Do EFL Teachers ‘Critically’ Engage in Cultural Awareness? A Mixed-Method Investigation

ABSTRACT

This study explored 150 EFL teachers’ perceptions of critical cultural awareness (CCA) considering their teaching context, academic degree, and professional development programs. The participants all completed the CCA questionnaire, fifteen of whom also sat a semi-structured qualitative interview. Our findings showed, a) EFL teachers’ perceptions of CCA located at a medium level, b) the PhD participants showed significantly higher engagement in CCA than their BA and MA counterparts, c) private language institute teachers reported higher levels of CCA than their state-run school counterparts and d) local professional development programs did not emphasize culture teaching in general and CCA in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical cultural awareness (CCA)
• EFL teachers
• teaching context
• academic degree
• professional development

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the esteemed editor-in-chief and the two anonymous reviewers of Journal of Intercultural Communication Research for their invaluable comments and constructive suggestions on the early drafts of the paper. We also appreciate all the participants of the study who patiently completed the questionnaire and attended the interview.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hassan Soodmand Afshar

Hassan Soodmand Afshar is an Associate Professor in applied linguistics teaching BA, MA and Ph.D. courses at Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan. He has published extensively in both international journals (e.g. Reflective Practice, Thinking Skills and Creativity, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Research Papers in Education, The Language Learning Journal, Issues in Educational Research, etc.) and local journals. He has also presented enormously both in and outside the country. His research interests include (vocabulary) learning strategies, critical thinking and pedagogy, reflective thinking and teaching, emotional intelligence, oral language assessment, ESP, and teacher education. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Moslem Yousefi

Moslem Yousefi is currently a PhD student in applied linguistics at Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, in Iran. His research areas include language teacher education and professional development, sociopolitics of language education, reflective practice, intercultural communication, qualitative research methodology, school development, materials development, and critical discourse studies. E-mail: [email protected]