A study of cultural awareness of English teachers at a primary school level in the municipal area of Srisaket province

Teachers' awareness of culture has been believed to influence students' increased interest in the target language (Flewelling, 1994). It also helps develop learners' communicative aspect of language being learnt. This view towards foreign language instruction, nonetheless, has not been evident in language classroom in primary schools of Srisaket province. It was observed that a number of Thai English language teachers in the municipal area express concern about their uncertainty when encountering vocabulary items which carry cultural connotation (e.g. Chrismas carol, popcorn, daisy).
To this base, the present study was conducted to mainly investigate whether or not primary school English teachers in the municipal area of Srisaket province have cultural awareness when dealing with culture-bound vocabulary presented in Phathomsuksa (a primary level) 4-5-6 English textbooks. Subjects of this study were 30 primary school English teachers from private and public schools in the municipal area of Srisaket province. They were required to take a multiple-choice test which focusses on an understanding of cultural specific lexical items found in the textbooks used in their own classrooms.
Results obtained from this study revealed that Thai English teachers were likely to lack cultural awareness of the target language. This may, in turn, cuase misunderstanding among learners. Moreover, it was found that the obvious lack of cultural resources as seen in limited cultural information in classroom textbooks makes it hard for teachers to become aware of the culture of the target language.