Incorporating Teaching Culture into EFL Undergraduate Classroom to Raise Kurdish Students' Cultural Awareness

Language is a part of culture and the two are closely intertwined. Effective and appropriate learning and using a foreign language require good understanding and knowledge about the culture of that language. Teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) does not only require developing the learners' linguistic competence but also developing their communicative and intercultural competence in order to be able to use the language in real meaningful communicative contexts and to achieve mutual intelligibility. This study aims at assessing EFL teachers' and students' levels of cultural awareness and their attitudes towards incorporating teaching culture into the EFL classes. It also aims to assess the extent to which teachers pay attention to explaining cultural elements in their classes. Data collection was done through two semi-structured questionnaires, one for the teachers and the other for the students, including both quantitative and qualitative questions. The main findings of the study indicate that all the teachers and the majority of the students have a positive attitude towards incorporating teaching culture into the EFL classes. As far as cultural awareness, is concerned, only a small number of the teachers and of the students have knowledge about the English culture and with regard to the extent to which teachers explain cultural references in their classes, only a minority of the teachers’ pay regular attention to explaining them. Therefore, this study recommends and supports incorporating English culture teaching into the EFL classes in general and the undergraduate EFL classes in particular and suggests strategies regarding how to do that.