Iranian Male and Female EFL Teachers’ attitudes toward Intercultural Education: Teaching L2 and transfer of culture

Abstract

In a Learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting, it is not enough to teach a language without considering that language’s culture. EFL teachers should recognize that students are the future’s international communicators therefore, it is essential to teach culture and language simultaneously. In this study, Marx and Moss (2011) My Cultural Awareness Profile (My Cap) questionnaire was conducted to collect the current research’s data, which is regarded as the teacher’s cultural awareness. 120 Iranian English teacher’s (41 males and 79 females) were selected to respond this survey questionnaire. The questionnaire reflects Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes, understanding and tendency toward the cultural awareness in the teaching context. Teachers responded to both multiple choice and open-ended questions. Multiple-choice questions are based on the Likert Scale. Each dimension’s frequency calculated by IBM SPSS software version 24. Therefore, teacher’s attitudes and tendency toward each dimension is separately reflected. The results showed that the Iranian male EFL teachers have more opportunities to communicate with people from the other cultures than the female teachers do. EFL male teachers claimed that they have difficulty in finding global subjects that they plan to each. Female EFL teaches said that they have more knowledge about Iranian customs while males claimed that they have more information about the Iranian history.