The Role of Culture in English Language Teaching/Learning PDF

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Rijalda Dizdarevic The Role of Culture in English Language Teaching/Learning “We breathe in our first language, and swim in our second.” Adam Gopnik Learning a foreign language means more than just mastering its grammar, vocabulary and phonology. 21st century society crosses borders confidently, eac...

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Rijalda Dizdarevic

The Role of Culture in English Language Teaching/Learning

“We breathe in our first language, and swim in our second.” Adam Gopnik

Learning a foreign language means more than just mastering its grammar, vocabulary and phonology. 21st century society crosses borders confidently, each new day exploring the most hidden parts of our planet and bringing changes even into the class. Successful cross-cultural communication requires culturally aware communicators, those who respond appropriately in a given social context, show empathy, tolerance and openness towards other communicators. Teaching a foreign language means preparing your students for real-life situations they are likely to encounter while visiting London, Tokyo or New York for example in order to avoid being misunderstood, embarrassed or excluded from communication. The goal of language education is not native speaker competence in target language. Rather, it is developing intercultural communicative competence in students through culture incorporation. Culturallybased teaching practice connects language to its natural counterpart i.e. culture, raises motivation and develops intercultural competence in learners, enabling them to appropriately interpret and understand culturally-induced behaviours. According to Arab educators, however, learner’s local culture should be given priority in teaching of English language since wrong translation and transliteration of Islamic concepts cause an intellectual and spiritual disaster of the highest magnitude (al-Faruqi, 1986).

Language and culture are two sides of the same coin. Culture is needed for better understanding of a language and vice versa. Mitchell and Myles (2004) argue that “language and culture are not separate but acquired together, with each providing support for the development of the other” (p. 235). For Kramsch (1998: 3) language “expresses cultural reality” since it enables speakers to express their beliefs, ideas, attitudes and facts that can only be understood and appropriately interpreted when shared within specific cultural community. English Language Learners (ELL) should be acquainted with the fact that cultures and languages always go together as Limbach (2002: 25) states “if I would like to generate enthusiasm for the culture of my country, then I must encourage people in other countries to speak my language. The language is always the first tool, as it were, when introducing others to specific cultural achievements”. English language teachers should not underestimate the importance of cultural teaching, as Samovar, Porter, & Jain (1981: 24) observe: “Culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictates who talks to whom, about what, and how the communication proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted… culture is the foundation of communication.” Moreover, the inextricable nature of language and culture may be expressed as “the person who learns language without learning culture risks becoming a fluent fool” (Bennett, Bennett & Allen, 2003, p. 237). Metaphors “which have been analyzed as providing conceptual schemata through which we understand the world” (Duranti, 1997: 64) also connect these two entities, literary presenting their inextricable nature. For Jiang (2000), culture and language form a living organism metaphorically, culture being its blood and language being its flesh i.e. without culture language would be dead and without language culture would be shapeless. Young generations should not enter the class and wait for the teacher to write present simple construction on the

blackboard for example so they can elegantly copy it. As those who educate the future respected members of the society, teachers should stress out the importance of learning a foreign language together with culture to their learners, with the hope that they will broad their horizons, get and stay motivated more easily.

Motivation is crucial in teaching a foreign language as well as any other subject. The reason for the use of cultural content in the class is that it will foster learners’ motivation (McKay, 2000, p. 7). As Steiner suggests, smart teacher will always have a cultural unit when the eyes drop, pace legs, or the heat comes (Steiner, 2001). Teaching a foreign language has a significant impact on the learners’ social nature since it requires learners to adopt new social and cultural behaviours (Gardner, 1979; Williams, 1994). The role of culture in language materials is to arise learners’ interest towards the target language. Learners are willing to hear about foreign culture the same as they are willing to explore their own cultural backgrounds, since dealing with two different local and target cultural worlds enables them to compare and contrast these. Tavares & Cavalcanti (1996: 19) point out that the aim of teaching culture is to “increase students’ awareness and to develop their curiosity towards the target culture and their own, helping them to make comparisons among cultures”. According to the experience of Mavi (1996: 54) “teenaged pupils become more motivated when they learn about the life style of the foreign country whose language they are studying”. Also, research in the field of language motivation has discovered that the positive attitude towards the target culture is among the most important variables that affect the learners’ motivation for the target language. According to Niederhauser (1997: 11) “bringing cultural content into the language classroom is one of the best ways of increasing motivation. In a society in which the conflict between globalization and nationalism remains unsolved, many members of younger

generation greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn about life in other countries and exchange ideas with teachers who are sensitive to both the cultures”. Culturally matters generally stimulate students’ interest (Kitao, op. cit 7): “Students like activities based on the culture, including singing, dancing, role-playing, skits, doing research.” The study of culture increases students’ curiosity about the target countries, people and language, at the same time equipping them with intercultural competencies.

