Ideologies in the Imported English Textbooks: EFL learners and Teachers’ Awareness and Attitude

Abstract

imported instructional English textbooks in Iran and the learners’ attitudes towards English. Further, the instructors’ awareness of these ideologies was examined through a questionnaire. To find the ideological values, a content analysis of conversations, texts, and pictorial prompts in Spectrum and True to Life English textbook series was conducted and the extant ideologies were categorized and statistically analyzed. The results showed that imported textbooks tend to represent particular ideologies and cultural values. The most prevalent ideologies were hegemony of English, sexism, and cultural stereotypes. To discover the learners’ attitudes towards English, a 35-item questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed by the researchers. The results showed that institute learners and high-school students have different attitudes towards English. Finally, language teachers’ awareness of ideologies in the textbooks was also examined. It was found that institute teachers are aware of the ideologies but they were not very much concerned with teaching or raising awareness about them.

Keywords

• v: attitude
• ideology
• imported textbooks
• awareness