"What's for Tea?": A Study of how Aspects of Culture are presented in Textbook Texts for English as a Second Language in Lower Secondary School

Abstract

In this thesis I have looked at how the cultural aspects are presented in a textbook series for English as a Second Language (ESL). The textbook series studied is New Flight; made to be used in Lower Secondary School. Since the textbooks are written according to the current National Curriculum in Norway (LK06), I also looked at the Competence Aims (for the English Subject Curriculum in LK06) to see how these deal with the various aspects of culture.

In order to identify the aspects of culture I limited the scope of my research to include only the main texts of the textbooks series. Since I also wanted to look at the authors‟ perspective the follow-up questions, in connection to the main texts, were used as a source to look at how the authors encourage the readers to work with the texts. To classify the chosen material I have suggested a method for categorisation based on the theories behind culture in language teaching.

I have studied this material in light of the theory that cultural awareness in language teaching is of great importance. Furthermore, that communication is dependent on knowledge of the world and that we need to be culturally aware in order to communicate well in a language other than our native tongue.