The use of the linguacultural texts in teaching undergraduate degrees
Introduction
The theme of the course paper is
Using linguacultural texts in teaching students of senior stages. …the teacher
must relate language to culture if a coordinate system is to result from the
learner’s efforts. As language teachers we must be interested in the study of
culture (in the social scientist’s sense of the word) not because we
necessarily want to teach the culture of the other country but because we have
to teach it. If we teach language without teaching at the same time the culture
in which it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to which
the student attaches the wrong meaning; for unless he is warned, unless he
receives cultural instruction, he will associate British/American concepts or
objects with the foreign symbols.paper argues for a new interpretation of
culture, which potentially challenges traditional views of culture common in
discussions of foreign and second language learning. The progressive theory of
culture allows us to restructure the curriculum in ways that highlight learner
participation, the importance of social transaction, and the role of tension in
promoting learning.novelty of this research is that it gives a new insight to
the learning of lniguacultural texts and communication in general.aim of this
work is to investigate the theoretical and practical sides of teaching language
together with culture.achieve my aim I set forth the following objectives:study
the interpretation of language and cultureinvestigate the role and place of
culture in language learningfind out as much interesting ways to teach
linguacultural textssingle out peculiar features related to text, especially
the context of culture.and theoretical value of this paper: The results of this
work may be helpful to other students, to teachers who work in these sphere,
and to anyone who is interested in that interesting theme.studying my theme I
used methods of investigation, such as method of observation and analysis and
method of comparison.of the course paper: The paper consists of Introduction, 2
parts: 1.Theoretical bases of linguacultural communication and education; 2. A
practical analysis of using linguacultural texts in teaching; Conclusion,
Bibliography and Appendix.tells the theme, aim, objectives, structure and the
titles of the parts.1 is devoted to Theoretical bases of linguacultural
communication and education.2 finds out about how to make use of culture in
language learning.of my research gives the results of my research with my own
opinion on this theme.includes the 8 texts used on the lessons.
Part I Theoretical bases of
linguacultural communication and education
.1 Language and culture
It has been seen that language is
much more than the external expression and communication of internal thoughts
formulated independently of their verbalization. In demonstration the
inadequacy and inappropriateness of such a view of language, attention has
already been drawn to the ways in which one’s mother tongue is intimately and
in all sorts of details related to the rest of one’s life in a community and to
smaller groups within that community. This is true of all peoples and all
languages; it is a universal fact about language.speak of the relations between
language and culture. It is, indeed more in accordance with reality to consider
language as a part of culture. “Culture” is here being used in the
anthropological sense to refer to all aspects of human life insofar as they are
determined or conditioned by membership in a society. The fact that a man eats
and drinks is not itself cultural; it is a biological necessity that he does so
for the preservation of life. That he eats particular foods and refrains from
eating other substances, though they may be perfectly edible and nourishing, and
that he eats and drinks at particular times of day and in certain places are
matters of culture, something “acquired by man as a member of society”,
according to the now-classic definition of culture by the English
anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor. As thus defined and envisaged, culture
covers a very wide area of human life and behaviour; and language is manifestly
a part, probably the most important part, of it.the faculty of language
acquisition and language use is innate and inherited, and there is legitimate
debate over the extent of this innateness, every individual’s language is
“acquired by man as a member of society”, along with and at the same time as
other aspects of that society’s culture in which he is brought up. Society and
language are mutually indispensable. Language can have developed only in a
social setting, however this may have been structured, and human society in any
form even remotely resembling what is known today or is recorded in history
could be maintained only among people speaking and understanding a language in
common use.is no reason to believe that animal behaviour has materially altered
during the period available for the study of human history, say the last 5,000
years or so, except, of course, when man’s intervention by domestication or
other forms of interference has itself brought about such alterations. Nor do
members of the same species differ markedly in behaviour over widely scattered
areas, again apart from differences resulting from human interference. Bird songs
are reported to differ somewhat from place to place within species, but there
is little other evidence for areal divergence. By contrast with this unity of
animal behaviour, human cultures are as divergent as are human languages over
the world, and they can and do change all the time, sometimes with great
rapidity, as among the industrialized nations of the 20th century.processes of
linguistic change and its consequences will be treated below. Here, cultural
change in general and its relation to language will be considered. By far the
greatest part of learned behaviour, which is what culture involves, is
transmitted by vocal instruction, not by imitation. Some imitation is clearly
involved, especially in infancy, in the learning process, but proportionately
this is hardly significant.the use of language, any skills, techniques,
products, modes of social control, and so on can be explained, and the end
