Cultures Role in TEFL: An Attitude Survey in

Japan
Paul Stapleton
Institute of Language and Culture Studies, Hokkaido University, Kita 17 Nishi 8,
Sapporo 060-0817, Japan
The role of culture in TEFL has received considerable attention in the past twenty years.
While few researchers doubt its importance, how, and to what extent culture should be
part of the TEFL curriculum remains unresolved. The present study investigates native
English speaking teachers views on the role of culture in TEFL. Twenty-eight university-level teachers in Japan responded to a questionnaire providing comments about
the extent and nature of the culture they teach. Respondents felt that while culture
should be part of TEFL, they included it in their classes more randomly than other
aspects of their teaching. Teachers also had given serious thought and taken action to
make changes in their teaching style based on the observation of their students
cultural style of learning. Responses to questions on ELT textbooks revealed that
participants had some dissatisfaction with the way they treated culture.

Introduction
Since the middle years of the twentieth century following ideas proposed by
Sapir and Whorf, Kaplan, and Hymes contending that language and culture are
inseparable, research has attempted to show how, cultural knowledge is critical
to communicative competence in a foreign language. Kaplans seminal paper
(1966) on how rhetorical patterns in writing can be classified according to the
culture of the writer is still discussed, if not debated (Mohan & Lo, 1985; Kubota,
1998). Less debated but still discussed are cultural connections with language
that range from grammatical elements, e.g. modals (Hinkel, 1995) to
sociolinguistics, e.g. politeness (Ranney, 1992), respect (Hyde, 1994), requests,
(Takahashi, 1996), silence (Hasegawa & Gudykunst, 1998), and feedback
(Stubbe, 1998).
Because of the recognition that culture and language are intrinsically bound,
research into how foreign and second language pedagogy can be improved to
reflect this new understanding continued to be discussed in the 1980s and 1990s.
For example, the issue of learning styles and how they are related to individual
cultures has almost become a genre unto itself. Oxford and Anderson (1995)
suggest how various cultures fit into certain learning styles, while Cortazzi and
Jin (1996), and Hyland (1994) show how the learning styles of individual cultures
can be explained in cultural terms. The teachers role in adjusting to the students
culture is another area that has been examined in depth, although most often via
an analysis of individual cultures (Cogan, 1995; Flowerdew, 1998; McCargar,
1993; Shamin, 1996). Teaching cultural awareness is yet another field that has
received considerable discussion. Marcus and Slansky (1994) promote the need
for an awareness of cultural differences in time and space, while Hurley (1991)
suggests there is a similar need to build awareness of sociopragmatic norms. The
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question of how published materials for classroom use are keeping up with the
new understanding of cultures role is an area that has been explored (Alptekin,
1993; Duff & Uchida, 1997; Prodromou, 1988; Ramirez & Hall, 1990), but not in
any great depth. Likewise, teachers views about the teaching of culture have
been surveyed (Adamowski, 1991, cited in Lessard-Clouston, 1996;
Lessard-Clouston,1996; Ryan, 1999), as have students views (Prodromou, 1992),
but research in this area is limited. Beyond research that looks at only one aspect
of teaching culture, several books have been written for language teachers, not
only to point out the importance of teaching cultural facets of language, but also
to address the problem of how to teach culture (Byram, 1989, 1994; Kramsch,
1993; Valdes, 1986). Still, there remains much to find out about how much, and in
what way, recent understanding about culture in foreign language education is
being transferred to the classroom.