Only inter-culturally competent learners are able to use language for effective communication. Intercultural competence is generally defined as the ability to successfully communicate with people of other cultures (Zaleskiene, 2006), and more specifically, the ability to establish and maintain relationships, communicate with minimal loss or distortion, collaborate in order to accomplish something of mutual interest or need (Fantini, 2006). Byram and Fleming (1998) claim that someone who has intercultural competence “has knowledge of one, or, preferably, more cultures and social identities and has the capacity to discover and relate to new people from other contexts for which they have not been prepared directly” (p. 9). Students need to be aware of the fact that learning a language is not just paying attention to how something is written, translated or pronounced. What they should acquire is “competencies that enable them to mediate/interpret the values, beliefs and behaviours (the “cultures”) of themselves and of others and to “stand on the bridge” or indeed “be the bridge” between people of different languages and cultures” (Byram, 2006, p. 12). People exhibit different modes of behavior. If ELLs are to communicate successfully with speakers from English-speaking countries, they will need to recognize culturally-induced behaviour of those people as well as their own behavior patterns. If cultural awareness is not developed, critical incidents are likely to occur. Let’s consider this example:

Linda, an American teacher was speaking to Usa, one of her Thai students. She said: “Usa, I am very happy with your work. Your English is really improving.” Usa looked down and said: “Oh, no. I’m not a good student. My English is not very good.” Linda really thought that Usa was making progress and said: “But you are a good student, and you’re making excellent progress. You should be proud of your work.” Usa responded: “No, no, you are a very good teacher, but I’m not a good student.” Linda decided not to give Usa any more compliments. (Oxford Print) In Usa’s culture, looking down is a mark of respect and being singled out is not desirable, so in this situation, she acted according to learned cultural norms.

Non-verbal communication is culturally influenced as well. What is appropriate in one culture may be completely inappropriate in another. Effective communication is based on these finesses. Even the smile, which is considered a universal gesture, may cause certain confusion since various cultures have various reasons for smiling. For example, Japanese smile when they are confused or angry. Also, in other parts of Asia, people smile when they are embarrassed. In some cultures, smile does not always mean a friendly greeting or signal for a good mood. It is important, therefore, not to judge our students when they smile at “inappropriate times” or do not smile at “appropriate ones”. If they do not return you a greeting smile, it does not indicate bad manners, it may be because in their culture, smiling is reserved for informal occasions, and smiling in formal settings would be considered inappropriate. Although culturally-based language practice fulfills the aim of language objective to enable the learners to use a language for effective communication, however, there have been serious objections to introducing culture in ELT classrooms. These approaches advocate “de-culturing” of foreign language teaching. Arab educators Al-Abed al Haq and

Smadi (1996) are in favour of this approach. As a result of their experiences, many teachers as well agree that cultural teaching sometimes leads to a sense of dissatisfaction, especially when learners have to compare their own local culture with the target one, which is so different and alien to them. Talking about pictures for example, may appear very awkward to Arab students since their religion does not allow portraits either of humans or animals to be displayed anywhere in the house. Following Islamic religious principles and cultural standpoint, the concept of Islamic English was proposed. Al-Faruqi’s Islamic English primarily aims to save Muslim names and Islamic terms from distortion and semantic loss caused by transliteration and translation. In his book Toward Islamic English (1986) he argues that mutilation of Muslim names and sacred words is “chaotic” and constitutes “an intellectual and spiritual disaster of the highest magnitude.” Names such as Laila and Zeyneb are often translated as Lily and Jenny, Alyy is written Ali:”the mechanical.” Argungu (2002) also suggests that the elements of Islamic culture should be incorporated in language instruction in order to cherish Islamic tradition and cultural uniqueness while at the same time avoiding cultural shocks. Islamic English is seen as an alternative and a safety wall against “materialistic and utilitarian western culture” (al-Faruqi, 1986). Teachers should introduce cultural component more carefully and with reference to the learners’ local perspective. Frederics (2007) who observed her Tajik students reported that they were more motivated and had positive attitudes towards foreign language learning when the teaching material presented to them was nearer to their culture. Ariza (2007) states that abandoning culture is like forgetting one’s own self. Therefore, foreign language teaching will be inadequate if relying only on the target culture and excluding learners’ local cultural background. Evidently, the voices promoting learners’ culture are getting louder.

Language is a part of culture and culture is a part of language. The two are strongly dependent on each other and should be taught that way as well. Since motivation is crucial for learning a second language, teachers should aim to make their language instruction as much interesting and contextually relevant as possible. Culturally-based ELT classrooms equip learners with intercultural competencies to successfully communicate in today’s globalized world. Although there are numerous benefits of introducing the target culture in English language classes, still some approaches fight for the introduction of learners’ local cultural specifics. Islamic English is an example of such tendencies. These trends are not the result of the rejection of western world and its culture, but an aim to add a new dimension to the cultural approach in ELT – inclusion of the local culture. If Muslim English language learners find it very difficult to understand certain concepts or feel confused about it, then language programmes should accommodate their needs. Broad horizons are what we are aiming towards but not at the cost of ignoring someone’s needs.

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