Investigating Intercultural Awareness: Iranian EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Challenges

Nanbedeh, Samira

Volume 10, Issue 2 (6-2025) IJREE 2025, 10(2): 15-35 | Back to browse issues page

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Nanbedeh S. Investigating Intercultural Awareness: Iranian EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Challenges. IJREE 2025; 10 (2)
URL: http://ijreeonline.com/article-1-976-en.html

Investigating Intercultural Awareness: Iranian EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Challenges

Samira Nanbedeh ^*

Department of English Language and Literature, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

Abstract: (149 Views)

In recent decades, the importance of applying cultural dimension into language pedagogy has received extensive emphasis worldwide. The problem arises when EFL teachers are afraid of referring to cultural notions in their classes just because it seems that they lack sufficient cultural knowledge of the target language. This research study intended to inspect Iranian EFL teachers’ intercultural awareness by evaluating their opinions about the importance of cultural teaching. Sercu et al. (2005) adopted questionnaire was used to gather the anticipated data. The participants were comprised of 102 teachers who were provided with questionnaires in person using hard copies. An interview was conducted as well with participants in order to explore the difficulties they encounter in the way of teaching culture. the collected data were analyzed via statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software. Content analysis was used for analyzing the qualitative data gathered from interview. The results showed that Iranian EFL teachers have favorable opinions about intercultural learning. They were unwilling to implement the intercultural approach to their teaching method because of time constraints, lack of suitable materials, and guidelines. Several implications are emergent from the findings including suggestions for educational policy-makers, material designers, language institutes, and teacher training programs.

Keywords: culture, English language classrooms, EFL teachers, intercultural awareness, language learning

Full-Text [PDF 683 kb] (9 Downloads)

Type of Study: Research | Subject: Special