Culture in EFL
It is suggested that gaps exist between classroom teachers and research findings because of both the difficulty in teaching culture and the danger inherent in
making assumptions about the culture of both the target language and the
students own culture. Teaching culture as part of the typical language class is
tricky because of the sheer weight of the term culture. Byram (1989) claims that
the mere acquisition of information about a foreign country is not really culture
learning; rather, culture learning refers to producing changes of attitude in
students towards the target culture via change in cognitive structures. Adaskou
et al. (1990) propose that culture in language teaching encompasses four realms,
aesthetic, sociological, semantic, and pragmatic. Based on these definitions, the
scope of what is entailed in teaching culture appears unrealistically broad and
abstract for English language teachers who may be simply trying to break down
strong notions of hierarchy in struggling to get their East Asian students to call
them by their first names.
Moreover, difficulties arise when teachers make assumptions about their
students culture. Teachers who accept and employ contrastiveconstructs which
describe the behaviour of cultural groups (of students) are said to fail to recognise the highly idiosyncratic nature of students. Constructs such as, individualism versus collectivism (Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999), or low-versus
high-context communication (Hall, 1981), while well recognised, have recently
come under considerable scrutiny. Labels which arise claiming to represent
whole groups of people have led to charges of reductionism (Zamel, 1997) and
determinism (Kubota, 1999) and are said to dichotomise the culture of the
student and English language culture. It is here that notions of political power
enter the debate. Auerbach and Burgess (1985) assert that ESL may have a hidden
curriculum that inculcates Western cultural values as an implicit part of
language teaching. Questions about linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992)
posit that English mental structures learned in EFL classrooms can displace those
of the native language. Pennycook (1994) suggests that language is always
located in very particular social, cultural and political contexts (p. 171). For
example, communicative language teaching is identified with oral performance,
which ignores the preference for silence used in some cultures. Heiman (1994)

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cautions that English teachers often unconsciously teach values that are in direct
opposition to those held by students coming from non-Western societies.
Countering these concerns are researchers who contend that knowledge of a
learners culture provides important clues about why learners from particular
cultural backgrounds behave in ways that show certain patterns. Carson (1998)
argues that teachers failure to consider these cultural backgrounds results in an
incomplete picture of the learner. Ramanathan and Atkinson (1999), while
acknowledging the dangers of overgeneralisations, claim that knowledge about
a learners culture need not be feared or denied; rather, it should be accepted as a
significant tool of understanding. A practical example of this point is illustrated
by Atkinson (1997) who argues that in Western cultures critical thinking presupposes individualism, while the notion of the individual in some non-Western
cultures is the diametric opposite. Atkinson suggests that language teachers
must recognise that critical thinking is a cultural practice and caution should be
taken when teaching it to certain cultures. In response to claims that the ELT
profession is contributing to and perpetuating power inequalities, Rajagopalan
(1999) contends that teachers need not feel as though they are complicit members
of a neo-colonial enterprise; rather, it is the very nature of human languages, all
of them, to be riven by power inequalities (p. 205).
The perils of teaching culture or making broad cultural statements about
language usage was brought home to me recently when a British colleague chastised me for telling students a common response to a compliment in English was
Thank you. My colleague claimed that such a response in Britain would be
regarded as arrogant. Whether or not his claim is accurate is not the point here.
Such an exchange of views only underlines the difficulties language teachers face
when approaching cultural issues.
While there is a general lack of research in teacher attitudes on culture learning, some studies have been carried out to better understand the extent to which
teachers are familiar with the role of culture in language education and how it
affects their pedagogy. Lessard-Cloustons survey (1996) in which 16 Chinese
EFL teachers were interviewed on their views about teaching culture found
support among teachers for teaching culture, but cited a need for more understanding of how to bring culture into the classroom context. Adamowskis
survey of teachers views on teaching culture in the ESL context (cited in
Lessard-Clouston, 1996) suggested that teachers feel culture has an important
role to play, yet no systematic ways of approaching how to teach it were uncovered. Prodromou (1992), in a questionnaire study of 300 Greek students, found
over half of the students believed that native speaker teachers should have some
knowledge about the students native tongue and culture. Duff and Uchidas
study (1997) of four EFL teachers in Japan revealed considerable complexity in
teachers sociocultural identities and a lack of awareness that they were implicitly transmitting cultural messages to their students. Despite the findings of these
studies, there is still a general lack of information about how teachers view the
teaching of culture and how these views are reflected in their teaching.

