Recent studies focus on the seamless relationship between L2 teaching and target
culture teaching, especially over the last decade with the writings of scholars such as Byram
(1989; 1994a; 1994b; 1997a; 1997b) and Kramsch (1988; 1993; 1996; 2001). People involved
in language teaching have again begun to understand the intertwined relation between culture
and language (Pulverness, 2003). It has been emphasized that without the study of culture,
teaching L2 is inaccurate and incomplete. For L2 students, language study seems senseless if
they know nothing about the people who speak the target language or the country in which the
target language is spoken. Acquiring a new language means a lot more than the manipulation
of syntax and lexicon. According to Bada (2000: 101), “the need for cultural literacy in ELT
arises mainly from the fact that most language learners, not exposed to cultural elements of
the society in question, seem to encounter significant hardship in communicating meaning to
native speakers.” In addition, nowadays the L2 culture is presented as an interdisciplinary
core in many L2 curricula designs and textbooks (Sysoyev & Donelson, 2002).