Los elementos culturales en los libros de texto de ELE para adolescentes: propuesta de criterios de análisis
Cultural Contents in Spanish as a Foreign Language Coursebooks for Adolescents: Proposal of Analysis Criteria

Summary/Abstract: In the foreign language classroom, intercultural communicative competence is a means of communication and socialization, enabling learners to establish a relationship between a foreign and their own culture as well as to mediate between them whereby foreign language coursebooks play a key role. In teaching Spanish as a foreign language, this poses a particular challenge because of the considerable heterogeneity and cultural richness of Spanish-speaking countries, as well as the diversity of Spanish language varieties. The aim of our paper is to propose analysis criteria which would enable the presence, characteristics and ways of representation of selected types of cultural content in a coursebook to be determined, applied to a coursebook aimed at adolescent learners. The results indicate that intercultural communicative competence is highly present and embedded throughout the analyzed coursebook reinforcing the strong relationship between language and culture, and that the cultural diversity of the Hispanic world is represented. However, areas for potential improvement have been observed, such as reducing the dominance of cultural references, maintaining a better balance between the skills developed in the activities containing cultural elements, and promoting greater awareness of learners’ own culture.

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