Résumé:
Culture and language are inseparable in their essence; thus, any textbook developed
for Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) should consider integrating cultural aspects for learners
to function effectively in an increasingly multicultural world. Indeed, Intercultural
Competence (IC) has emerged as an important goal of Foreign Language (FL) education,
necessitating Intercultural Language Teaching (IcLT) in an intercultural learning
environment. This exploratory study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the
content of the New Headway "intermediate" (4th ed.) textbook by probing into its
interculturality. The study also seeks to evaluate the intermediate-level teaching instruction at
the Centre of Language Intensive Teaching (CEIL) at Tebessa University. Content analysis of
data collected from textbook analysis and observation checklist answered the research
questions. Indeed, the findings reveal that the textbook introduces a significant amount of
intercultural material for learners to be mediators between their cultures and the foreign ones,
making it an appropriate intercultural resource for both learners and teachers. Besides,
observations evince that the principles of IcLT are used to a certain extent, for the teacher
observed somewhat succeeded in incorporating intercultural instances while she sometimes
totally ignored some elements in the textbook that trigger IC. This research suggests a set of
recommendations and pedagogical implications that aim at improving textbook
implementation and at encouraging selectivity of teaching materials that develop intercultural
speakers and mediators rather than native-like speakers.
Keywords: Intercultural Competence (IC), Intercultural Language Teaching (IcLT),
New Headway, textbookanalysis
