ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasises that the Model of Cultural Understanding can be used to investigate and analyse cultural understanding in language education contexts. It illustrates how the model departs from the static notion of available versus unavailable' schemata frequently found in the reading research. Most existing models of cultural understanding in the research literature have also arisen from specific conditions and are intended to cater for particular and local needs, often focusing on interaction and communication in naturalistic settings. The model the authors have developed is a six-level model which describes the ways in which EFL learners in this Argentine context approached cultural issues during reading and emphasises the centrality of cultural understanding. The chapter shows how the model works in the analysis of readers' comprehension of one of the texts in English, the selection from Cat's Eye. This text describes the Christmas celebration of a Canadian family and presents a different cultural reality from that of the participants.
