Integrating Intercultural Education among Arab Speakers in English Classroom

Abstract

Culture is an inseparable part of language education. The paper focuses on the relevance of integrating intercultural education among Arab speakers. The study intends to analyze the impact of task-based learning through cultural education in English classes of Arab speakers at Arab Open University, Oman. The study was designed as a qualitative research for analyzing the effectiveness of integrating intercultural education into English classrooms. It was conducted as a task given to the students in groups where they need to create an e-book. Their e-book should be about a country of their preference and should include the contents that they learned from their coursebook. The students created e-books about four different countries and tried to use the form and structure of their course book. The study helped students to realize the way of contextualizing the learned concept through their e-book by using the vocabulary and grammar of each unit to explain the contents of their e-book. “Canva” graphic design website was used for this task and a rubric was formed to assess their task. Students’ perspective about the new approach was also analyzed qualitatively through an open-ended questionnaire. The new strategy of intercultural language learning led them to learn collaboratively, linguistically, and technically comparing and contrasting other countries’ culture and way of life.