The Role of Culture-related Courses in Secondary School EFL Teacher Training Programmes in Hungary

Abstract

It is impossible to become a foreign language teacher without also becoming a teacher of culture at the same time, as including cultural elements in foreign language teaching is indispensable. As a consequence, teacher education must prepare future foreign language teachers to teach not just language, but culture as well. Teachers heavily rely on what they have learned during their training, so the cultural content of EFL teacher education is a highly relevant factor. This study aims to analyse and compare the study unit lists and course descriptions of culture-related courses in the secondary school EFL teacher training programmes at three Hungarian using thematic content analysis. The results show that there are about four or five compulsory culture-related courses at each university, however, while these courses transmit mainly cultural knowledge or develop participants’ intercultural competence, they rarely address how to integrate culture into language teaching. The courses that directly prepare teacher trainees for the integrated teaching of language and culture are offered as electives at most universities even though completing these courses would be beneficial for all future EFL teachers.