Evaluating the Cultural Appropriacy of Commercial English Language Teaching Textbooks in the Iranian Context

The global spread of English and its role as a lingua franca has created a great demand for learning English worldwide. Up to the present time, this demand has been mostly met by major international publishers of English-speaking countries. However, the promotion of Anglo-American cultural content and ideology through international coursebooks has long been criticized in the EFL settings in which they are used. The current study investigated the cultural appropriacy of these coursebooks for the Iranian context. The main instruments were four researcher-made questionnaires. The questionnaires were first piloted and then administered among 197 teachers and 186 students who were selected based on availability and willingness to cooperate. Next, a one-sample t-test was run on the data and the results showed that the coursebooks spread the hegemony of English. Also, it was found that the coursebooks promote a concept of gender equality which is in contrast with the Iranian concept that assumes equal rights for both sexes in primary rights and not in secondary rights. The findings also suggest that the international teaching materials do not promote nonIslamic western values. Suggestions for developing localized language teaching materials have been put forward.