EXAMINING INTERNATIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL ISSUES IN PALESTINIAN ENGLISH TEACHING TEXTBOOKS

Jehad Faraj; Andrea Roxana Bellot; Anca Daniela Frumuselu

doi:10.15639/teflinjournal.v35i1/1-18

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Jehad Faraj
jehadt.faraj@estudiants.urv.cat
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Palestine, State of https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1240-2838
Andrea Roxana Bellot Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0561-2132
Anca Daniela Frumuselu Universitat de Lleida, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4395-7841

Vol. 35 No. 1 (2024)

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This study examines international and intercultural issues in the English for Palestine textbook series, specifically evaluating intercultural comparisons, mutual representations, and relations in terms of their effectiveness in enhancing students’ cross-cultural communication skills. The examination of the textbooks employed a qualitative methodology, enriched by the inclusion of quantitative components. The findings show that the textbooks under investigation comprise an insufficient and inadequate amount of international and intercultural issues, consisting of celebratory topics of surface culture with very little attention paid to conflictive aspects of deep culture. This study is a reminder of the importance of appropriate intercultural components in developing students’ critical thinking skills and minimizing intercultural misunderstandings. Hence, it aims to sensitize stakeholders and teachers to the potential losses associated with poor representations of international and intercultural issues in English teaching textbooks. Consequently, it urges them to take action by either amending the textbooks or using supplementary material to compensate for the identified lapses.

Faraj, J., Bellot, A. R., & Frumuselu, A. D. (2024). EXAMINING INTERNATIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL ISSUES IN PALESTINIAN ENGLISH TEACHING TEXTBOOKS. TEFLIN Journal, 35(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v35i1/1-18

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Jehad Faraj, Universitat Rovira i Virgili

First Author/Corresponding author

Jehad Faraj is a PhD student at the Department of English and German Studies, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain. He has a master’s in TEFL from Universitat Rovira i Virgili and a postgraduate diploma in TAFL from London University. His research interests include education in conflict societies, culture in EFL classrooms and censorship of school textbooks. He has worked for over a ten-year period as an English teacher at several state schools in Palestine, and a teacher of Arabic as a foreign language at Duke University in the United States.

Andrea Roxana Bellot, Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Andrea Bellot is a research fellow at the Department of English and German Studies, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain. Her research interests include war studies, literary and cultural representations of war and teaching culture in the EFL/ESL classroom.

Anca Daniela Frumuselu, Universitat de Lleida

Anca Daniela Frumuselu is a serra húnter lecturer at the Department of English and Linguistics, University of Lleida, Spain. Her research focuses on teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), intercultural competence and virtual exchanges, audio-visual translation and subtitling in the EFL, the use of new technologies, e-learning, m-learning and gamification in the EFL classroom.

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