The Study
In order to discover how language teachers perceive the role of culture in the

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classroom, an attitude survey (see Appendix) was designed to elicit teachers

views on four main aspects: (1) feelings about both the importance of teaching
culture and what kinds of culture are taught if any, (2) the use of contrastive
constructs between the students native and target languages (Japanese and
English respectively), (3) teaching-style adjustments that were made due to
perceived cultural needs, and (4) perceptions about culture in textbooks. As the
survey was intended as exploratory and descriptive to follow up on similar
surveys of teachers and students views on cultures role in EFL (Adamowski,
1990, cited in Lessard-Clouston, 1996; Prodromou 1992), independent variables,
such as teachers length of experience and nationality, although noted, were not
critical factors. The lack of model-building, which customarily includes independent variables and dependent variables, i.e. attitudes, may appear to be a
major weakness in this study; however, given the general dearth of similar studies, the questionnaire serves as a source of information gathering.
The questionnaire adopted a two-pronged approach, including both a Likert
scale answer option as well as space for an open-ended response on most items.
In this way, participants with time and interest in the survey topic were able to
expand on their answers, while those with little time or interest could simply
circle numbers on the Likert scales. In this sense, the advantages of both
closed-ended responses, i.e. readily quantified and easily analysed, and
open-ended responses, i.e. providing more useful and insightful data (Nunan,
1992) could be maximised. The main disadvantage of open-ended questions, i.e.
unmanageably large amounts of data, was minimal because of the small sample
size. As for the questions themselves, Cohen and Manion (1994) caution against
the use of highbrow questions even with those having specialist knowledge.
Because several of the questions required more than a casual understanding of
terminology, examples were provided as part of the question to ensure understanding. Unfortunately, although this may have anticipated potential responses
to the open-ended part of the question, it was deemed necessary to avoid any
misunderstanding.
Context and participants
English language education at post-secondary Japanese institutions tends to
follow two broad streams. Instructors whose native language is Japanese teach
reading courses, which in effect are translation (from English to Japanese)
courses. The second smaller stream consists of native English-speaking teachers
who teach conversation (speaking and listening) courses. English courses in
both streams tend to be obligatory in the first or second year of study regardless
of a students main subject. With 38% of all high school graduates going on to
university or junior college (Okano & Tsuchiya, 1999), there are a great many
students taking English courses. As a result, student numbers in each class tend
to be high. The huge numbers mean that many institutions have more part-time
teachers teaching their English classes than full-time teachers.
For classes taught by native English speakers, the curriculum varies from
institution to institution. Teachers are sometimes free to use their own materials
or choose a textbook on their own. Some institutions assign textbooks which
teachers must use. Classes are almost always 90 minutes long and usually held

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once a week for either one or two 15-week semesters. As a rule, the level of oral
English among students is false beginner to low with some exceptions.
In the case of native English-speaking teachers, new, full-time job openings
are filled in a very competitive manner by teachers usually holding at least a
Masters-level degree in applied linguistics or a similar field. For part-time posts,
however, because the context is EFL, the number of qualified teachers is somewhat limited. It was deemed that some compromises in terms of the uniformity
of the sample would have to be made in order to reach a reasonable number of
participants in the local area, Sapporo, which is the fifth largest city in Japan with
a population of 1.7 million. The result then, is a non-probability convenience
sample (Cohen & Manion, 1994) that extends only as far as the personal contacts
of the researcher. In the end, the questionnaire was completed mostly by
full-time teachers who taught almost exclusively at the first and second year of
university. The rate of questionnaire return was very high (28 out of 30). The
questionnaire was received from 22 participant teachers in person by the
researcher, while in the remaining six it was received by post. This personal
contact may have had some effect on responses despite the questionnaires
ostensible anonymity.
Of the 28 participants, there were 17 Americans, five British, four Canadians,
one Indian and one New Zealander. Twelve teachers had taught for more than
ten years while 12 others had taught from 510 years. The remainder had taught
for less than five years. Twenty-four of the participants taught at universities,
while the other four taught at junior colleges (two-year post-secondary institutions mostly for women). The average number of students in their classes was
29.1 ranging from a low of three to a high of sixty.

