Assessing Cultural Awareness of Basic School Teachers of "Sunrise Program"

Barham Sattar Abdulrahman; Rawaz Jamal Amin

doi:10.25098/2.2.28

Authors

Barham Sattar Abdulrahman
Rawaz Jamal Amin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25098/2.2.28

Keywords:

Cultural Awareness, TEFL, Sunrise Program

Abstract

This study focuses on the socio-cultural aspect of English language in Sunrise Program designed for Iraqi Kurdistan Region; it investigates basic school teachers' (Henceforth BSTS) awareness of this fundamental aspect in the course of teaching English as a foreign language. The study hypothesizes that most of the teachers are not fully aware of the socio-cultural dimension of the English language, and their awareness at the level of recognition is higher than that of production. To investigate the hypotheses, the researchers design a test of twenty items to examine the performance of thirty teachers in (7th, 8th, and 9th) grades in Sulaimani city schools. The study concludes that teachers' lack of socio-cultural knowledge makes them unable to adequately shape and guide their students' learning process, and consequently leads to students' first language interference.

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