Cultural Awareness in Pre-Service Early Childhood Teacher Training: A Catalogue of British Cultural Elements in Peppa Pig

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

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Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I begin my review with the conclusions section and then return to the introduction (and from there to the rest of the manuscript, in the order of the lines). 

Conclusions

My main concern with this work is that the 11 evaluators do not have knowledge of the object of study, that is, of British culture. As the conclusion states, “they do not have a solid knowledge of EFL yet, nor of British culture, beyond stereotypical clichés inherited from a mainstream culture about what Britishness represents”. 

Alarmingly, the author(s) state that the evaluators’ fatigue is the study’s main limitation, and they wait until the conclusion to mention the fact that the evaluators in this study have no knowledge of British culture. I believe that this is not a minor limitation but a major flaw that can lead the reader to believe that the whole study may be based on cliches of British culture (and not on a genuine depiction of it). I suggest solving this by reminding the reader about the extensive list of references that substantiate this study. The author(s) may also want to think of other solutions to this problem. 

In addition, the last sentence of the conclusions section (lines 398-399) needs further elaboration: “This would have an impact on the treatment of culture in the ECE classroom, also from the point of view of an updated use of the target language.” The author(s) may want to make this statement more meaningful by answering the following questions: What kind of impact? What kind of update? Why is an update important? 

 

Sections 2 to 6 of the manuscript are well developed, organized, and substantiated. As I mentioned above, references from these sections should be used to create a stronger, more compelling introduction and conclusions sections.

 

Introduction

 

I suggest substantiating the first paragraph (lines 22 to 26). Possibly bringing references from section 2, Theoretical framework, sub-section 2.2 Cultural awareness.

 

Lines 22-24: The first sentence states that “Language and culture are two undividable elements that define each other.” This leads to the second sentence, “language teaching implies recognising and then dealing with one specific culture in order to acquire a target language.”  What authors agree with these statements? Quote or paraphrase experts who confirm these assertions.

 

Lines 24-25: The third sentence introduces the problem, “culture still seems to represent a marginal element in language teaching.” I suggest giving examples of prior studies that corroborate this statement.

Lines 25-26: Again, I suggest substantiating this deduction: “Perhaps language teachers unconsciously avoid addressing any culture, focusing only on the target language itself.”

Line 43: Spell out ‘television’ (instead of TV): “when it began to be broadcast on television (TV)” 

2. Theoretical Framework 

Line 54: “…major educational measures in Spain (in countries like Spain)”. Here you may want to change or specify what other countries are ‘like’ Spain, or just write ‘in Spain’“.

Line 60: The ‘s’ is probably a typo; please, replace with ‘a’: “… which imply the use of ‘a’ (s) target language…”

Lines 61-62: I suggest elaborating a bit on what is the ‘join initiative’ referred to by the authors: “Additionally, there is a commitment through a joint initiative between educational stakeholders…”

Lines 101-103: I suggest changing the semicolons to commas: “… they promote empathy with foreigners, illustrate intercultural conflicts, deal with racism, contain stereotypes about cultural traditions and intergenerational conflicts, and deal with different behavioural patterns.”

4. Methodology 

Line 137: In order to make this sentence clearer, I suggest changing ‘they’ for ‘the cultural elements.’ ‘The cultural elements’ (They) were classified into 13 categories…”

Line 148: Erase ‘in’ (it’s not necessary: “2. Infancy. It implies elements (in) concerning children and school.”

Line 163: Add ‘the’ to: “6. Language. It refers to elements concerning the English language…”

Line 167: In this sentence, I suggest changing ‘for’ for the article ‘the’: “7. Nature. It focuses on elements as the(for) environment…” 

Line 191 and Table 2 (column ‘category’): For the sake of consistency, the last category should be titled ‘Other’ (singular), instead of ‘Others’: Compare with the same category titled “Other” in Figure 1. British cultural elements identified in Peppa Pig’s season 1 and in Figure 4. Verified elements according to categories. 

Line 227: Please, explain the meaning of B1 and C1 in the following sentence: “…holding an official EFL certificate between B1 and C1”

5. Results 

Table 3 (in page 11 of 14): For the sake of clarity, I suggest adding ‘number of’ to the beginning of the title of the third column: “Number of evaluators who verified it”.

6. Discussion

Lines 309, 314, and 317: I suggest changing the semicolon to full stops after p. 296, p. 28, and p. 15. Also, change the ‘or’ after p. 15 to a connector such as additionally, alternatively, etc.

Lines 337-338: I suggest adding ‘in this study’ at the end of the following sentence: “In contrast, Language occupies the first place among the evaluators in this study (n=214; 20.38%). 

Line 344: In the following sentence: “This involves that, as [24] strongly recommends, foreign language speakers…”, I suggest changing ‘this involves that’ to ‘this indicates’, ‘this demonstrates’, this means’, etc.

Lines 351-352: I suggest rephrasing the sentence: “As indicated above, at least ten evaluators stand out the 351 following British cultural elements…” to the following: “for at least ten evaluators the following British cultural elements stand out”.

Lines 360-361: The phrase ‘for example’ at the end is not necessary: “including through films, TV 360 series, or cartoons like Peppa Pig [7], (for example)” 

Lines 366-368: Because this last sentence begins with ‘as a result’, the last phrase ‘in light of the current results’ is redundant (not needed), you could erase it or add it at the beginning instead of ‘as a result’.

The article does not provide information regarding Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approval for research on humans or animals. Please, add this information.

 

Likewise, please add information on: Informed Consent Statement, Data Availability Statement, and Conflicts of Interest.

The quality of the English language is very good. I found only minor errors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The study is premised on assumptions about British culture as mentioned in the limitations.

Line 6: "Thus this quantitative research study" the study employs both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. However, it is not stated specifically. 

The study uses EFL, however, the key words include "second language instruction" and not EFL

The first paragraph of introduction makes many claims but there is no support for these claims in the form of references. 

Line37-38: " even though some problems have also been identified" What are these problems?

Line 64: "Due to the ECE learners' characteristics, teachers should..." What are these characteristics?

Methodology: Section 4 does not mention the use of quantitative methods to analyse data.

Lines 241-242: "In this sense, no definition of culture was offered to the pre-service teachers before the start of the study." Why no definition of culture was offered?

Discussion section discusses findings of other studies more than the current study.

 

 

The article needs to be edited. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This second manuscript is significantly improved. I am satisfied with the paper in its present form.