Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: Students’ Perception Toward The Inclusion of Target Culture in Teaching English As a Foreign Language

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE INCLUSION OF TARGET
CULTURE IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Hendrata Ary Wibowo
Abstract
This study was conducted to analyze students’ perception toward the inclusion of target culture
in teaching English as a foreign language. The participants of this research study were English
Department students who took American Culture and Literature as the Elective course of this
Department. This study focused on analyzing students’ opinion about target culture in their EFL
learning. The findings showed that the students agree that target culture should be included and
focused in EFL learning but still considers source culture to help the learners understand the
target culture well. The other thing, which is showed in the analysis, is that the purpose of them
learning English in order to be able to communicate with native speaker from the target language
well. Also, the learners learn English in order to communicate with their surrounding
communities (Indonesian communities) which use English in their communication. Pedagogical
implication from the findings is that EFL curriculum planners could make EFL materials, which
more focus on target culture but still considers on source culture because it can build learners’
positive attitude toward learning the language. The other pedagogical implication is that teachers
can consider students’ positive and negative attitude toward learning culture that affect the
teaching and learning process. They can make some strategies to build good atmosphere so that
the learners can change their positive to be more positive and it can help them to get highly

motivation in teaching learning process.