7. sınıf İngilizce ders kitaplarındaki kültürel öğelerin karşılaştırmalı analizi: Rusya ve Türkiye örneği

One of the goals in learning and teaching English as a foreign language is to increase intercultural competence, therefore, culture must play a key role. In addition, English learners may encounter people from different cultural backgrounds, and accordingly, in order to achieve good communication, students must become familiar with other cultural characteristics such as values and traditions. In this context, coursebooks play an important role in helping students recognize cultural knowledge more easily; Therefore, special attention should be given to cultural elements in coursebooks. This study aims to examine the representation of cultural dimensions from different aspects in the 7th grade coursebooks used in Russia and Türkiye, and to determine the dominance and frequency of cultural dimensions. The "Starlight" coursebook is used in Russia and is recommended by the MESRF (Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation). "Let's Learn English" coursebook has been prepared for secondary schools and İmam Hatip secondary schools in Türkiye and has been offered by the MoNe (Ministry of National Education). A descriptive content analysis was employed to examine cultural aspects of coursebooks from two different countries. In the procedure of data analysis, an interactive model by Huberman and Saldana (2004) was carried out. Within the scope of the study, frameworks such as the culture categorization of Cortazzi and Jin (1999), the culture models of Chastain (1988), Tomalin's and Stempleski (1993), and CEFR (2001) were used. The findings revealed that in both coursebooks the most dominant culture was target culture. As for the other findings, larger half of the coursebook 'Starlight' is dedicated to Big 'C' with the category 'geography'. However, in the coursebook 'Let's Learn English' a great part is occupied by small 'c' with the category 'values, beliefs, and attitudes. The last findings showed that reading skill was the most prominent skill in both coursebooks. The results of the research revealed that coursebooks were quite rich in terms of a variety of cultures. Furthermore, the findings of the study may help teachers, coursebook authors, and designers to fill the necessary and important gaps in the coursebooks.