results of anyone’s inventiveness can be made available to anyone else with the
intellectual ability to grasp what is being said. Spoken language alone would
thus vastly extend the amount of usable information in any human community and
speed up the acquisition of new skills and the adaptation of techniques to
changed circumstances or new environments. With the invention and diffusion of
writing, this process widened immediately, and the relative permanence of
writing made the diffusion of information still easier. Printing and the
increase in literacy only further intensified this process. Modern techniques for
almost instantaneous transmission of the written and spoken word all over the
globe, together with the rapid translation services now available between the
major languages in the world, have made it possible for usable knowledge of all
sorts to be made accessible to people almost anywhere in the world in a very
short time. This accounts for the great rapidity of scientific, technological,
political, and social change in the contemporary world. All of this, whether
ultimately for the good or ill of mankind, must be attributed to the dominant
role of language in the transmission of culture.is transmitted culturally; that
is, it is learned. To a lesser extent it is taught, when parents deliberately
encourage their children to talk and to respond to talk, correct their
mistakes, and enlarge their vocabulary. But it must be emphasized that children
very largely acquire their mother tongue (i.e., their first language) by
“grammar construction” from exposure to a random collection of utterances that
they encounter. What is classed as language teaching in school either relates
to second-language acquisition or, insofar as it concerns the pupils’ first
language, is in the main directed at reading and writing, the study of
literature, formal grammar, and alleged standards of correctness, which may not
be those of all the pupils’ regional or social dialects. All of what goes under
the title of language teaching at school presupposes and relies on the prior
knowledge of a first language in its basic vocabulary and essential structure,
acquired before school age.language is transmitted as part of culture, it is no
less true that culture as a whole is transmitted very largely through language,
insofar as it is explicitly taught. The fact that mankind has a history in the
sense that animals do not is entirely the result of language. So far as
researchers can tell, animals learn through spontaneous imitation or through
imitation taught by other animals. This does not exclude the performance of
quite complex and substantial pieces of cooperative physical work, such as a
beaver’s dam or an ant’s nest, nor does it preclude the intricate social
organization of some species, such as bees. But it does mean that changes in
organization and work will be the gradual result of mutation cumulatively
reinforced by survival value; those groups whose behaviour altered in any way
that increased their security from predators or from famine would survive in
greater numbers than others. This would be an extremely slow process,
comparable to the evolution of the different species themselves.
.2 Role and place of culture in
education
The fact that culture is part of
education can be derived from Tylor’s definition of culture:or Civilization,
taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as a member of society.
(Tylor 1929)are then, beliefs,
customs and habits which can be roughly qualified under a small “c”, that is
culture associated with the way people live and the big “c” is a culture which
encompasses knowledge, art, morals and law which forms the framework for the
popular culture and becomes the cultural heritage of a target language
country.the Practical English module forms a substantial part of the learning
curriculum it might be justifiable to say that, if it is feasible, it should at
least partially be the role of Practical English teachers to impart some
knowledge about “ways of all people” to students in Years Three would then be
to focus on those elements of culture that would complement well-established
courses like history, literature and British Studies. The British Culture
course cannot however, be perceived as mere information, as it is a content
subject with educational objectives. The main one being the achievement of
cultural competence within specified subject areas such as art, architecture,
cinema, music, sport or theatre.culture of the target language and
sociocultural aspects of the language enhance the knowledge of that country
which in turn promotes international understanding. The Polish borders being
open means that there are a lot of possibilities for young people to travel and
to get to know the world. But most of all, it is the planned European Union
expansion to the east that will bring change into foreign language methodology
and the choice of teaching materials in the classroom.education and teacher
development. When in 1868 James Stuart, the first University of Cambridge
professor of Mechanical Engineering, started a series of lectures to the
workmen of Crewe he meant to deliver them:
…in the hope of perhaps commencing
in some of you a thread whose strands are pleasure and instruction, which some
of you may perhaps keep spinning all through your lives.
(Rowdings 1998)we agree that
education means permanent education then the aim of education is no longer
restricted to youth and specific qualifications but it always open to questions
and review. If teachers of English pursue their interests through culture they
will not only continue their education but they will develop as teachers.Piaget
asserts:precondition of all future pedagogical reform is the training of
teachers.
( Fragniere 1976)Learning. The role
of the English language culture teacher is to assist and guide the independent
exploring of culture by students at any level.“education Without Frontiers”
from 1976 the author foresees that:autonomous learning, this one way teaching
relationship will give way to more spontaneous behaviour on the part of the
pupil. The process of teaching will become an exchange and not a passive pupil
facing a dominant and knowledgeable teacher.
