how teachers censor and adapt

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This article takes as its starting point a small survey of teachers' attitudes
to aspects of cultural content in ELT reading materials. The aim of this
exploratory study was to elicit some of the salient issues in teachers'
thinking about coursebook cultural content, and to suggest a possible di-
rection for further investigation. The results of the survey identify a num-
ber of areas where cultural content is often reshaped (or censored) by
teachers. The article concludes by advocating the need to recognize the
coursebook's status as cultural artefact, and suggests that critical en-
gagement with cultural content makes both cross-cultural and educational
sense.

Imttrodudtiom In Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948: 92), T. S. Eliot wrote:
Even the humblest material artefact which is the product and the
symbol of a particular civilisation, is an emissary of the culture out of
which it comes.
While Eliot's comment was not made in reference to ELT materials, it
provides those of us involved in language teaching with an appropriate
point of departure for reflection. ELT materials produced in Britain and
the United States for use in classrooms around the world are sources not
only of grammar, lexis, and activities for language practice, but, like
Levi's jeans and Coca Cola, commodities which are imbued with cultural
promise. In the case of ELT coursebooks, it is the promise of entry into
an international speech community which is represented in what tend to
be very idealized terms.

The coursebook as It is precisely the ambassadorial aspect of the ELT coursebook which
ambassador has led to recent criticisms. Phillipson (1992: 60) sees the promotion of
the British global coursebook as a government-backed enterprise with
an economic and ideological agenda aimed ultimately at boosting
commerce and the dissemination of ideas. Prodromou (1988) is also
critical, but focuses more on what he sees as the alienating effects of such
materials on students, and how they can produce a disengagement with
learning. Neither have foreign governments or their state school
employees been oblivious to the cultural content to be found in
materials produced for global consumption. Thus, Moroccan teachers of
English have expressed their concern about the danger of 'the erosion of
belief in the ability of native culture and language to deal with the

274 ELT Journal Volume 54/3 July 2000 © Oxford University Press 2000
 modern world' (Hyde 1994: 296), while Saudi Arabia and China have
gone to the extreme of producing materials with almost no references to
English-speaking cultures.

Reshaping cultural Just as Coca Cola can be used in popular (if theologically unorthodox)
content religious ceremonies in Central America, so too are coursebooks subject

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(at least in theory) to change in the language classroom. Thus, in Torres'
study of the use of an ESP coursebook in several classrooms (in
Hutchinson and Torres 1994: 325) it was noted that:
teachers and learners do not follow the textbook script. Most often
teachers follow their own scripts by adapting or changing textbook-
based tasks, adding new texts or deleting some, changing the
management of the tasks, changing task inputs or expected outputs,
and so on. Moreover, what is also clear from the study is that the
teacher's planned task is reshaped and reinterpreted by the
interaction of teacher and learners during the lesson.
Such reshaping and reinterpretation can be seen as a key element in the
construction of new meanings and in the creation of the culture of the
classroom. Apple (1992: 10) makes a similar point about the importance
of the learners' role in this process, when he suggests that they too (as
well as teachers) 'accept, reinterpret, and reject what counts as
legitimate knowledge selectively'. But how does this happen? Do
learners accept, reinterpret, and reject openly, or is this an internal and
unspoken process? And what motivates teachers in the choices they
make when they set about changing the coursebook? Clearly there are
many questions to be answered.

ELT coursebooks As part of an exploratory study to answer the last of these questions, I
questionnaire asked a number of teachers to complete a short questionnaire on the
cultural content of ELT reading materials (see Appendix 1). The survey
was conducted in 1997, during the autumn term, at International House,
Barcelona. The aim was to find out what teachers think about the
cultural content in ELT coursebooks, and what they should do with
material with which they do not feel comfortable.
The questionnaire was given to 20 teachers. Of this group, 8 were
colleagues I felt would be prepared to co-operate in the survey, and the
remaining 12 were practising teachers taking the UCLES/RSA Diploma
in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults (DTEFLA) course
in the school. Of the 12 who returned the questionnaire, 9 were women
and 3 were men. Seven were experienced RSA DTEFLA teachers (each
having between 10 and 20 years' experience), one was a recently
certificated teacher with less than two years' experience, and four were
RSA DTEFLA candidates currently studying in the school. All the
teachers were native speakers of English, and most were from Britain. It
is important to point out that my aim in this article is not to generalize
from the results of such a small survey—rather, it is to suggest that this is
an area of teacher thinking which merits further research, and also to

