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ÿçûêîì
Candidate of pedagogical
sciences, docent Gaurieva G.M.
Master student A.B. Amirova
L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian
National University, Astana, Kazakhstan
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF
INTEGRATING CULTURE INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
The given article is devoted to the problem of
integrating cultural context into the foreign language education. The aim is to
show the importance of developing the student’ intercultural competence and
consider objectives, main principles of integrating culture. The main
conclusion we reached is that, giving the crucial role to culture, its
appropriate teaching is a prerequisite to acquiring intercultural communicative
competence and leads to successful communication in foreign language.
Key words: cultural component, intercultural communicative competence,
foreign language teaching.
It has been
widely accepted and proved that language is an integral part and symbolic
reflection of culture. Culture shapes everything that we do, all our
activities, even the way we think is shaped by culture, so it is impossible to
learn a foreign language without learning its culture. When we teach language
we need to teach its meaningful content too. As Chastain said “Language is used to convey
meaning, but meaning is determined by culture”. [1]
In the world of
science the significance
of teaching culture in and through language teaching has been recognized and
widely discussed over the last two centuries.
Brown says, that language is the most visible expression of a particular
culture. Therefore it is almost impossible to transmit culture from place to
place and from generation to generation without language which is the principal
carrier of values and meaning.[2] On the other hand, language would be
impossible to understand without making reference to the cultural context which
has produced it. Jiao Xue underlines the importance of teaching culture with
teaching a foreign language: “If we teach language without teaching at the same
time that culture in which language operates we are teaching meaningless
symbols or symbols to which the students attach wrong meanings”. [3] A language learner needs to master the culture of the foreign language
too. For example how to agree or disagree with someone, how to express apology,
how to make requests, etc because the intonation patterns and linguistic
behaviours that are acceptable in their own language may not be appropriate in
the target language. [4] Consequently we cannot think of teaching a foreign language cut from
the teaching of its culture.
When
talking about teaching culture in the foreign language classroom, the first
question we have to ask ourselves is what are the objectives and goals of
teaching culture? Tomalin and Stempleski identified the following goals when
teaching culture:
–
to develop an understanding of the
fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behaviors.
–
to develop an understanding that
social variables age, sex, social class, and place of residence influence the way in which people speak and behave.
–
to become more aware of conventional
behavior in common situations in the target culture.
–
to increase their awareness of the
cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target language.
–
to develop the ability to evaluate
and refine generalizations about the target culture in terms of supporting
evidence.
–
to develop the necessary skills to
locate and organize information about the target culture.
–
to stimulate pupils curiosity about
the target culture and to encourage empathy towards its people. [5]
The latest and effective approach of integrating
culture into the foreign language education is considered to be the
intercultural communicative approach, which gradually was developed from Hyme’s
communicative competence approach.
With the
advent of communication tools and the ease of travelling around the globe we
can easily contact with the people around the world. The contact between
countries also increased with the globalization of a world economy, widening of
world markets, rapidly developing integration processes, professional and
academic mobility. In this case foreign language becomes a tool of forming the
intellectual potential of our society. Companies seek employees that fluent in
more than one language and interculturally competent negotiators. As educators
prepare specialists competitive that meet the requirements of modern society
they take into account all changes occurring around the world, consequently
they include intercultural objectives in curricula of foreign language
education. According to the concept of foreign language education of Republic
of Kazakhstan the strategy of education development comprises rising quality of
foreign language education and training professionals that meet global
requirements. One of the principles which the national education system is
based on is the principle of communicative – intercultural interaction that
supply the effective training for the intercultural communication.[6]
Foreign language education is, by definition, intercultural. Bringing a
foreign language to the classroom means connecting learners to a world that is
culturally different from their own. The objective of language learning is no
more defined in terms of the acquisition of communicative competence in a
foreign language. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural
communicative competence. [7] Intercultural communication competence now is
considered to be the major goal of foreign language learning. Jiao Xue proposes the principles of culture
teaching that teachers should follow
for the development of student’s intercultural communicative competence in
the teaching activities:
–
Use target language as the primary
vehicle to teach culture. All the elements of the target culture, the target
language is the most typical, the most unique and the most readily available.
