Translation in Language Teaching: How to Fight Back Western Socio-Cultural Elements Represented in EFL Textbooks

The ascent of English language as the jewel in the crown of all the other languages and its recognition as the lingua franca of our time has now been proven to be detrimental to the name and fame of all the other languages. To unpack the issue, every language is culturally embedded therefore, it is apt to consider the linguistic dominance of English also as a socio-cultural phenomenon erasing the distinctive representation of each culture and establishing its imperial hegemony over all the others. In order to investigate the hegemonic dominance of English , two Iranian EFL textbook series currently taught in Iranian language institutes, namely Interchange and Tactics for listening,were undergone a two-step examination. First, it was tried to diagnose those distinctive western-specific cultural elements, which have little, if any, pedagogical value for non-natives speakers and then, the frequency of those elements were measured and presented. In the second part of the study, it was tried to examine the extent to which the use of native language and project based instruction in the class can fight back the western cultural-specific elements. It was suggested that the judicious use of translation in the class and also asking them to work on sociocultural projects related to their own culture can lessen the negative cultural effects of English language. The results were discussed and the implications for curriculum designers and other practitioners were made