Attitudes of U.S. Foreign Language Teachers Toward Teaching Culture

The National Standards for Foreign Language Teaching delineate broad goal areas for foreign language teaching in the U.S. with the overarching goal of “educating students who are linguistically and culturally equipped to communicate successfully in a pluralistic American society and abroad” (NSFLL, 1996). These five goal areas Communication, Culture, Connections, Communities and Comparisons, frame national language curricula. However even with such a stated focus on preparing students to function in a multicultural, multilingual world, previous research has shown that language teaching often is solely prioritized in foreign language classrooms in the United States. This study examines whether or not contemporary foreign language teachers from across the U.S. still engage in the common practice of teaching about culture at the surface level or whether or not they lead students to a deeper understanding of how cultural products, practices, and perspectives are related