Xiangxiang Liu

The Representation of Foreign Cultures in EFL Textbooks Xiangxiang Liu

It has been argued that, since English is used as an international or global language, the cultural content of English language teaching materials should not be limited to native English-speaking cultures. Therefore, firstly, the book discovers whether the foreign cultures in these textbooks reflect the status of English as an international language by quantifying and analyzing the representations of sample EFL textbooks from the perspectives of both breadth and depth of those representations. Secondly, the book reveals the perception of senior high school students and teachers (aged between 16 and 18) on the foreign culture content in their textbooks and to what extent the textbooks are helpful to cultivate the so-called "intercultural communicative competence". With regards to textbook evaluation, there are few criteria that focus on cultural aspect, especially foreign culture evaluation, while this book provides a more specific checklist and classification for the evaluation of representations of foreign culture.