SITUATING LOCAL CULTURE IN ELT MATERIAL DESIGN IN THE INDONESIAN EFL CONTEXT

Abstract

The teaching of English using materials that adopts the target culture has been hotly debated in the last decades. Most ELT materials adopt the target culture without weighing how local cultures enrich the materials. This makes it difficult for students to understand the English materials as they encounter linguistic resources and social practices that are alien to the students. This article addresses how local cultures can be integrated into ELT materials in the Indonesian EFL context. It briefly discusses four critical issues in integrating local cultures into ELT materials, including: (1) topic selection, (2) the use of visual aids, (3) learning tasks, and (4) materials evaluation. The article also discusses the implementation of incorporating local cultures into classroom materials, and provides some step-by-step guidelines for local culture oriented ELT material design. The study argues that when learning a target language (e.g., English), students need to be aware of how their local cultures enrich their linguistic resources and social practices, thereby making their language learning more meaningful.