to intercultural communicative competence (ICC), English teachers should rethink of and be selective on using teaching sources which are mainly referred to textbooks. Many studies were then conducted to analyze the cultural contents in EFL textbooks in Asia whether they meet global goals in ELT. Analyzing textbook contents is now significantly needed by English teachers because of the trend movement in ELT. They should correspond the teaching materials to the notion of ICC in the in-use textbooks. In Indonesia, government has already recommended the English textbooks used at schools. One of them is Bahasa Inggris for the tenth graders. With respect to cultural teaching, English teachers are reluctant to employ the textbook in the classroom. Therefore, this present paper tries (1) to reveal to what extent the learning tasks in Bahasa Inggris contain intercultural competence and (2) to identify what components of intercultural competence are embedded in the textbook learning tasks. This study employs the model of ICC proposed by Byram. The findings show that very small extent learning tasks encourage students' intercultural competence. Yet, communicative competence is much promoted.

Construing the Challenges and Opportunities of Intercultural Language Teaching Amid Covid-19 Pandemic: English Teachers' Voices

“…Meanwhile, a plethora of studies which discuss IC have been investigated by several researchers in the Indonesian context (Abduh & Rosmaladewi, 2018;Adi, 2017;Aprianoto & Haerazi, 2019;Dollah, Syarifuddin, Abduh, Amirullah, Talib, 2017;Edi, Wello, & Dollah, 2017;Haerazi, Irwansyah, Dedi & Azis, 2018;Idris, 2020;Idris & Widyantoro, 2019;Luthfia, Rosidah, & Sofian, 2019;Miftakh, 2017;Mumu, 2017;Rosyidi & Purwati, 2018;Sabilah, 2018;Siregar, 2016;Yulianti, 2019;Zacharias, 2005); however, limited studies discussing this amid COVID-19 pandemic was found. Thus, to fill the gap of the previous related studies, it is deemed necessary to carry out a study concerning this area, i.e., challenges and opportunities encountered in intercultural language teaching, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the teachers' perspectives since they are the primary executor of the instruction conducted.…”

Zooming in on the Indonesian EFL primary school students’ intercultural sensitivity and their extroversion

“…On the other hand, some challenges still emerge. In this case, the matters had to do with the time constraints, the inadequacy of materials, and teachers' cultural knowledge (Abdulrahman et al, 2016;Putra et al, 2020;Rosyidi & Purwati, 2018;Silvia, 2015).…”

Cultural Contents of an EFL Textbook

“…Also, implementation of intercultural communicative competence encounters challenges when it is delivered in the subjects other than the listening and speaking subjects (Fitriyah, Retnaningdyah, & Munir, 2019). Besides, some studies report that the intercultural contents or materials have not been presented adequately in the English textbooks (Rosyidi & Purwati, 2018;Silvia, 2015). Based on the reports above, English teachers are supposed to have more preparation and create alternatives to respond to the challenging issues above.…”

“…This study is the expansion of previous studies. There are many studies scrutinizing and evaluating textbooks at the high school level (Rosyidi & Purwati, 2018;Setyono & Widodo, 2019;Silvia, 2015), but still, limited studies investigating the textbooks used in the vocational high school level found. Moreover, to bear in mind, this study focuses on the use of a commercial textbook, as Sheldon (1988) argues that some publishers sometimes fail to include cultural issues appropriately in a commercial textbook.…”