Enhancing cross-cultural awareness through digital photographs in Indonesian EFL classes

Abstract

When learning cultures of English, teachers usually only rely on general norms and behaviour of the users (Ming Yuen: 2011) in that for in fact learning culture is sensitive and should be expansive so that it can echo variations in its cultural dimensions. Moreover the context of English as an international language (EIL) today legitimates learning materials to reflect multiple perspectives inherent in EIL (Shin, Eslami, Chen: 2011) and accomodate the idea that both differences and similarities have their own values. Drawing on my own teaching practices, I briefly discuss steps into promoting cross-culturally sensitive English through the use of digital prhotographs. Digital photographs, visually are very powerful, attractive, and massive today. Anchored in the tenets of crosscultural understanding and discourse literacy, digital photographs serve as a mediating tool for enhancing learners’ cultural awereness of the depicted cultural practices and their variations.