Unlocking The Black Box Of The Cultural Hegemony In EFL Textbook In The Asian Context

It is common knowledge that the cultural dimension is essential for English Language Teaching (Setyono & Widodo, 2019; Ariawan, 2020; Xion & Qian, 2012).  There is a paradigm change. A mindset shift in how culture is represented in the  English as a foreign language (EFL) context has occurred in tandem with the internationalization of the English language (EL). ELT professionals and English teachers all around the world have adopted this fundamental change, a conceptually integral part of local English variations and multicultural elements to foster intercultural speaking ability (Setyono and Widodo, 2019). Despite the empirical evidence that intercultural communication is prioritized in the EFL curriculum in several Asian countries (e.g., Israel, Iran, China, and Korea), prior research has found an academic disparity between curricular objectives and intercultural substance reflected in ELT textbooks (Kusumaningputri and Widodo 2018 as cited by Setyono and Widodo, 2019).