Representation of Intercultural Communicative Competence in ELT Textbooks: Global Vs. Local Values

ABSTRACT In this study, an attempt is made to probe two sets of widely used ELT textbooks in the Iranian context based on the representation of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). In accord with the theoretical assumptions underlying ICC, we analysed seven English textbooks to find out how they take into consideration the intercultural components including intercultural knowledge, intercultural attitude, and intercultural skills. This paper manifested that unlike the locally produced Iranian Vision series, the Top Notch series was found to take a much broader international approach in representing cultural elements associated with the development of language learners’ ICC. The Vision series has failed to include diverse intercultural components. This alienation is highlighted through insufficient references to the target (or other) cultures, whereby it results in the deprivation of language learners from the authentic, real-life cultural contexts, which adversely affects the development of language learners’ intercultural competence.