Intercultural Communicative Competence in Middle SchoolTextbooks:A Comparative Study of the InterculturalRepresentationBetween the First Generation‘Spotlight on English,Book Three’ and the Second Generation‘My Book of English,YearThree’

Abstract

The textbookmaintains a pivotal position as the primaryinstructionalresourcewithinclassrooms. In ForeignLanguageTeaching (FLT) contexts, itis crucial for textbooks to integrate cultural components to providelearnerswith the necessaryskills to navigate and interacteffectively in a variegateduniversal culture. Thereby, Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) has become a vital objective within the realm of FLT;hence, implementingInterculturalLanguageTeaching (IcLT) has become a necessitywithin an environmentthatfostersinterculturallearning. Therefore, thisstudyaims to conduct a comparative analysisbetween‘SpotlightonEnglish,BookThree’ and ‘My Book of English, YearThree ’based on Deardorff’sframework of ICC. Analysis of data collectedfromboththird-year middle schoolold and new generationtextbooks and the interview addressed the research questions. The findingsrevealthat‘Spotlight on English, Book Three’is more impactful in fostering ICC compared to ‘My Book of English, YearThree’ as itrevealsmuch more intercultural dimensions. Besides, the interview exhibitsteachers' awareness of the relevance of intercultural and cultural content in improvinglearners' ICC. Moreover, Middle schoolteachersprefer the old-generationtextbook over the second-generationtextbook due to itscomprehensive cultural content, whilecriticizing the latter for not meeting the expectations and demands of interculturaleducation in terms of content, tasks, and promotingcritical cultural understanding .This researchrecommendsimprovingtextbookimplementation and adaptinginterculturaltasks to stimulate ICC components.