FACTORS AFFECTING INTEGRATION OF LOCAL CULTURE IN SAUDI ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS

Language and culture are perhaps inseparable; however, foreign language and local culture may not be compatible with each other. Therefore, integration of local culture (Arab) in foreign (English) language teaching is cynically questioned. Studies support the notion that foreign language teaching can be boosted by the incorporation of foreign (British) culture in the target language (English) classroom. But, the application of local culture in the target language classroom poses great challenges as many factors affect the process such as: teachers’ native background, L2 teachers’ experience in native countries, L2 teachers’ preferences, teachers’ lack of local culture’s perception, lack of bilingual or multicultural awareness, administrators’ attitude towards local culture integration, students’ liking for native teacher and native contents, and traditional method of teaching English. Integration of local culture is required if the current books don’t have enough local material, and books are written by foreign authors. In short, the paper explores factors affecting integration of local culture apart from initially eliciting some advantages of Arab culture in English classrooms, and teachers’ preparedness to incorporate local culture. The study is of descriptive type which includes 2 samples: 3 types of teacher-group, and a group of students. The findings of the study lead to innovation of a teaching strategy by incorporating local culture in L2 class for motivating the students further.  Article visualizations