Investigating the Role of the Subject Cultural Studies in Developing Students’ Intercultural Reading Skills

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to investigate and explore the status of culture teaching in EFL classes as well as to investigate the role of the content of the cultural syllabus in developing student intercultural reading skills. To carry out this research, a multiple case study has been used in the department of English at the University of Abdelhamid Ibn Badis of Mostaganem, where third year license students and second year master students of Didactics of Foreign languages have been selected as a sample. During data collection, the researcher used two research instruments, namely a questionnaire and interview. Students‟ questionnaire is tended to explore third year students‟ awareness and recognition of other cultures when reading. Whereas students‟ interview is an attempt to investigate the role of the cultural syllabus‟ content in helping learners to read along the cultural dimension of the language and whether it could help them to develop intercultural reading skills. The results indicate that most of third year students focus on language only when reading in contrast to master two students who are likely to take the cultural aspect of the reading process. The results show also that the content of the cultural syllabus proves, to a given extent, to be effective and helpful in developing learners‟ intercultural reading skills.