Culture shock as a cultural handicap in teaching EFL process

Aldaberdikyzy Aidyn

Academic Innovative University, Shymkent, Kazakhstan

It has been a truism in discussion of foreign language and culture that “culture is inseparable from language and therefore must be included in language study”. It is also clear that communication occurs in a cultural context and knowledge of this context is essential for fully and accurately decoding most messages. Nevertheless, the national standards and curriculum documents still does not comprise lessons aiming developing communicative competence and cultural awareness.

As it is accepted by many scholars earlier, culture is the context within which we exist, think, feel and relate to others. A language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of a language. The two are inseparable and none of them is more significant than the other. Therefore, the learning of a second language is also learning a second culture to some extent.

There is a tendency for us to believe that our own reality is the 'correct' one. Our so-called accurate perception of a person, a custom or an idea is sometimes 'jaded' or 'stilted' in the eyes of someone from another culture. Therefore, misunderstandings are likely to occur whenever two cultures are in contact.

This article attempts to focus on some of the important problematic issues in the relationship between learning a second language and learning its cultural context.

Culture shock is a common experience for a person learning a second language in a second culture. No culture corresponds to another with all its components, as a result, people who are strangers to the culture cannot fulfil a task properly. They cannot get involved or cannot communicate effectively, and fail to understand why their attempts at friendliness are rejected and why things turn out to be so weird in this new world which, at first, looked just like their own. After a series of disappointing attempts, they shut their eyes and turn their backs. Culture shock refers to phenomena ranging from mild irritability to deep psychological panic and crisis. Reactions vary from teasing or laughing at the weirdness of 'others' to mild irritation or to strong offence or hostility.

This term, now widely used, was introduced into the literature over three decades ago (Oberg 1960) to give strong emphasis to the feelings of disorientation, confusion and stress felt as cultures collide or intersect. Cross-cultural contact frequently involves the ”shock” of a different (foreign) language; different value and attitudes; different ways of thinking, reasoning and negotiating; and different customs, ”ways”, practices, etiquette and protocols. Culture shock as psychological reaction to unfamiliar environments is equally a problem for migrants, long-term business and academic sojourners, students, voluntary workers and tourists (Furnham & Bochner 1987).

Peter Adler (cited in Brown 1994:171) describes culture shock as

Culture shock, then, is thought to be a form of anxiety that results from the loss of commonly perceived and understood signs and symbols of social intercourse. The individual undergoing culture shock reflects his anxiety and nervousness with cultural differences through any number of defence mechanisms: repression, regression, isolation and rejection. These defensive attitudes speak, in behavioural terms, of a basic underlying insecurity which may encompass loneliness, anger, frustration and self-questioning of competence. With the familiar props, cues, and clues of cultural understanding removed, the individual becomes disoriented, afraid of, and alienated from the things that he knows and understands.

Being deprived of all the familiar symbols that he shares with the rest of his society, the learner feels estrangement, anger, frustration, unhappiness, loneliness and even physical illness. The person undergoing culture shock is filled with resentment and self-pity and finally isolates himself from the rest of the world, thus blocks all ways to successful communication. He refuses to be involved in the target culture. The rejection of the culture is a problematic matter for ELT courses. So, how can we welcome the learners into a new culture? This is the fundamental question that a language teacher should deal with.

Damen (1987:225) does not regard culture shock as a misfortune. He claims that it is a natural process. "While there are instances in which the effects of culture shock, or the second stage of culture learning, are great, they are not always so traumatic. Culture shock is a natural process and should be treated as such". In other words, culture shock is not a disease or disorder. Fear of the new is universal among human beings, and culture shock is one of the stages in culture learning. The first stage is getting interested and fascinated in the new culture and people, the second stage -culture shock- is frustration, rejection and unhappiness due to the loss of familiar symbols and the last stage is acceptance or failure, in other words, either swim or sink. There is no reason to consider it any more than one stage in the process of culture learning.

In addition, thinking retrospectively, culture shock may be beneficial in that it helps the learner gain a new perspective on himself. "Thus equipped with self-understanding and a balanced understanding of the differences between the two cultures, the learner slowly but emphatically steps into the shoes of the members of the foreign culture" (Valdes 1986:38). An orientation programme can be carried out to make learners find the target culture familiar either consciously or subconsciously. Having the learners see the surroundings, watch the scenes that reflect the culture and get in touch with some concepts that are new for them but probably very frequent in that culture is a perfect idea to familiarize the learners with the target culture.

Most of the subjects consider that English is taught all over the world because of its special status, this, certainly means that Kazakh students often face cultural problems while learning a foreign language. Nowadays, English is recognized as a language of business, international politics and, certainly education. The expansion of World Wide Web –Internet and consequently the expansion of English lead to the dominance of English in other fields as well. This greatly affects the learners’ world views in favour of English.

Certainly, this article like many others is just a beginning of the way leading to the world of a foreign culture teaching and it is hoped that the teachers those who love innovations and are not afraid of problems would continue enriching this world giving a chance to millions of enthusiastic learners to taste a foreign culture in classroom environment.

LIST OF REFERENCES:

1. ADLER, P., 1972. Culture Shock. London: Fontana

2. ALPTEKIN, C., 1982. Cultural dominance and EFL. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 39 (1).

3. CHOMSKY, N. 1986. Selections from Knowledge of Language. NY: Praeger.

4. HALL, E. T., 1959. The Silent Language. New York: Doubleday.

5. SAMOVAR, PORTER, and JAIN, 1981. Intercultural Communication: A Reader. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

6. ZDENEK, SALZMANN, 1993. Language, Culture and Society. Westview Press.