Language Learners’ Attitudes towards the Incorporation of Target Language Culture into Foreign Language Instructions

Abstract

The significance of familiarity with and interest in the cultural features of the target language society has been highly recognized. The present study investigated the attitude of Iranian language learners towards the incorporation of cultural components of the target language community into their classroom instructions from affective, cognitive, and behavioral viewpoints. The data were collected through the completion of a 12-item Likert scale attitude questionnaire by 47 Iranian adult intermediate-level learners of English as a foreign language at a language institute in Iran, following a semester-long cultural instructions. The findings suggested that Iranian language learners have overall positive attitudes towards learning about the target language culture and this positive attitude is evident within affective, behavioral, and more significantly cognitive domains. The pedagogical implications of the study suggested integration of target language cultural components into every language classroom instruction.