Results
The questionnaire to which the subjects responded is reproduced in the
Appendix. Subjects responded to the 14 questions on a five-point scale, from
Very Important (scored 1) to Unimportant (scored 5) or, in the case of questions referring to specific teaching practices, from Always (scored 1) to Never
(scored 5). In either case, a low group score, in the region of 12, indicates a significant commitment on the part of the teachers to the views or the practices
mentioned, and a high score, in the region of 34, indicates a lack of commitment.
In some cases, a sixth value was set for participants who felt the question did not
apply to them. Those who circled 6 were excluded from the data for that question. As for the open-ended questions that asked for an example, over 80% of the
teachers filled in some or all of the spaces that allowed open-ended comments.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these open-ended responses covered a remarkable
range of examples and ideas.
Culture content
The first five questions dealt with teachers attitudes towards the teaching of
culture as part of their language classes.
(1) Do you think it is important for EFL teachers to include aspects of the target
languages culture as part of their classroom teaching?

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(2) Do you include cultural information about your native country or English
language culture in your classes?
(3) Is your cultural content planned or is it introduced spontaneously?
(4) Is your cultural content concerned with factual/overt culture, e.g., food,
music, people, housing, etc?
(5) Is your cultural content concerned with covert culture, e.g., values, beliefs,
attitudes, etc?
Results for the first question showed the strongest trend of any of the questions scoring a mean of 1.8, indicating that teachers feel that it is important to
include aspects of culture in their teaching. While no teacher thought it was
unimportant, three respondents circled 4 suggesting that some teachers remain
unconvinced about the importance of culture in the language classroom, despite
the wealth of research advocating a role for culture.
Question 2, which asked whether or not participants included cultural information about their native country or the English language, again scored strongly
towards the positive end with considerably less deviation compared with the
first question. No teachers in this study claimed to never teach culture, but four
teachers circled 4 indicating that their classes contained minimal cultural information.
Question 3 explored the degree to which teachers planned the cultural content
of their lessons. The large difference in the mean scores between Question 3 (2.9),
and both Questions 2, (2.1) and 1 (1.8), suggests that although participant teachers thought cultural content was important, and they did tend to teach it, it is
actually planned only some of the time. Presumably, teachers plan other parts of
a lesson more rigorously than the parts that include culture. This pattern, where
culture is perceived as important, yet is taught less rigorously, also appeared in
Lessard-Cloustons study of Chinese teachers of English (1996) in which 69% of
the teachers seldom or never taught culture despite their belief in its importance.
In Questions 4 and 5, teachers were asked to distinguish between the teaching
of overt and covert culture. Overt culture refers to those surface elements of
culture that are visible and apparent, while covert culture comprises those
aspects which are not readily visible or understood. Levine and Adelman (1993)
use an iceberg illustration to explain the concept with the visible portion representing elements such as language, food and appearance, while the larger,
hidden part includes cultural aspects such as, beliefs, attitudes and values (p.
xviii). Participant teachers tended towards teaching both of these elements more
often than not with a slight preference for overt over covert culture.
Beginning with Question 4, the survey allowed participants to enter examples
and thoughts about their own teaching in an open-ended manner. Many of the
comments in Question 4 mirrored the content examples of overt culture set out in
the questionnaire. Holidays, taboos, body language, greetings and food were all
mentioned several times each. However, other kinds of cultural content were
also entered. One teacher contrasted leadership behaviour in the US with Japan.
Japanese education does not emphasise leadership while US education
rewards leadership behavior. The question on whether teachers include covert
culture again brought out a remarkable variety of responses, although a full
one-quarter of the teachers seldom or never include covert culture as part of their