The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt 275
 suggest that coursebook content can also be engaged with critically.
The questionnaire was divided into two parts: the first part dealt with
coursebooks familiar to teachers from their own teaching, while the
second part asked for their opinions on a piece of material from a well-
known coursebook for beginners, The Cambridge English Course 1

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(Swan and Walter 1984: 52, see Appendix 2). In the first part, the aim
was to identify the range of topics teachers saw as presenting some kind
of cultural problem in their classrooms, and to discover how this
problematic content was addressed. The second part of the question-
naire was designed to see if the teachers perceived what I considered to
be a culturally-explicit piece of material in more or less the same way.

Questionnaire: All teachers agreed that coursebooks contain cultural information, and
part H that they had sometimes felt uncomfortable with the reading exercises.
The general areas of concern which emerged were stereotypical
representations, mainly of Britain, followed by irrelevant, outdated,
and sexist content. I shall deal with the first of these in some depth, as
this was the main area of concern.

Stereotypical Six of the 12 teachers referred to stereotypical representations of

representations Britain, one referred to negative representations of others, and one to
stereotypical representations of national groups in general. However,
there was considerable variation in the reasons offered for the
discomfort occasioned by such stereotypes, as a selection of their
comments illustrates. Teacher A mentioned the 'cringe factor' involved
in using certain types of material, and gave as an example the bowler-
hatted representation of the 'typical Englishman' in Coursebook 1
(teachers are identified by letters and the coursebooks they mention by
numbers). In similar vein, Teacher B cited the picture painted of British
parenting in Coursebook 2. In answer to Question 4 she stated:
The text painted a very negative picture of British childrearing and
compared it unfavourably with European parenting.
This teacher explained, on returning her questionnaire, that as someone
who lived in Catalonia, and who was also a mother, she felt very unlike
the stereotype represented in the coursebook, and for that reason she
did not want to use the material.
Teacher C was less concerned about his own feelings than about the
possible effect of such stereotypical representation on students:
/ think by accepting stereotypes of one group of people we accept all
stereotypes of all people—some not so complimentary.
Other teachers mentioned the value system of their students as a factor
influencing their approach to materials, where the portrayal of L2
culture could be seen as being at variance with LI cultural values. In the
case of Teachers D and E, in particular, there was also a strong wish not
to be associated with the way in which L2 culture was represented.
These two teachers differ from Teachers A and B in that they seemed to
276 John Gray
 be more concerned with the potentially alienating effect of the material
on their students.
Commenting on Coursebook 4, Teacher D described the material as
follows:
Text about pub culture in England, followed by vocab exercises to do

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with alcoholic drinks, how to order your drink, rounds, etc. (There are
dozens of references to drink and pubs throughout the book.)
His answer to Question 4 outlines the reasons for his discomfort:
Was teaching in Cairo, group included number of women wearing
hijab, also 2 young Al Azhar students. Material obviously irrelevant,
inappropriate probably offensive to some. Constant references to
alcohol seem to imply a culture obsessed with the stuff—didn't feel like
having to defend this.
Teacher E answered Question 3 as follows:
The whole of Coursebook 5—the world seen from a jingoistic British
point of view—old book—this is changing but often find similar
examples.
He explained further in his answer to Question 4:
I'm a 'working-class' Midlander who along with many groups isn't
represented. I don't want to teach my culture/or British culture as if it's
superior to that of my students.
This teacher was alone in stating that as 'working-class' (his quotation
marks) he felt unrepresented in coursebook material, and that the
culture represented in the coursebook conveyed an implicit sense of
superiority which he felt would have been perceptible to students.
However, another teacher did point out that 'many coursebooks seem to
have a very 'straight and middle-class attitude', and this was perceived
by the teacher as being problematic.

