Perceptions and Expectancies of Malaysian Students on Cultural Elements in Foreign Textbooks

Abstract

The role of culture in foreign textbooks has received considerable attention in the past few years. Many argue on the cultural gap between the ESL learners in Malaysia and the usage of foreign textbooks in the teaching and learning of English Language. Thus, this quantitative study explored students’ perceptions and expectancies on cultural elements in a Malaysian secondary foreign textbook entitled Pulse 2, to answer three research questions: (1) What are the students’ perceptions on cultural elements in Pulse 2, (2) What are the students’ expectancies on cultural elements that should be depicted in the textbook and (3) What are the students’ perceptions on culture and cultural learning? A survey was conducted by distributing an adapted version of questionnaire from Xiao. The study found that the students perceive that there is a great absence of Source and International Culture in the book and there is a higher preference for little ‘c’ culture learning as it is the direct outcome of socio-cultural values and positively inclined towards culture learning. In conclusion, there are various aspects that need improvements in constructing textbooks, to produce good language users. Many pedagogical implications were discussed and trends for future research were suggested.