Cultural terms in EFL textbooks for young learners

This paper analyses the Festival/Cultural section of the four most used 6th Primary EFL textbooks in La Rioja (North of Spain) to examine whether (i) festivals is a topic covered in the syllabi of these four materials, (ii) the topics and terms refer to British and American celebrations, represent f...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Canga Alonso, Andrés, Cifone Ponte, María Daniela
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/47051
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/47051
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Festivals
6th grade Primary
EFL textbooks
Cultural terms
Songs
Fiestas
6º de Educación Primaria
Libros de inglés como lengua extranjera
Términos culturales
Canciones
Descripción
Sumario:This paper analyses the Festival/Cultural section of the four most used 6th Primary EFL textbooks in La Rioja (North of Spain) to examine whether (i) festivals is a topic covered in the syllabi of these four materials, (ii) the topics and terms refer to British and American celebrations, represent festivals in other English-speaking communities or allude to students’ own culture, and (iii) songs and rhymes are included in the materials and related to the celebrations represented in them. Our findings show that the most recurrent cultural topics are everyday living, values, beliefs and attitudes and ritual behaviour. As for the cultural terms, our sample mostly portrays references to the target culture. Songs and rhymes are part of the teaching materials, but are barely related to the festivals. These data seem to show that sociocultural aspects are gaining importance in ELT primary materials, but they mostly focus on the target culture and omit references to students’ own culture.