Theme-Based Culture Capsules and EFL Learners' Multicultural Attitude: The Efficiency of Explicit and Implicit Instruction

• Published in: International journal of progressive education 2017, Vol.13 (1), p.6
• Main Authors: Saeedi, Zari, Fatalaki, Javad Ahmadi, Nazari, Mohammad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cultural Education; Direct Instruction; Efficiency; English (Second Language); Foreign Countries; Incidental Learning; Instructional Effectiveness; Multivariate Analysis; Pretests Posttests; Second Language Learning; Student Attitudes
• ISSN: 1554-5210

The current study aims at gaining insight into the effectiveness of the explicit and implicit instructions of the culture capsules through multimedia resources and tracks EFL learners|' multicultural attitudes. The study sampled 43 advanced EFL learners who took part in speaking courses at Shoukoh and Safiran institutes. The researchers applied one-stage cluster sampling to select two groups of participants. The first group received both input (multimedia resources) and the explicit instruction of L2 culture capsules and the second group were exposed to the same cultural input through the implicit instruction. In order to track down the potential enhancement of the multicultural attitudes of the learners, Munroe and Pearson's (2006) multicultural attitude scale (MASQUE) was administered to the respondents at the pre-test stage and after the treatment phase. In order to have an exhaustive analysis, the researchers evaluated different levels of multicultural attitude, that is, multicultural knowledge, care, and act. The findings of the study, through one-way MANOVA, showed that the learners in the first group significantly outperformed in multicultural knowledge (? = 0.001) and care (? = 0.039), but there was no significant difference between the groups regarding the multicultural act (? = 0.177) at p< 0.05 level of significance. Based on the findings, it can be suggested that the positive multicultural attitude can be achieved through the proper input and explicit instruction.