Cultural aspect of language teaching

IASET, 2020

Language is a basic form of communication. It can be verbal, physical and biologically innate. Culture is the distinctiveness of a specific group of people. This distinctiveness can be observed in the language, religion, social behavior, music and the arts of these groups. Language and Culture are closely associated as culture finds its expression in language. Therefore, anyone learning a new language without having knowledge about its culture is deficient. In learning language, Culture plays an important role. It is pertinent then to mention that including culture in the learning process of a foreign language does not rule out the need to learn the four language skills in addition to spellings, sentence structure, word articulation, and vocabulary building. This article aims to establish the role that culture plays in the teaching and learning process of English as a foreign language. In its examination, the study highlights how culture in English as a foreign language (EFL) can be taught. The study of the Documentary Research Survey examines the usefulness of culture in teaching language and verifies whether their teaching conforms to the curriculum. Data used in the analysis of this study were obtained from external sources such as documents, articles and book chapters. The study confirmed that including culture in the context of learning foreign language is important. The outcome of the culture curriculum is not yet incorporated into secondary school operational plans.

International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2013

Foreign language is included of several components, including grammar, communicative, language proficiency, for learners, the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs, is indisputably an integral part of foreign language learning. Teaching a foreign language is not only learning structure or learning new vocabulary and expressions but mainly incorporates, cultural elements, which are not integrated with language itself. This paper shows that effective communication is more important than language proficiency .Culture promotes objectivity and cultural perception. In fact, most teachers and students lose sight of the fact that knowledge of grammatical system of a language has to be complemented by understanding of culture specific meanings.

Language, Culture and Curriculum, 1995

The current interest in the role of culture in language teaching is due to a number of factors, political, educational, ideological. Both in Europe and in the U.S., albeit for different reasons, there is a great deal of political pressure now put on foreign language educators to help solve the social and economic problems of the times. Educators fear that the mere acquisition of linguistic systems is no guarantee of international peace and understanding. After years of communicative euphoria, some language teachers are becoming dissatisfied with purely functional uses of language. Some are pleading to supplement the traditional acquisition of "communication skills" with some intellectually legitimate, humanistically oriented, cultural "content". Others, who teach their language to non-native speaker immigrants, are under pressure to absorb (read: acculturate) into their society growing numbers of newcomers. And there is of course the recrudescence of nationalism around the world that draws political capital from increased links between national languages and national cultures. The reasons for the growing "culturalisation" of language teaching are many, the motives often contradictory. After a short definition of terms, I will first review the history of the relationship of language and culture in language teaching. I will then try to survey the current landscape as it relates to various educational traditions in which languages are taught. In a third part I will suggest a theoretical base for exploring the cultural component of language study.-2-Definition of Terms The term "cultural" has often been associated with the term "social", as when one talks about the "socio-cultural" factors affecting the teaching and the learning of foreign languages. Many scholars do not distinguish between the social and the cultural. In this paper, I will take both adjectives to refer to the two sides of the same coin, namely, the synchronic and the diachronic context in which language is used in organised discourse communities. Both terms refer to a individual's place within a social group and his/her relation to that group in the course of time. In the words of Adrienne Rich: "A place on the map is also a place in history" (1986). First let us agree on a definition. Irrespective of whether we are talking written or oral culture, highbrow or popular culture, noteworthy events or events of everyday life, the term "culture" has always referred to at least two ways of defining a social community. The first definition comes from the humanities; it focuses on the way a social group represents itself and others through its material productions, be they works of art, literature, social institutions, or artifacts of everyday life, and the mechanisms for their reproduction and preservation through history. The second definition comes from the social sciences: it refers to what educators like Howard Nostrand call the "ground of meaning", i.e. the attitudes and beliefs, ways of thinking, behaving and remembering shared by members of that community (Nostrand, 1989: 51). This latter definition is in many ways similar to the one given by social

2018

The 21 century is the era demanding people to know two and more languages, which provide them with more opportunities in any sphere such as business, banking, diplomacy, medicine, etc. Thus, mastering a language, in any case, means being able to communicate effectively and interact with individuals representing other cultures and speaking other languages. Actually, this implies that the learner not only acquires language skills, but also becomes the carrier of the target-language culture. Consequently, foreign language teaching needs to introduce a more sophisticated approach towards the element of culture in the educational process. It is high time to recognize the importance of intercultural learning or interculturality in foreign language teaching as culture is an integral part of any language course and should be taught in parallel with the language from the very first steps. The cultural component has always been one of the most essential dimensions of intercultural language te...