Adapting the Of the 12 teachers consulted, six said they dropped material they felt
coursebook uncomfortable with, and one teacher left this question unanswered. The
remaining five said that they adapted material, or would now do so.
Three respondents stated that as beginning teachers they had used the
materials as suggested in the coursebook, but that experience had given
them the confidence to drop materials or adapt them.
Adaptation involved different approaches. Teacher D dropped the
material on alcohol he had felt uncomfortable with, but retained the
functional language the text was designed to teach—a procedure he
described as adaptation in his answer to Question 5.
Teacher D:
[I] changed the situation from pub to school cafeteria—found a tape
with similar language that didn't mention alcohol.

The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt 277
 Teachers C, E, and G all adapted the material by using it, but not as the
coursebobk suggested.
Teacher C:
It was a long time ago. I think I followed it up by asking if stereotypes
were true reflection (sic) of a people/culture.

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Teacher E:
Told them it was stereotypical/laughed about it—got them to tell me
why/their point of view.
Teacher G, unhappy about the sexism of the material she had to use:
/ did it, but made a joke of the whole thing.
At least half the teachers (in an admittedly very small survey) dealt with
what they considered to be inappropriate cultural material by censor-
ship, by which I mean complete abandonment of the material. The
question is why? Is it easier to censor than to adapt? Or do language
teachers see the cultural content as merely incidental, and always
secondary to linguistic aims? Hyde (1994), writing about the Moroccan
situation, argues against censorship and suggests that, however well
intentioned, it robs students of the ability to defend themselves against
the 'possibly harmful concepts and pressures' (ibid.: 302) exerted by
coursebook cultural content. He advocates a more educational and
cross-cultural approach to language teaching:
To be able to select, accept, or reject ideas, concepts, and pressures,
especially those emanating from other and dominant cultures, people
have to be equipped with a good knowlege of their own culture and
history. This provides the bedrock upon which to judge (ibid.: 303).
The teachers in the Barcelona survey are all working in the private
sector. It is possible that, as a consequence of their training and the
context in which they work, they see themselves as technicists rather
than educators, that is, as being essentially specialists trained to develop
language skills only. Pennycook (1994) suggests that the commercializa-
tion of ELT has had precisely this effect on teachers' perceptions of
themselves, and that it serves to perpetuate the notion of language
teaching practices as value free.

Questionnaire: Whatever the Barcelona teachers' views of the precise nature of their
part 2 roles as language teachers, a majority of them rejected the material from
The Cambridge English Course as inappropriate for their language
classrooms.
Of the three teachers who said they would use the material, two saw it as
'light-hearted' and 'humorous', while the third (Teacher E) disliked it,
but felt it could be used to provoke discussion by allowing students to
bring their own cultural perspective to bear on one aspect of the
material:
The stereotypical view of father/daughter relationships, adolescent
behaviour, Tories are preferable to parents etc [is] a bit irksome. On
278 John Gray
 another level, this kind of material can be used to discuss stereotypes
themselves from Catalan perspective i.e. PP/ERC (both political
parties). Stereotypes exist, but can be made relevant to students'
experiences. Students may/may not agree—our job shouldn't be to
judge them!

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The remaining nine teachers said they would not use it for a variety of
reasons:
It seems to be showing British teenagers to be deceitful/drunken, etc.
(and many are) but having it in a book like this condones the
behaviour. There are better ways to teach the Past Simple.
V. stereotypical presentation of British men, parent/child relationship.
It's v culture specific—lying teenagers, sex before marriage, disobe-
dience to parents...
It's embarrassing and unnecessary to use this context to teach the
language. I dislike the image of boy/girl and father/daughter relation-
ships it contains.
Represents a (mercifully) tiny sector of British society—outdated—
ridicules British parenting—The 'kissy-cuddly' bit would either be
inappropriate, of no interest, or acutely incomprehensible to most
groups of learners.
A very liberal attitude to childrearing—especially of girls—unthinkable
in many cultures where girls wouldn't be allowed out unsupervised.
Sexist crap—why didn't she want more?