Its authentic use in the classroom from the beginning of instruction of the
primary culturally objective. Teachers can create a classroom cultural
environment for the learners by using the target language.
–
Prevent the negative effects of
native culture on target culture teaching. Culture teaching is affected not
only by native language but also by the native culture. The learners will
always attach the contents and meanings of the native culture on the target
culture unconsciously because of the vast differences between the native
culture and the target culture. This will severely affect the accuracy of the
understanding and expressing. This kind of phenomenon is called negative
effects of native culture on communication. This kind of negative effects must
be prevented. The effective measures as follows: firstly, related cultural
knowledge is necessary to be taught; secondly
the explanation of the related cultural knowledge should be fulfilled
through the comparison and contrast between the native culture and target
culture especially when we teach a new word with special cultural background.
–
Suitable level of difficulty. Teachers
should always keep in mind what level their students are at. Suitable level of
difficulty is of great importance in the cultural teaching.
–
Limited cultural coverage. Culture
is a unity of history, beliefs, values, cultural activities and so on, so a
culture is enormous. Teachers should focus on the elements which would
influence cultural teaching and cultivate the communicative competence through
cultural teaching.
–
Employ cultural comparison method.
Culture plays an instrumental role in shaping speaker’s communicative
competence, which is related to the appropriate use of language (how native
speakers make an apology)” [3]
As
we see above from the opinions of experts on
intercultural communication to have linguistic competence or pragmatic skills
only doesn’t guarantee successful communication in foreign language, moreover
we need to acquire cultural knowledge too. To have intercultural competence in
order to reach the aim while communicating with the representatives of other
cultures we need to have high motivation, to have neutral attitude to other
cultures and be ready to understand cultural differences, to have background
knowledge of the target culture.
To raise intercultural awareness teachers use various activities such as
solving cases, role plays, watching films, singing songs, intercultural
projects, working with authentic literature, newspaper articles which contains
knowledge of target culture and many
others. When teachers design their materials or select among various sources
Ewa Bandura recommends to bear in mind the following principles:
–
Students develop their
autonomy and critical skills when they are encouraged to analyze individually
–
Projects including home
or virtual ethnography require prior development of various research skills and
attitudes
–
Making cross- cultural
comparisons activates student’s knowledge of their own culture
–
Texts in foreign
language are useful for comparing different cultures, divers views and beliefs
–
Texts about critical
incidents illustrate the influence of socio – cultural knowledge on the
effectiveness of communication.” [8]
Taking
into account all mentions above we suggest sample lesson plan of the English
lesson as a second language for the 1st year students of bachelor degree. Food
is fundamental in our existence. It is one of the essential topics that show
peculiarities of a culture. That is why it is important to include this theme
while learning the culture of the target language.
|
Topic |
Food |
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|
Course |
1st year students of bachelor degree |
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|
Level |
Intermediate |
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|
Aims of lesson |
–
to develop students’
reading, speaking, writing, listening skills –
to raise awareness of
intercultural differences in values, behavior and ways of thinking; –
to practise observation and
interpretation skills as well as critical thinking; –
to develop empathy,
open-mindedness and respect for other cultures. |
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|
Duration |
90 min |
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|
Introduction |
What is healthy food? Can you name your regular diet as healthy? Mind – map on “Healthy food”. Students are asked to write any words or
word combinations associated with healthy food. If there are some
representatives of other cultures they need to explain their choice after
completion if there are any unfamiliar words or names of national food. |
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|
Procedure: Reading |
1.
Pre reading: How
are meals named in your culture? If you had guests from another culture, how
would you describe the meals to them? How would you react if they could not conform
and eat the same sorts of meals at the times you propose? Are there any types
of food that in your culture you can only eat at certain times, at particular meals?
As an example, many Dutch people find it literally incomprehensible – not distasteful, but incomprehensible
– that British people can eat “baked
beans” at breakfast, while the British have exactly the same reaction to the
Dutch eating grated chocolate on bread in the morning. Kazakhs mostly eat
just bread and butter, or jam with cups of tea for breakfast which is also
couldn’t seem normal for
other cultures. 2.