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teaching. Four teachers mentioned some discussion of religious beliefs, while

others mentioned aspects of society, marriage, dating, social life, privacy, without explaining the values they teach associated with these elements. Others
ventured into territory where generalisations about values were apparent, e.g.
English speakers are direct, approach people on an equal basis, and are individualistic. The implication of statements such as these is that the native
language of the students (Japanese) is less direct, egalitarian and individualistic
than English. While there is plenty of evidence that this is true (see below),
postmodern beliefs suggest that such cultural constructs cannot encompass the
diversity that exists, not only within an individual culture, but within individuals themselves (Spack, 1997a). Therefore teachers open themselves to criticisms
of stereotyping with such statements.
Language and culture
Questions 6 to 9 were more specifically focused on cultural aspects comparing
Japanese and English.
(6) Do you teach cultural aspects of language where English differs from Japanese, e.g., modesty, use of first/last names, giving/responding to compliments, etc. as part of your class?
(7) Do you explain wider aspects of this behavior, e.g. individualism/group-orientation, at the same time?
(8) Do you provide contrastivecultural examples, e.g. In Japanese you say this,
but in English we say that?
(9) Are these cultural aspects (nos 48) found in the published texts that you
use?
Generally, participants often taught features of language that they felt were
culturally oriented, but the covert culture associated with this language was
taught much less. Contrastive examples from the students native tongue tended
to be included sometimes. Published texts appeared to be wanting in this area as
teachers tended to think that the cultural information referred to in previous
questions was seldom included.
Responses to Question 6 showed that cultural aspects of language formed an
important part of teachers lessons. Most teachers wrote in examples of the types
of aspects they include in their classes. The use of first names appeared to be a
particularly key issue for teachers. Six teachers made specific mention of the use
of first names in English, perhaps because this point was one of the illustrating
examples in the question. However, it is also an area of language where Japanese
and English differ considerably. Family names followed by titles, e.g. Tanaka san,
are used even among good friends in casual situations in Japanese, while in
English their use varies from country to country, age group to age group, and
even person to person. In a follow-up interview with some of the participants
who wrote in comments about names, remarks ranged from one teacher who
insisted on the use of first names for everyone, including the teacher, to a teacher
who insisted on using titles for everyone.
This has parallels with Spacks longitudinal study (1997b) which followed the
reading and writing strategies of a Japanese college student over a three-year
period. The most striking outcome of this study was the students continual

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process of change. Spack stresses that this change illustrates that cultural identities are not static, but in a constant process of acquiring. If individuals can show
differences in their own behavior over time, it only reinforces the notion that
approaches to learning language must have a highly particularistic nature. Such
a wide range of views may indicate, similar to the comment made above about
compliments, that teachers need to be very careful about how they frame the
teaching of language where aspects of culture are involved. Based on the diversity of responses, it appears prudent for teachers to make students aware of the
variety of possibilities that exist, and that in some cases, forms that are taught
may not always be appropriate.
Question 7 asked teachers whether they explained wider dimensions of
cultural aspects outlined in 6, i.e. cultural constructs such as individualism
versus group orientation. The mean score of 3.5 suggests that teachers tend not to
teach what they may feel are the reasons behind certain language or behavior.
Eight out of 28 teachers claimed that they never discuss these matters in their
language classes, while only two teachers claimed to always do so. Among the
eleven quantifiable questions, this question showed the second strongest negative reaction. The lack of write-in comments on this question (only four),
compared to 16 for Question 6, indicates that teachers had fewer examples ready
to offer. The four comments concerned levels of formality, individualism, hierarchy and nepotism. The general lack of comments and the tendency not to discuss
deeper aspects of culture may be a result of concerns about stereotyping or
simply a lack of knowledge or awareness of cultural constructs such as hierarchy
or collectivism. Another possibility is, as stated by two participants in their final
comments, students can learn about foreign culture in history or social science
courses.
Question 8 asked the teachers whether they provided contrastive cultural
examples as part of their teaching. Plenty of situations exist between English and
Japanese where equivalence is difficult to express, and therefore some rough
substitute is necessary. This is particularly true for situations where constructs
involving hierarchy or collectivism are involved. In Japanese, the word asenpai
denotes a person in a senior position. To use the term senior in English is often
an unnatural translation. In a working environment, colleague would be better.
Japanese also has many ritualised expressions that when literally translated
sound awkward at best. For example, otsukarisama (you must be tired) is a greeting used at the end of a days work among group members that needs no follow
up, while in English it tends to be a conversation opener. It is suggested that some
sort of contrasting of these types of forms would be a useful addition to language
classes because their literal translation from Japanese into English, which occurs
frequently, is often inappropriate.
The mean score for Question 8 was 2.9, suggesting that teachers sometimes
make an effort to bring contrastive structures into their teaching. Considering
that most of the teachers in the survey had spent a considerable time teaching in
Japan, this is not surprising. It also suggests that many teachers had made the
effort to learn a certain amount of Japanese. Only nine teachers wrote in
comments for this question, perhaps because examples of this nature take time to
recall. Answers were brief without any patterns emerging.

