National identity and intercultural competence in teaching English to Saudi university students in their preparatory year: focus on textbooks and teachers’ perspectives

The study of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Saudi Arabia is still new and evolving. Recently, many university language centres that provide intensive and mandatory English courses for preparatory-year students have been working to develop English teaching methodology using new editions of textbooks. While the government has been working to create social and economic policies that foster cross-cultural communication in a globalising context, there is a need to heighten Saudi citizens’ awareness and understanding of other cultures through education to promote tolerance and acceptance of others, especially given Saudi Arabia’s conservative culture. As such, this study examines the cultural content of English textbooks used to teach preparatory year students at universities in Saudi Arabia and whether these texts achieve a balance between promoting the national identity of Saudi students and fostering intercultural competence. The study adopted a qualitative approach and was conducted through three phases: 1) data collection from textbooks and language institutes’ official websites, 2) assess images and reading activities in textbooks and 3) conduct teacher interviews. The first phase revealed the framework, policies and objectives that language institutes at universities in different regions in Saudi Arabia have applied to teach English and cultural content to preparatory-year students. The second phase showed the cultural representations in the images and reading activities in four sets of special edition textbooks. The last phase clarified how teachers have approached the teaching of cultural topics and their acceptability in the Saudi context. The findings demonstrated key issues regarding the teaching culture surrounding preparatory-year students in universities in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the results showed an absence of a defined and unified language framework and policies for language teaching, which has caused language institutes to use CEFR uncritically when running their intensive English courses. Furthermore, there is a general trend in which the texts present more images in respect to the following cultures in order of prevalence: target culture, international culture, Arabic culture, Islamic culture and Saudi culture. Most frequently, images were found to be related to the categories of social identity and social groups, beliefs and behaviours, socialisation and life cycle and national geography. Reading activities revealed similar results where target and international cultures were the most dominant cultures, and Saudi and Islamic cultures were the least frequently appearing cultures. The questions and contents of reading activities mainly followed the same pattern of providing restricted and stereotyped information about certain cultures. During interviews, Saudi and non-Saudi teachers provided different perspectives and opinions regarding the objectives of English teaching. All teachers saw the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative as a positive development that will encourage pupils to learn about different cultures. The findings of this study prove that the policies and objectives of English teaching and the cultural content in images and reading activities lack or rarely touch on the source culture and national identity. However, teachers still showed an understanding of the context and the importance of national identity for students. According to Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural competence, the cultural content of textbooks revealed that knowledge of different cultures is limited and needs to be more varied. Both discovering and/or interacting, as well as interpreting and relating skills in students need to be further developed by providing questions that generate more negotiation and discussion. This can promote another component of Byram’s model, which is critical cultural awareness among students.