Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on CALL No.3 July 2016 Pp.169-186
In the Wake of Globalization: Exploring the Teaching of English Civilization
to non-Native Speakers of English in the Digital Age
Norelhouda ATAMENA
Department of English
University of Batna II, Algeria
Hachemi ABOUBOU
University of Batna II, Algeria
Abstract:
The current research paper is an empirical study to ponder over English civilization instruction in this era of fast achievements. Being ourselves a novice teacher of English civilization module, and in collaboration with an expert of the course for thirty-years, we noticed that digital equipment is indispensable to teach the English civilization courses to English as a Foreign Language ( EFL) students, most of whom are brilliantly manipulating most of modern technologies. This study aims at answering two main questions such as whether or not teachers of English civilization at the Department of English ( Batna 2, Algeria) use computer-assisted language learning (CALL), and how CALL approach can be constructively used in delivering the same courses to digital natives. The primary goal of this work is to find out the optimal way of teaching English civilization module to EFL students in the digital (D) epoch. We opted for the ‘mixed methods’ approach to proceed the present study. This can be achieved through administering a questionnaire to EFL students at the Department of English at the University of Batna-2, Algeria, and through interviewing teachers whose field of specialization is civilization at the same department. In doing so, consistency of results can be ensured. The findings showed that the CALL approach is vitally important in teaching civilization courses to EFL students who were born digital. And most interviewees were aware of the insistent inexorableness of CALL in teaching American and British civilization lessons to EFL students under the dominance of electronic brains.
Keywords: CALL, digital natives, EFL setting, English civilization instruction