Raising Thai EFL Primary School Teachers’ Cultural Awareness through Lesson Designs
Keywords:
Cultural Awareness, EFL Teachers, Lesson Design, Primary School, Teaching CultureAbstract
Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is essential in a world characterized by cultural diversity. EFL teachers have played a major role in developing this competence. Therefore, the research objectives were: to study Thai EFL teachers’ perception of the characteristics of culture, the roles of culture in ELT, and ICC before and after lesson design activities, and to study their cultural awareness after those activities. The participants were 30 Thai EFL primary school teachers from Loei province. The data collection was conducted using a rating scale questionnaire and an observation form. The findings revealed changes in the participants’ perceptions of the aforementioned issues, reflecting more flexible and realistic perspectives. They rated the belief that culture was the core knowledge to be incorporated in ELT at the highest level, and expressed a higher agreement that cultural aspects were key elements for developing intercultural competence. The changes were also reflected through their lesson designs, showing that the topics related to little-c cultural aspects with cultural awareness indicators covering the four criteria: intercultural attitudes, cultural knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, and skills of discovery or interaction. The latter indicator was found at the highest degree among all of them. Thus, the Thai EFL primary school teachers’ cultural awareness was raised significantly and resulted in their increased understanding of how to cultivate learners’ ICC with cultural awareness.
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