Standing at the Poolside Without Diving In: An Analysis of Five Intercultural Communication Textbooks Published as EFL Teaching Materials for the Japanese Higher Education Market

要旨

The aim of this study is to analyze the style and content of five intercultural communication EFL (English as a foreign language) textbooks aimed at the Japanese higher education market. Japanese publishing companies produce a wide range of textbooks which are commonly designed to be used as the basis for the EFL courses offered as part of the general education curricula at universities in Japan. This study is a survey of five such textbooks covering the subject of intercultural communication. The results of the analysis reveal a common omission in all of the textbooks. In addition to a general avoidance of controversial topics which can be serious barriers to intercultural communication, the textbooks in this survey also appear reluctant to encourage students explicitly to engage proactively in intercultural communication for themselves. This paper hypothesizes that this may be a conscious avoidance of putting pressure on students to do something which some of them may consider challenging.