Analysis of The teachers in this survey are clearly aware of cultural content in ELT
questionnaires reading materials. The questionnaire dealt only with those aspects of
cultural content which made them feel uncomfortable, and elicited
responses to a piece of material which has been modified in the new
edition of The Cambridge English Course (Frank no longer wants more,
but June still lies).
The rationale behind a focus on material that made teachers feel
uncomfortable was that such material is noticeable, in a way that other
material might not be. The questionnaires show that teachers were
concerned mainly with stereotypical representations, especially of L2
cultures, sexist attitudes, relevance or comprehensibility of cultural
material to their students, combined with a wish not to offend students'
cultural sensibilities, and the fact that behaviour which could be seen as
reprehensible was implicitly condoned in the way it was presented in the
coursebook.
However, we cannot deduce what these teachers think about cultural
content which meets with their approval, or to what extent they agree
with Kramsch's (1993: 1) view that

The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt 279
 Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked
on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and
writing. It is always in the background, right from day one, ready to
unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least, making
evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative competence,
challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them.

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To answer these questions, and to find out more about how coursebook
material is mediated by teachers, how learners respond to cultural
content, and how this content is made sense of in the dynamic
interaction of the co-produced lesson (see Allwright 1981, 1991), it
would be necessary to widen the area of investigation to include
learners' voices on how they perceive the cultural content of the
coursebooks they are using, and to observe and analyse classroom
interactions.

Critical Given that teachers tend to be overworked and underpaid, the ready-
engagement: one made nature of global coursebook material means that its days are far
way forward!? from over. There are indeed many excellent coursebooks on the market.
But such material, by its very nature, will vary in its appropriateness, and
consequently tend to be limited in its effectiveness. In an attempt to
maximize the effectiveness of the coursebooks they use, at least half the
teachers in the Barcelona survey opted for censorship. Clearly, certain
topics will be taboo in some educational contexts, and remain
inappropriate for discussion in the language classroom. However,
another option suggested in the survey, and one which I believe we
need to explore further, is that of critical engagement with the
coursebook as a cultural artefact and bearer of messages.
In much ELT material, it has been argued, the student is positioned 'at
the receiving end of a virtually one-way flow of information' (Alptekin
and Alptekin 1984: 15). Although students complete comprehension
tasks on reading and listening texts, there is often little opportunity for
them to respond to or challenge the information they receive from the
perspective of their own culture.
In a survey of 300 Greek students, Prodromou (1992) asked What should
language teaching be about? and concluded from their answers that there
'is quite a strong association in learners' minds between learning a
language and learning about the people who speak that language' (ibid.:
46). He goes on to advocate a cross-cultural approach, where students
are encouraged to make comparisons between their own culture and
those represented in the coursebook. In fact, such an approach to
language teaching is currently being advocated by the Council of
Europe's Educational Committee/Council for Cultural Co-operation.
This could involve devising tasks which allowed students to question the
content of material and actively elicited responses based on LI value
systems. Activities of the kind proposed by Wallace (1992), for example,
to help students read more critically, would encourage greater
engagement with texts and the cultures which produce them. Wallace
280 John Gray
 suggests moving away from an approach to comprehension based on
'finding the right answer'—or at least going beyond this—to one aimed
at raising awareness of alternative ways of writing about a topic. As a
point of departure, she suggests using the framework devised by Kress
(1989) in Wallace (1992) as a way of encouraging students to interrogate
the text:

