Culture is present in a language classroom, whether it is explicitly mentioned or hidden in the context of various activities and exercises used to teach a foreign language. The most commonly used didactic tool in the classroom is a coursebook, which means that learners receive a lot of cultural information through it.
The aim of the study is to examine the cultural content of primary school coursebooks in Slovenia, where English is taught as the first foreign language. The study examines the three most commonly used coursebooks in Slovenian primary schools, in particular the coursebooks used in the 7th grade of primary school. Using content analysis, the analysis provides some insights into the distribution of cultural information about the target culture of the countries belonging to the so-called inner circle of countries where English is the first language. The coursebooks are examined unit by unit to investigate the distribution of cultural references to the countries to which the cultural information refers. This paper also focuses on the way these references are presented, whether the cultural information references only surface elements of culture or does it also contain deep cultural elements.
For the purpose of the study, the theoretical part of the paper examines the concept of culture and its connection to language and, consequently, to language teaching. The paper also presents the value of including cultural awareness and how it can be developed during the teaching process. Since the thesis focuses on the cultural material in the coursebooks, their role is explained in more detail. The empirical part descriptively presents the results of the analysis for each coursebook and is supplemented with graphs and charts for better illustration. At the end of the paper, a comparison of the cultural content of all three coursebooks is presented.
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