(Fragniere 1976)teaching of culture
can become, then:
…an education based on contract.
(Schwartz in Fragniere 1976)the
classroom students will work on activities offered by the teacher and learn how
to pursue their interests in culture through books, multimedia or the
Internet.activity based learning of culture?can provide a basis for a great
number of activities which in turn offer students opportunities to get away
from stereotyped and conditioned responses and develop their own
critical-thinking skills. As to the methodology of the teaching of culture
there are no hard and fast rules concerning it. Chastain (1989) talks about
Modes of Presenting Culture such the culture aside approach, a slice of life
technique or a culture capsule. However, in view of what Byram says about a
largely intuitive practice in culture teaching the model of teaching culture
adopted on the Bydgoszcz TTC British Culture course seems to be justified.the
absence of a fully developed methodology(of teaching culture), however,
intuitive techniques may be equally valid and ultimately absorbed into
methodology.
(Byram1987)point made by Buttjes is
worth considering:
…a view of cultural studies as an
acquisition of foreign socio-cultural meanings is particularly well served by
working through visual and spoken media and texts as well as written ones.
(Byram 1987), architecture and film
are based on visual concepts and these concept appeal to students. In order to
present these elements of culture we can use the following visual aids:
xerox-copies, black and white or colour ones, transparencies, both black and
white or colour ones, slides, posters, video documentaries, featuring films,
film experts or stills, postcards, tourist brochures and leaflets.this way
students’ interests in the target culture are stimulated. The aim of these
activities is to show students that when talking about painting, for example,
there is more to it than personal reaction. Frances Sword, Education Officer at
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, says:have to work them to a pitch where
they’re not just going to say “I don’t like it” or “This doesn’t make sense.”
(Woodward 1997)to these suggested
activities students’ thinking is stretched, unexpected reactions are heard and
also all the four skills are practised. In this way introducing culture in the
foreign language classroom leads to creativity and offer inspiration both to
learners and teachers who can so easily get lost in the daily grind.
.3 Theory of teaching
linguacultural texts
What a text is? What do we mean by
text? We can define text, in the simplest way perhaps, by saying that it is
language that is functional. By functional, we simply mean language that is
doing some job in some context, as opposed to isolated words or sentences that
I might put on the blackboard. (These might also be functional, of course, if I
was using them as linguistic examples.) So any instance of living language that
is playing some part in a context of situation, we shall call a text. It may be
either spoken or written, or indeed in any other medium of expression that we
like to think of.important thing about the nature of a text is that, although when
we write it down it looks as though it is made of words and sentences, it is
really made of meanings. Of course, the meanings have to be expressed, or
coded, in words and structures, just as these in turn have to be expressed over
again - recoded, if you like - in sounds or in written symbols. It has to be
coded in something in order to be communicated; but as a thing in itself, a
text is essentially a semantic unit. It is not something that can be defined as
being just another kind of sentence, only bigger., we cannot simply treat a
theory of text as an extension of grammatical theory, and set up formal systems
for deciding what a text is. It is by no means easy to move from the formal
definition of a sentence to the interpretation of particular sentences of
living language; and this problem is considerably greater in the case of the
text. Because of its nature as a semantic entity, a text, more than other
linguistic units, has to be considered from two perspectives at once, both as a
product and as a process. We need to see the text as product and the text as
process and to keep both these aspects in focus. The text is a product in the
sense that it is an output, something that can be recorded and studied, having
a certain construction that can be represented in systematic terms. It is a
process in the sense of a continuous process of semantic choice, a movement
through the network of meaning potential, with each set of choices constituting
the environment for a further set.of culture. Much of the work of learning a
foreign language consists in learning to make the right predictions. If the
student coming into school with a first language other than English finds
difficulty in using English to learn with, this is likely to be in part because
he has not yet learnt to expect in English - to use the context in this
predictive way. Tcontext of situation, however, is only the immediate
environment. There is also a broader background against which the text has to
be interpreted: its CONTEXT OF CULTURE. Any actual context of situation, the
particular configuration of field, tenor, and mode that has brought a text into
being, is not just a random jumble of features but a totality - a package, so
to speak, of things that typically go together in the culture. People do these
things on these occasions and attach these meanings and values to them; this is
what a culture is.school itself provides a good example of what in modern
jargon could be called an “interface” between the context of situation and the
context of culture. For any “text” in school - teacher talk in the classroom,
pupil’s notes or essay, passage from a textbook - there is always a context of
situation: the lesson, with its concept of what is to be achieved; the
relationship of teacher to pupil, or textbook writer to reader; the “mode” of
question-and-answer, expository writing, and so on. But these in turn are
