Content Analysis of Internationally Developed English Coursebooks: The Case of Summit 1a and Viewpoint 1

The growing interest in learning English language as an international language through international textbooks has necessitated the need for the evaluation of the cultural content embedded in English coursebooks. With regard to the close interrelation of language and culture, this study investigated the extent to which cultural aspects are represented in two international EFL textbooks. To this end, content analysis was used to analyze two commercial coursebooks (i.e., Summit 1a and Viewpoint 1), which are used in Iranian language institutes. The results of the directed content analysis revealed that two subcategories emerged from the content analysis (i.e., technology and environment), which were coded as an off-list category. Therefore, it was found that the reevaluation and extension of Stern’s (1993) framework for culture is necessary. Moreover, the results of the quantitative content analysis showed that there was not a balanced representation of cultural aspects in the selected coursebooks and the most frequent element was individual values in life. In addition, it was found that there was significant variation between the two coursebooks in the representation of culture. The study concluded that more in-depth investigation of cultural content is needed to develop cultural awareness of language learners. This study has implications for language material developers, language teachers, and language learners.