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Cultural adjustments
Participants showed more agreement on Question 10:
(10) Have you adjusted your teaching style based on your knowledge of your
students culture since beginning teaching in Japan? Can you give your own
example?
Twenty-seven out of 28 teachers replied positively to this question and all but
four teachers wrote in a comment describing the type of change they had made.
The write-in comments revealed considerable awareness among teachers of
certain cultural patterns held by their students. Foremost among these was an
adjustment to the group-oriented nature of students. Fifteen of the 24 comments
made to this question related to some appreciation of Japanese group orientation. Several teachers mentioned that they do more group work than they did
before coming to teach in Japan. Although group work has become common in
communicative-style teaching in both EFL and ESL contexts, several participants
felt that in their classes they did even more of it, perhaps because Japanese
students prefer it. The teachers perception of Japanese group orientation dovetails with research across disciplines (Gudykunst & Nishida, 1994; Triandis,
1995) as well as empirical studies (Hofstede, 1980).
Western, Socratic teaching style tends to encourage eliciting answers from
students, while East Asian teaching style uses questioning techniques much less.
This tendency was revealed in Question 10 with over half of those who
commented making some mention about questioning. Four teachers said that
they needed to work harder to elicit answers from shy students. Some of the
strategies used to overcome this difficulty are as follows: giving students more
time to answer (3 teachers), not asking individual students in front of the class for
fear they would not respond due to shyness (3 teachers), not asking questions to
the class as a whole because students who have an answer hesitate to stand out
from the group (2 teachers), and letting students answer in turn which provides a
system whereby no student needs to stand out (2 teachers). Two teachers also
made mention of the necessity of avoiding general questions, e.g. What do you
think of ?, while focusing on specific questions where answers involve less
opinion. The earnest and varied responses to Question 10 reveal that teachers
support McCargars notion (1993) that using methods consonant with students
cultural expectations can improve performance.
Beyond regards for group dynamics were several references to the passive
role students play in Japanese classrooms compared to the former classrooms of
the participant teachers outside of Japan, where it was implied that students are
more active. Several teachers commented that they had lowered their expectations of students. Two typical comments were, I have learned to put much less
pressure on students to produce and show evidence of learning and Awareness
of this cultural attitude (not necessarily accepting it) has allowed me to ease up
. Indications of concerns for interpersonal relations between students and
teacher were also referred to. One teacher referred to himself as trying to project
the role of a kind uncle, perhaps in an effort to adjust to the Confucian-oriented
role expectations of those in vertical relationships.
Among the many other comments were several that focused on a concern for
choosing or avoiding topics based on the interests of the students. These

