Integration of Culture into Teaching of English: A Case of Ole Kulet’s Blossoms of the Savannah

Globally, no single culture is perfect or self-sufficient. Cultural development involves building on the positive cultural aspects and discarding the negative ones, mostly through inter-cultural contacts. Kenya being a multicultural country has learners from diverse cultural backgrounds, something that needs to be taken care of by teachers. However, there is little research in this critical area. The purpose of this paper was to find out the cultural norms, values and practices inherent in modern Maasai culture that impede girl-child education as seen in the set book Blossoms of the Savannah. The paper adopted a qualitative design and case study research methodology while utilizing radical feminism as the main theoretical framework. The raw data was collected using content analysis of the novel due to the fact that it is a set book in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (K.C.S.E) English course. The findings include unemployment in families, materialistic nature of modern society, school drop-outs due to early marriages, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), domestic violence against women among others. The findings are useful to curriculum developers, parents, teachers of English language, and students. The study recommends that the curriculum should incorporate even more culture-related novels to provide a wider forum for discussion of such issues in education as well as cater for learners from diverse cultural backgrounds.