In foreign language education, the teaching of culture remains a hotly debated issue. What is culture? What is its relation to language? Which and whose culture should be taught? What role should the learners' culture play in the acquisition of knowledge of the target culture? How can we avoid essentializing cultures and teaching stereotypes? And how can we develop in the learners an intercultural competence that would shortchange neither their own culture nor the target culture, but would make them into cultural mediators in a globalized world? This paper explores these issues from the perspective of the large body of research done in Australia, Europe and the U.S. in the last twenty years. It links the study of culture to the study of discourse (see, e.g., and to the concept of translingual and transcultural competence proposed by the Modern Language Association (e.g., . Special attention will be given to the unique role that the age-old Persian culture can play in fostering the cultural mediators of tomorrow.

English has been designated as a source of intercultural communication among the people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. A range of linguistic and cultural theories contribute meaningful insights on the development of competence in intercultural communication. The speculations suggest the use of communicative strategies focusing on the development of learners’ efficiency in communicating language through cultural context. However, the teaching of culture in communication has not been paid due importance in a number of academic and language settings of Pakistan and Iran. This assignment study indicates problems in view of teaching English as a medium of instruction in public sector colleges of interior Sindh, Pakistan and prescribed textbooks in Iranian schools. It also aims to identify drawbacks and shortcoming in prescribed textbooks for intermediate students at college level and schools. Therefore, the assignment study recommends integration of cultural awareness into a language teaching programme for an overall achievement of competence in intercultural communication.

1989

This paper focuses upon the importance of teaching culture in foreign language classrooms. Research done by sociolinguists and anthropologists shows that there is a close relationship between language and culture. Language and culture are inseparab'l e. So differences in culture across languages are a problem in learning a foreign language. Unfortunate1y , the role of culture in foreign language teaching/1earning has been ignored in Turkey by language researchers, curriculum planners, and language teachers, and, thus, it has not been included as part of the curriculum of teaching EIFL programs. Many communication failures are the result of a lack of cross-cultura1 understanding rather than a lack of linguistic competence. This topic is important to the field of EFL because the development of "communicative competence" in a foreign 3anguage involves much more than linguistic competence. Communication also involves developing an awareness of the way of life end the traditions of the people whose language is being studied. Learning the cultural roots of a language is essential for meaningful fluency, ]D ether words, an understanding of culture makes language study more meaningful.

This study was conducted with the participation of the students of the ELT department of Çukurova University in Turkey. We have tried to find out what students think about the effects of the culture class they attended in the fall semester of 2003-2004 academic year. As a result of the study, a significant similarity between the students' views and the theoretical benefits of a culture class as argued by some experts in the field was observed. Regarding the benefits of learning about culture, attending the culture class has raised cultural awareness in ELT students concerning both native and target societies. This study illustrates how arguments of language teaching experts in favour of a culture class in language learning and teaching are justified by some sound evidence provided by the participants of this study.

Aportaciones para una educación lingüística y literaria en el siglo XXI, 2013

Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 2015

This research investigates how foreign language (FL) learners (learners of German) view culture instruction in their L1 (English) and whether, or to what extent, the use of their L1 enhances their understanding of the German language and culture(s). In German language classes, the ways native speakers (NSs) of German verbalize affection are often addressed early on when engaging students in conversations about their family, friends, or personal relationships. Using the example of lessons on the meaning and use of German expressions of affection and friendship at the introductory level, this study addresses three areas of inquiry: (a) how students perceive the use of the L1 and L2 in lessons pertaining to culture, (b) whether students prefer the L1 or the L2 when learning about culture in class, and (c) to what extent the use of the L1 affects students' understanding of culturally connoted expressions in German.