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comments, however, were deemed outside of the cultural domain as the interests of students is more a strategy of facilitating top-down understanding than it
is a cultural adjustment.
Published materials
Questions 11 and 13 asked teachers whether they used textbooks in their
classes and how they felt about the quality of the cultural content.
(11) Do you use textbooks in your classes?
(13) How do you feel about the quality of cultural content in EFL textbooks?
The responses to Question 11 indicate a general tendency towards using textbooks. However, this question scored the highest standard deviation value of all
the questions indicating wide-ranging views about the effectiveness of textbooks. Eleven teachers replied that they always used a textbook, while eight
teachers seldom or never use one. Most teachers who use a textbook wrote in the
name of the book. Most of these were multi-skill books from major international
publishers, although there was some bias towards books specifically aimed at
the Japanese market. Among the teachers who always or usually use a textbook
(scores 1 or 2) on Question 11, there appeared to be some dissatisfaction about
the quality of EFL content in textbooks (mean score of 2.6 on Question 13 with 1
representing adequate and 5 representing inadequate). Among those who
seldom or never use a textbook, the mean score was 4.0, revealing a strong
tendency towards the inadequate end of the scale. Interestingly, differences
between teachers on use of textbooks are strongly related to experience. The
more experienced the respondents were, the more likely they were to use a textbook regularly.
Most participants (22 out of 28) wrote in comments for Question 14, which
asked for teachers feelings about the cultural content in textbooks in general.
Apart from five generally positive or neutral comments, most were critical.
Among the comments, some patterns emerged. Several teachers expressed
dissatisfaction about the bias in textbooks towards the culture of a particular
country, usually the United States. The stated or implied concern was that such a
bias presents a distorted or one-sided view of both the English language and its
speakers. Alptekin (1993) makes similar claims that textbook authors transmit
the values and beliefs of their own English-speaking society. Tangential to this
viewpoint was the often-expressed comment that cultural content tends to be so
generalised that it is stereotypical. Others criticised the shallow nature of the
content which has been expanded upon by Pennycook (1994) and Prodromou
(1988). Yet another teacher said that culture should be kept simple so that students
are able to grasp new concepts. Two teachers summed up the difficulties facing
publishers and authors by saying that culture is simply too diverse to be
captured effectively in a textbook. Despite such diverse and opposing criticisms,
three teachers thought that textbooks were actually improving in this area.
In the end, there was little agreement over which direction textbook authors
and publishers should go. There appears to be strong opposition to the perceived
bias towards American culture in some textbooks and this was confirmed in
follow-up interviews with some participants. Other participants thought that
textbooks treated culture too superficially. Yet, when textbook authors delve

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deeper they appear to be subject to charges of being ethnocentric, and stereotypical, two frequent words that turned up in the questionnaire.
At the end of the questionnaire, about half of the participants took the opportunity to make comments about culture in the Japanese EFL context. Remarks
were wide-ranging without any specific patterns arising. However, several
teachers mentioned the importance of putting students in a position where they
could discover both their own culture or the target languages culture by themselves. Three teachers remained unconvinced that it is the teachers job to introduce cultural elements into their language classes. This supports Kramschs
notion (1993) that culture can become invisible to teachers. Interestingly, two
teachers felt that it is the teacher him or herself, not the text who the richest source
of culture, implying that textbooks should stay clear of cultural elements.

Conclusion
The purpose of this project has been to learn more about teachers attitudes
towards the role of culture in the foreign language classroom.The sample used to
attain data was small, somewhat non-random and confined to native
English-speaking teachers at Japanese universities. Accordingly, it is doubtful
whether the results can be generalised to a larger population. No attempt was
made to build models based on the participants experience or nationality.
Rather, the project attempts to describe the attitudes of teachers towards various
aspects of teaching culture.
The results of the study do point strongly to certain tendencies among teachers. Apart from a few exceptions, teachers clearly felt that culture has an important role to play in their classes. Furthermore, most of the teachers included
cultural information as part of their language teaching, although it appears to be
introduced more randomly than other aspects of their teaching. This less rigorous approach suggests that culture plays a secondary, supportive role to
language. When cultural elements are discussed, there was a tendency for the
teachers to prefer overt over covert culture.
In perhaps the most significant finding of this study, teachers clearly believed
in the importance of adapting their teaching style to dovetail with the cultural
expectations of the students. Write-in responses indicate that teachers had given
serious thought and taken action to make changes in their teaching style based on
the observation of their students behavior. In many ways, these adaptations
show concordance. For those few teachers whose responses showed a general
scepticism about the importance of culture in EFL, it is suggested that they may
not have been conscious of their own sociocultural identity, as per the findings of
Duff and Uchida (1997).
Teachers showed some ambivalence about the cultural content in textbooks.
Generally, comments were negative with concerns about stereotyping, the
American bias, and the superficial nature of the content. Few solutions were
offered, perhaps because teachers were aware of the difficulty of reaching a satisfactory balance that would please all teachers.
Future directions for research in this area point to widening the sample
beyond the narrow focus of this study. Both non-native English-speaking teachers and ESL teachers may show different views about the teaching of culture

