Open Access

Rebecca Dengler

• Globally, and especially in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region – including the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) – English language teaching (ELT) continues to gain importance. A slowly increasing socio-racial awareness has started to shed light on the social, political, and economical factors as well as colonial ideologies that shape today’s ELT and have been ignored for a long time. However, international course books from major publishing houses in the Global North are still shaped by commercial factors and Anglocentric standards. They are found to reproduce coloniality and hegemonic structures. In many books produced for the international market, ‘centre-based’ cultural content still dominates, and native-speaker norms apply. Assumptions of similarities, language differences (e.g. missing experiential equivalence), or non-verbal signs, symbols, and codes, etc. pose intercultural barriers to the English language learning process of learners in the Global South. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with English lecturers and leaders and classroom observations at Savannakhet University (SKU) in the Lao PDR in the form of a case study, I examine intercultural barriers to English language learning that arise from the usage of international course books. The interviews and observations are complimented by a critical analysis of curricula and syllabi and selected sequences of the international course books used at SKU. The findings confirm that a variety of international course books are used at SKU since they are regarded as high-quality and easy-to-use material. However, intercultural barriers occur and must be overcome. Without adaptations and contextualisation in a postmethod framework, they barely leave room for the Lao leaners to express and reflect on their own linguistic and cultural backgrounds and experiences in the language learning process. Therefore, this study additionally sheds light on the strategies that the English lecturers employ to overcome intercultural barriers. Uncovering intercultural barriers in international course books reveals the discrepancy between decolonial ELT theory and neo-colonial practices. Examining these barriers and ways to overcome them provides the opportunity to explore how to further decolonise ELT material for a more socially just and locally relevant English language education.