English as a foreign/second language (ESL) in Slovenian primary schools has been strongly influenced by communicative competence based teaching. As such, cultural content in ESL classrooms has become significantly more important in recent years. This MA thesis presents cultural content (products, practices, perspectives) as the content knowledge teachers of English (in Slovenian primary schools) need to acquire to be able to reach the goals presented in the curriculum for ESL. The work analyses the cultural content in textbooks as well as how teachers of English perceive and define them in their classrooms. As part of this, we also analyse the recontextualisation of cultural content into forms of knowledge being taught to students. We take a look at recontextualisation at a macro level (textbook analyses) and micro level (interviews). The textbook analyses provides an objective representation of cultural content in ESL. The interviews were carried out with eight interviewees who are teachers of English in Slovenian primary schools, teaching from grade six to nine. We have devised the questions to acquire information on the teachers' dispositions and cultural capital (in its embodied and institutionalised state). The findings have then been viewed through the concept of recontextualisation on the micro level to see how dispositions and cultural capital influence the development of sensibility to cultural content. The goal of the MA thesis is to highlight why sensitivity to cultural content should be discussed as an important competence for ESL teachers in primary schools.
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