302

Language, Culture and Curriculum

which could prove useful for either model-building or textbook authors and
publishers.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Dan Robertson who made helpful comments on an
earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to thank the 28 participants who
supplied their time and effort to produce the data.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Paul Stapleton, Institute of
Language and Culture Studies, Hokkaido University, Kita 17 Nishi 8, Sapporo
0060-0817, Japan (paul@ilcs.hokudai.ac.jp).
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Appendix: Survey Culture in the EFL Classroom in Japan

The purpose of this survey is to understand more about whether and how culture is conveyed
and used as a teaching tool by native English speaking teachers of EFL in Japanese post-secondary
institutions. I sincerely appreciate your help in filling out this form.

Demographic information
Institution (circle one)

University

Junior college

other ______

Number of years teaching

at post-secondary level

(circle one)

<5

510

>10

Nationality _____________
Course

information

Average number of students in your English courses _____

Main skill focus(es) of the courses you teach (circle a maximum of three)
Speaking Listening Reading Writing

Multi-skill

Culture content
1.

2.
3.

4.

5.

Do you think it is important for EFL

teachers to include aspects of the target
languages culture as part of their
classroom teaching?
Do you include cultural information
about your native country or English
language culture in your classes?
If you do include cultural content as
per 2, is your cultural content planned
or or is it introduced spontaneously?

1
2
Very important

5
Unimportant
Please circle one.

1
Always

1
Always
planned
1
Always

4
5
Unplanned

_______
3
4

If you do include cultural content as

per 2, is that information concerned
with factual/overt culture, e.g. food,
music, people, housing, etc?
Can you give your own example?
If you do include cultural content as
1
per 2, is that information concerned
Always
with covert culture, e.g. values, beliefs,
attitudes, etc?
Can you give your own example?

5
Never
6
Not
applicable
5
6
Never
Not
applicable

5
Never

Language and culture

6. Do you teach cultural aspects of language
where English differs from Japanese, e.g.
modesty, use of first/last names,
giving/responding to compliments, etc. as
part of your class?
Can you give you own example?
7. If you do for 1, do you explain wider
aspects of this behavior, e.g.
individualism/group-orientation, at the
same time?
Can you give your own example?

1
Always

5
Never

Please circle one.

1
Always

_______
3
4

5
Never

6
Not
applicable

Cultures Role in TEFL

305

8. If you do (for 1), do you provide

contrastive cultural examples? For
example, In Japanese you say this but in
English we say that.
Can you give your own example?
9. Are these cultural aspects found in the
published texts that you use?

_______
3
4

Always

1
Always

4
Never

5
Never

6
I dont
use a text

Cultural adjustments
10. Have you adjusted your
teaching style based on
your knowledge of your
students culture since
beginning teaching in
Japan?
Can you give your own
example?

Yes / No

(please circle one)

Published materials
11.
12.

13.

14.

Do you use textbooks in your

classes?
If you do, do your textbooks
include any cultural
information?
How do you feel about the
quality of cultural content in
EFL textbooks?
What are your feelings about the
cultural content in EFL
textbooks in general?

Always/Never
Yes / No

1
Adequate

5
Inadequate

Summary
Please use the space below (or a separate sheet) to write any further comments about culture in the
Japanese EFL context that you may feel appropriate.

Thanks for helping me with this study. If you would like a copy of the findings, please supply
your name and address below.