"Culture and English Language Teaching in Moroccan Higher Education"

Abstract

As achieving intercultural communication is significant for university foreign language students, integrating culture into English Language Teaching (ELT) at the university has doubtless become unavoidable. Specifically, learners’ intercultural understanding may not take place unless their learning experience is motivated by the contribution to and combination of both English language and culture instruction. The aim of this dissertation is to explore the integration of culture in ELT in higher education in Morocco. It also examines the effect this integration of target culture has on students and to what extent it improves their intercultural international communication. Following a cultural analytical approach, this dissertation consists of two major parts. The first part tries to define and historisize both culture and ELT. It also explores these terms in the context of higher education in Morocco. Further, it discusses the most practical approaches to ELT in such a context. Besides, it investigates the teaching and learning of English and its culture in an increasingly digitalized educational environment. The second part is concerned with the fieldwork as a focal element in this research: it begins with an analysis of and commentary on students’ and teachers’ practices and perceptions of the teaching and learning of English and its culture at the university. Finally, it ends with an exposition of the findings and the limitations of this study. The findings of the current study reveal that the teaching of English and its culture at the Moroccan university is a very challenging process as several theoretical and practical considerations are at play. The findings also demonstrate that ELT has a dramatic impact on Moroccan university students of English, especially in framing their perceptions of themselves and of the world. Such an impact is significantly reinforced by the students’ exposure to a different language, English, and to a different culture, the Anglo-American culture. Through this exposure, Moroccan students of English become aware of the fact that there are cultural differences between their native culture and the target culture and that learning English language and its culture is useful and can be integrated in their native culture