Characteristics of Students using General Curriculum for Teaching French Language of A Foreign Language in the Middle East

Abstract

Textbook is universal. It's a book like no other since it is an instrument of written communication between the teacher, the student and the teaching content. It also conveys literacy policies and reflects schooling and access to education. A text book is considered as vehicle of a system of values, an ideology, a culture that influences the malleable minds of learners. This article aims at focusing on the use of the generalist language textbook in the Middle East in general and in Jordan in particular. For many decades, this region has rarely had contextual manuals of French as a Foreign Language (FLE). It generally uses universal textbooks, delivering different societal and educational values other than those of the receiving language-culture, without any regards to the cultural identity of learners which must be a necessary consider. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: What do Arabic-speaking learners think about universal textbooks? Are there any current attempts to design local textbooks that are better appropriated to the user's profile and needs? If so, does research in didactic contextualization highlight the cultural and linguistic traits of the Arab user and enhance local culture and national identity?