The Attitudes of Language Teachers towards Promoting Western Consumer Culture in English Language Books

Although English language has always been an efficient tool in the field of international communications, teaching this language can be a covert instrument for promoting the Western consumer culture. English language books are considered among the major mechanisms for transmission of Western culture. This study aims at studying the attitudes of English language teachers towards promoting Western consumer culture in English language books in English language schools. Theoretical Framework: Recent studies confirm that the increasing expansion of language schools and language teaching courses throughout the country have enhanced students’ tendencies to getting familiar with the Western culture and learning the lifestyle of the Western societies. The new foreign language teaching methods based on the theories of cross-cultural relations not only consider the use of the target culture as a language learning tool, but they deem that the basis of language learning is the transmission of cultural information. Consumerism as a heritage imposed by the Western civilization on developing countries is among the phenomena that can be easily and quickly transmitted to language learners through the English language books. The method of the present study is descriptive survey. To assess the attitudes of the English language teachers towards the promotion of the Western consumer culture in English language teaching books, 60 language teachers working in language schools of Tehran were selected through availability sampling. The data collection instrument was a self-made questionnaire. The validity of this instrument was calculated using the internal method with an alpha coefficient of 0.84. The English language teachers evaluated in this study believe that the English language books play a little role in correcting consumption pattern and transmit the Western consumer culture in two major ways: 1) transmission of the Western inappropriate nutrition culture (the use of fast food and eating in restaurants instead of eating home-made foods), and 2) lack of proper materials related to correct energy consumption and economizing. The real and reasonable correction of consumption pattern depends not only on understanding economic problems but also developing awareness towards the cultural and social origins of the consumptionbehaviors of individuals. Therefore, monitoring the content of the language teaching books and attempts aimed at developing language teaching materials compatible with correction of consumption and behavioral patterns and discouragement of consumerism in these books should be carried out within the framework of the educational plantings of the country.