THE EFFECT OF TEACHING LADO’S CONCEPTS OF CULTURE ON IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING

The present study sought to investigate the effect of teaching Lado’s concepts of culture on Iranian EFL learners’ description writing. The main question of this study attempted to answer was whether teaching Lado’s concepts of culture might enhance higher knowledge and ability of description writing in Iranian learners of English at university level. To answer this question, 60 sophomore undergraduate translator trainees were selected via administrating the Oxford Placement (OPT). Then they were divided into two groups of 30 and were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group. A pretest of writing was administered to both groups, after that, the experimental group was taught five categories Lado’s cultural concepts including transportation system, educational system, sport, customs and festivals, and ritual behaviors for 10 sessions while there was no treatment for the control group. A posttest of writing was then administered to both groups and data of were analyzed via calculating an independent sample t-test and ANCOVA coefficients. The results illustrated that the Iranian EFL learners in experimental group received higher scores in description writing after being treated with 10 sessions of teaching Lado’s concepts of culture.