Teaching Culture in an EFL Classroom: Preservice EFL Teacher Trainees’ Perspectives

Rahim Kaviani, Farhangian University, Iran, ID LLCE2017-129;     Abstract: The vital role of culture in language classrooms and culture as a fundamental part of the second language (L2) learning couldn’t be overlooked. Cultural learning is as an instructional objective equally as important as communication.   While language teachers have recognized the need to incorporate more cultural activities in order to promote students’ cultural and intercultural understanding to help combat the ethnocentrism that often dominates the thinking of our young people, the question lingers as to how such cultural teaching should and could most effectively occur at the classroom level. To find an answer to the mentioned question 15 preservice EFL teacher trainees’ at a teacher training university in Semnan, Iran were selected based on convenient sampling and interviewed. The findings pinpointed the importance of teaching culture in an EFL classroom using various techniques. The study has implications for the EFL stakeholders, EFL teacher training instructors and EFL textbook designers.

Keywords: Culture, EFL, Perspective, Preservice, Teacher Trainee