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(1) Why is this topic being written about?
(2) How is the topic being written about?
(3) What other ways of writing about the topic are there? (ibid.: 71).
Clearly teachers will have to consider the appropriateness of such critical
practices to their particular educational context. However, by engaging
with the coursebook as a bearer of messages, and encouraging our
students to view materials as more than linguistic objects, we are, as well
as developing their language skills, allowing students to voice their own
opinions, and reverse the one-way flow of information. It is at this point,
I would suggest, that the global coursebook can become a useful
instrument for provoking cultural debate and, concomitantly, a genuine
educational tool.
Received June 1999
Acknowledgement Pennycook, A. 1994. The Cultural Politics of
The publisher and author would like to thank English as an International Language. New
Cambridge University Press for permission to York: Longman.
reproduce page 52 from Swan, M. and C. Walter: Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism.
The Cambridge English Course (Cambridge Uni- Oxford: Oxford University Press.
versity Press, 1984). Prodromou, L. 1988. 'English as cultural action'.
ELT Journal 42/2: 73-83.
References Prodromou, L. 1992. 'What culture? Which
AJlwright, D. 1981. 'What do we want teaching culture? Cross-cultural factors in language
materials for?' ELT Journal 36/1: 5-18. learning'. ELT Journal 46/1: 39-50.
AJlwright, D. 1991. "The death of the method'. Swan, M. and C. Walter. 1984. The Cambridge
CRILE Working Paper 10. Centre for Research English Course. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
in Education, University of Lancaster. versity Press.
Alptekin, C. and M. Alptekin. 1984. 'The question Wallace, C. 1992. 'Critical literacy awareness in
of culture: EFL teaching in non-English speak- the EFL classroom' in N. Fairclough (ed.).
ing countries'. ELT Journal 38/1: 14-0.
Critical Language Awareness. London: Long-
Apple, M. 1992. 'The text and cultural polities'.
Educational Researcher 21: 4-11. man.
Eliot, T. S. 1948. Notes towards the Definition of
Culture. London: Faber and Faber.
Kress, G. 1989. Linguistic Processes in Socio-
cultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. The author
Hutchinson, T. and E. Torres. 1994. 'The textbook John Gray teaches at Queen's University, Belfast
as agent of change'. ELT Journal 48/4: 315-27. on the CELTA, DELTA, and MA in ELT
Hyde, M. 1994. 'The teaching of English in programmes. He is currently working towards a
Morocco: the place of culture'. ELT Journal PhD at the Institute of Education, University of
48/4: 295-305. London. His research interests include cultural
Kramsch, C. 1993. Context and Culture in Lan- issues in ELT materials, and teacher training and
guage Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University development.
Press. Email: [email protected]

The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt 281
 Cultural content in ELT reading materials.
1. Do you agree that all coursebooks contain cultural information?
Yes No
Continue if you answered Yes

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2. Have you ever felt uncomfortable with the cultural content of a reading
exercise in a coursebook?
Yes No

3. What was the coursebook, and what was the reading text about?

4. Why were you uncomfortable?

5. What did you do?

a) use it as the coursebook suggested
b) drop it altogether
c) adapt it in some way
If c) briefly explain what you did.

6. Look at the attached page from the old Cambridge English course.
i. In your opinion, what is this text teaching?
ii. Would you use it?
iii. Say what you think of the cultural content. In one or two sentences.

7. How many years have you been teaching?

Thank you for your thoughts and your help.

282 John Gray

Appendix 2

Danced till half past one

go tell get can do come hear {ijral«?) have say know

• Match the present and past

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forms of these irregular verbs. ^iT could went neard said told came had did got knew

A Close your book and listen to the dialogue- See how much you can remember. Then read the
dialogue and the text. Ask your teacher about new words.

FATHER What time did you come home last night, then.
June?
JUNE Oh, I don't know. About half past twelve. I think.
FATHER Hall past twelve? I didn't hear you.
JUNE. Well. 1 came in quietly. I didn't wanl to wake you
up.
FATHER You didn't go to thai damned disco, did you?
JUNE Disco, Daddy? Oh. no. You know t don't like
loud music. No, I went to a tolk concert with
Alice and Mary. It was very good. There was
one singer...
FATHER Why did you come back so late? The concert
didn't go on till midnight, did it?
JUNE No. but we went to Alice's place and had
coffee, and then we started talking about
politics, you know. Alice's boyfriend - he's the
President o) ihe Students" Union Conservative
Club...

Find the differences. Example: •fr Ask some other students what they did
either yesterday or at the weekend. Ask as
many questions as possible. Examples:
'What time did you get up yesterday?'
'Did you come to school by bus?'
'Did you have a bath?'
OR: Jtvu. 60C0C 'What did you have for breakfast?'

52

The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt 283