Students read the text
called “What time is lunch?” 3.
Post reading. –
Compare eating habits
of two cultures. What other cultures with different eating habits do you
know? How would you solve the case
that happened to character? –
Write down all words
and word combinations connected with food from the text. Describe one of them
without calling its name so that
other students guess what are you talking about. |
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|
Work with vocabulary |
1.
These are food related idioms and
sayings. Fill in gaps with necessary words. 2.
Take these (English) idioms,
metaphors and sayings and compare them to usages in other languages you know.
In general, it is not a good idea to translate these directly, but very often
you can find equivalents and parallels.
|
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|
Grammar |
Revision of Imperative sentences. Students write recipes of meals from
various national cousins using imperative sentences of positive and negative
forms. |
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|
Pair work |
Role-play. Write
the script and then act out the conversation of five people from five different
cultures at a dinner table together. The people could be students at an
international summer camp or teachers at a reception before a workshop. |
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|
Feedback |
Conclusion. |
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|
Home task |
Exchange recipes
of foreign specialities and organise a cooking project, if possible. |
Text. What time is lunch?
A
British man went to Poland to run a workshop about teaching and learning
English as a second language. He arrived, after a long and complicated journey,
at the teacher training centre in the mountains in Upper Silesia at 2.30 in the
afternoon, feeling, he had to admit, rather hungry. He was told that “lunch”
was to be served in half an hour, and at 3 p.m. he sat all alone in the
dining-room and was served vegetable soup, roast chicken and boiled potatoes
and a “salad” (this, however, was a bit of a disappointment. It consisted of
finely grated vegetables: carrots, cabbage and cucumber, which had been
marinated for some time in vinegar). There was also a glass of stewed plums in
syrup, but no water. Apparently, most of the food was locally produced, and was
absolutely delicious. He ate his fill. However, his body was completely unused
to eating anything at all at this time of the day. He normally had a simple
breakfast of bread and jam, or muesli, had a snack at midday (a sandwich or
roll) and ate his main meal at about 7 p.m. At 6 p.m., when most of the
workshop participants had arrived, the “evening meal” was served. This
consisted of a selection of ham and sausage, bread, butter and sliced tomato.
Having eaten so much only three hours before, he was still full and could only
eat the tomato. Fortunately, nobody noticed. He wondered what would have
happened had he refused or only partly eaten the “lunch”. Would people in the
kitchen have been offended? Probably. And by 10 p.m. he was a bit hungry again.
[9]
In conclusion we could say English teachers should
encourage students to experience the culture which related to linguistic
knowledge, and guide students cultural experience. Some activities, such as
information gap, interview, brainstorming, problem solving, debating and
role-play can be arranged in the classroom. These activities focus on what is
being done and how it is done rather than learning linguistic knowledge, thus
improving the non-English major students’ intercultural communicative
competence.
References
1. K. Chastain Developing Second
Language Skills. Theory and practice.Orlando, Florida, Harcourt Brace
Jenovich Publishers,1988 –p 32-33
2. H.Brown Principles
of Language Learning and Teaching. The USA: Prentice Hall Regents,1994,
p.12.
3.
Jiao Xue Cultivating intercultural communicative competence in culture
teaching, Theory and practice in language studies. Vol.4, ¹7. Academy Publisher, Finland, 2014, p.1495-1496
4. I. Krasner The role of culture
in language teaching. Dialog on Language Instruction, Yonkers,
NY: Author. 1999.p.132
5. B. Tomalin, S. Stempleski Cultural
Awareness. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 1993.p,58
6.
The concept of FL
education of RK, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2010
7.
L. Sercu Teaching FL in an
Intercultural world. Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural Competence: An
International Investigation. Clevedon, GBR: Multilingual Matters, 2005, p.
8.
E. Bandura Developing
cultural self –awareness and knowledge to enhance intercultural competence of
foreign language students, Poland, Jagiellonian university, 2011
9.
M.
Huber-Kriegler, I. Lázár and J. Strange Mirrors and windows: An intercultural communication textbook.
ISBN 92-871-5193-8, Council of Europe, May 2003, p.20-21