A Systematic Review on the Integration of Local Culture into English Language Teaching in Southeast Asia: Current Practices and Impacts on Learners’ Attitude and Engagement

IN T ROD UCT IO NLearning a language entails learning its culture, as the two are inextricably linked (Khan, 2014).Language and culture are so inexorably connected that they cannot be separated without sacrificing the importance of either language or culture (Kanoksilapatham, 2020; Risager, 2018;Royani, 2013).However, the current status of English as an international language and a lingua franca has contributed to major changes in the relationship between ELT and culture (Chinh, 2013;Kanoksilapatham & Suranakkharin, 2018).Hence, it raises a question concerning which cultures should be integrated into ELT: target language culture, multi-cultures, or local culture.Different views on culture in ELT can be found in many studies.Some scholars (Jiang, 2000;McDevitt, 2004) hold the view that target cultures should be taught together with the language.The necessity to use target cultures into English teaching emerges primarily from the fact that most learners may encounter certain difficulties in expressing meanings to native speakers even though they use the correct linguistic forms (Kanoksilapatham & Suranakkharin, 2018).In English language teaching, it is likely that the target cultures of English-speaking countries, such as Great Britain and the United States, cannot be detached from English learning as cultures provide contexts that allow learners to perform how to use the language; additionally, learning the cultures helps learners obtain a thorough understanding of the cultures rooted in the target language.In contrast to the earlier views, since globalization makes this world become one "big community" and English becomes the lingua franca, cultural diversity needs to be embraced with the integration of multi-cultures into ELT, not solely the target cultures.That English is used by more people all over the world as an international language has challenged the ELT pedagogy (Jenkins, 2012;McKay, 2010) as relying on target cultures exclusively for learning the English language is now considered improper with the use of English in multilingual and multicultural contexts (Kramsch, 2008; Chinch, 2013;Alptekin, 2005;Ho, 2009;McKay, 2003;Prastiwi, 2013).In order to mediate and negotiate between cultures, a variety of cultural materials from various countries have been being introduced to learners in the ELT practice.