Do Instructors’ Perceptions on Teaching Culture in Foreign Language Classroom Make a Difference: Lessons from a Qualitative Study of Language Instructors and Learners

Abstract

The Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (1996; 2006) listed culture as one of five goals of learning a foreign language. However, the perceptions of foreign language instructors towards the teaching of culture and their effects on students’ foreign language learning remain unclear. This study involved six instructors from five different foreign language programs and four undergraduate students who are enrolled in the current language programs. Documents, classroom observations, and interviews were collected and analyzed to report the findings. The results indicated that instructors’ perceptions on teaching culture in foreign language classroom did make a difference in students’ learning and teaching a foreign language.

Keywords

• The teaching of culture, perceptions, instructors, culture teaching and learning, qualitative study

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