Culture In teaching English as an international language.

I remember when I told my bigger brother that this day I had learnt the part of human body, He asked me enthusiastically can you tell me what are they? I told him and suddenly, he laughed at me and I felt as I was a stupid. He asked me was your teacher Egyptian? I nodded and then he told me the right pronunciation of the word mouth, is not mouse, and the meaning is completely different. I do not mean that the Egyptian teachers are not good or can not teach well. But the big problem with them is that they tried to make it English in the Egyptian way. I have some other examples, like sunder instead of the word thunder. I have a funny clip in the YOU TUBE to understand what I mean. this is the link of the clip and I would like you will enjoy it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KArAL8mMKeA

They pronounce the word (think) as (sink). I think I was in a better situation than those who are sinking. I think the problem is not with the native and non native english teacher, but the problem is that who has the intelligibility.

From the second reading and under the title Cultural content in language teaching materials, I think we can not say that this way is better than that way, because it could help for some countries but it could not help for others. In my country, in particular, I believe that the first way which is the text book is from the target culture but the student and the teacher are from the source culture.I used to say to my students 'I am not teaching you the verb and the noun of the sentence but I am teaching you the culture of that country'. What is the language without its culture? we have vivid example "garage sale". I think the the teacher should do his best to define that expression and explore the foreign culture. I do not like the books that my country use which is talking about the source culture text books. They use some names like Hana, Ahmad, Fahad, Riyadh , and so on. where is the authentic material that we believe in. We have excellent teachers but the problem is with the text book that is talking about Saudi Culture.

Bandar