Teachers’ perceptions on culture teaching in the EFL classroom

• Autor(a) principal: Batista, Ana Teresa Cândido
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/12549
• topic: Ensino da língua Inglesa; Perceção dos professores; Ensino de cultura; Consciencialização intercultural; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Educação

The present research project focuses on the investigation of the teachers’ perceptions on culture teaching. This study addresses issues regarding the promotion of culture teaching in the primary schools in Portugal. On one hand, it is important to establish whether teachers consider teaching culture alongside with language, and on the other hand, to know if knowledge of cultural references and culture related issues, facts or aspects contributes to cultural awareness. Conducted on a small scale, the interviews were examined using Laurence Bardin’s proposals for content analysis, namely in terms of processing the information that is subliminal to the messages (Bardin, 1977). After, the discussion of the findings of the study tries to dissect the information given by comparing the textual data, verifying the existence of the consensus or disparity in the teacher’s opinions. The study analyses the results of five semi-structured interviews, comparing the perceptions of five teachers of English in the Portuguese primary school system and focuses on the conceptualization of culture and how important culture is in the foreign/second language classroom. The participants in this study, convey the idea that understanding the cultural context of the target language, will facilitate the conditions for an effective language learning environment. The teachers consider Culture a vital component in language teaching and they also believe that learners that benefit from culture teaching will respond positively to the cultural differences they encounter later in their lifetime. These participants make use of different methods, avert textbooks and invest in their own materials to fit their lesson plans.