Culture and Intercultural Competence Incorporated in the English Textbook for Senior High School

Ulin Nuha

Abstract


Cultural elements in textbooks are essential to support intercultural competence. By providing textbooks with text containing cultural elements and cross-cultural competence, language learners are not only prepared linguistically but also culturally. Since proficiency in English is not enough without intercultural competence, some English textbooks in Indonesia highlight cultural and intercultural competence to support their contents. The writer is interested in analyzing the content of an English textbook issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia, entitled “Bahasa Inggris,” which is a revised edition of 2018 grade XII. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method and content analysis technique. Several theories were used to analyze the textbook. First, the writer used Xiao's theory to analyze cultural themes. Second, the writer used Cortazzi and Jin's theory to analyze types of culture. Third, the writer used Byram's theory to analyze intercultural competence in the textbook. The study shows that cultural contents are represented in several cultural themes, namely Big ‘C’ and Little ‘c’ culture, using Xiao’s theory. Then, by using COrtazzi and Jin’s theory, they represent three types of culture, namely source culture/local culture, target culture, and international culture. According to Bryram’s theory, intercultural competence can also be found in pictures, texts, and tasks. This competence includes knowledge, skills, and attitude. The cultural themes displayed in the textbook are dominated by the cultural themes of education. The cultural contents represented in the textbook mostly adopt Indonesian local culture, and the textbook has met the competence categories required by the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia, even though it has not met the intercultural competence category conceptualized by Byram because of the absence of critical awareness category on task material in the textbook.


Keywords


culture, English language, intercultural competences

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21043/jetli.v7i2.27571

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