instances of, and derive their meaning from, the school as an institution in
the culture: the concept of education, and of educational knowledge as distinct
from commonsense knowledge; the notion of the curriculum and of school
“subjects”; the complex role structures of teaching staff, school principals,
consultants, inspectorate, departments of education, and the like; and the
unspoken assumptions about learning and the place of language within it.these
factors constitute the context of culture, and they determine, collectively,
the way the text is interpreted in its context of situation. It is as well to
know what we are assuming, as teachers, when we stand up in front of a class
and talk, or when we set pupils a task like writing a report or an essay, or
when we evaluate their performance in that task.have not offered, here, a
separate linguistic model of the context of culture; no such thing yet exists,
although there are useful ideas around. But in describing the context of
situation, it is helpful to build in some indication of the cultural
background, and the assumptions that have to be made if the text is to be
interpreted - or produced - in the way the teacher (or the system)
intends.lesson in culture. This paper argues for a new interpretation of
culture which potentially challenges traditional views of culture common in
discussions of foreign and second language learning. It also proposes ways to
restructure curriculum around this new interpretation. Three different
perspectives on culture are developed: first, culture creates differences and
tension, both of which propel learning; second, culture is not a fact but a
process of learning; third, culture can be used in a monolingual/monocultural
and multilingual/multicultural setting. The theoretical perspective explained
here is grounded on the premise that knowledge, or meaning generation, is
constructed as the result of a transaction between an individual’s conception
of the world (individual culture) and the world outside the individual (social
culture). From this standpoint, culture resides in, rather than being separate
from, each individual. This progressive theory of culture allows us to restructure
the curriculum in ways that highlight learner participation, the importance of
social transaction, and the role of tension in promoting learning. After an
explanation of this alternative interpretation of culture, suggestions for
creating a classroom environment consistent with that interpretation are
explored.paper potentially challenges the ways in which traditionally existing
perspectives view culture and its relationship to language learning. In what
follows, the traditional views on the role of culture in foreign or second
language learning and teaching will be discussed, and contrasted to a new
interpretation of culture. Finally, the creation of an environment that
supports learning, and which involves the introduction of classroom activities,
will be suggested.is often neglected in EFL and ESL teaching/learning, or
introduced as no more than a supplementary diversion to language instruction.
Yet changes in linguistic and learning theory suggest that culture should be
highlighted as an important element in language classrooms. Efforts linking
culture and language learning are impelled by ideas originating in
sociolinguistic theory and schema learning theory. Sociolinguistic theory
focuses on the social and cultural aspects of language. From a sociolinguistic
perspective, competence in language use determined not only by the ability to
use language with grammatical accuracy, but also to use language appropriate to
particular contexts. Thus, successful language learning requires language users
to know the culture that underlies language.to both EFL and reading instruction
is the premise that deficiencies in cultural background knowledge create
learning difficulties. It follows that understanding the culture of the text is
essential to successful language learning; without the appropriate cultural
schema to aid understanding, what is learnt must necessarily be incomplete.new
interpretation of culture. A new interpretation of culture, which focuses on
culture as a process of learning rather than an external knowledge to be
acquired incidental to the “facts” of language, reconceptualizes our view
toward culture in EFL. This reconceptualization helps us to reposition the role
of culture in learning. Sociolinguistics, schema learning, and cultivation theories
all focus on cultural knowledge as an essential component for gaining
competence in learning second and foreign language., that triggers learning is
not culture but the process of meaning generation, and the differences and
tensions that come from encountering various cultures. As valuable as
sociolinguistics, schema, and cultivation theories are for pushing us into more
effective ways of conceiving language learning, if we examine Peircian
semiotics (1992), then these theories present several problems.(1868) wrote
that “no cognition not determined by a previous cognition , then, can be
known”. In other words, we must use our inner, pre-existing cognition to make
sense of the outer world, to detect and expand meaning. That inner text is
formed through our multiple experiences with the world. As a result, each
individual has his or her own uniqueness, and carries his or her own culture.
Second, any meaning-making is a transaction between our own inner world and the
external world (environment). Meaning is generated as a result of transactions
between our conception of the world and our confrontation with that world. In
other words, all knowledge is a dynamic construction orchestrated by language
users. As an example, think of the differing concepts held by Americans of the
words “Michael Jordan”, conceptions developed from previous experiences as
consumers of news, television, or other entertainment media. When an American
sees the words “Michael Jordan” on a bulletin board, one may recall a Chicago
Bulls basketball game that he or she has watched, that brings to mind the grace
in movement of a particular play, while another may recall some sporting shoes
they purchased and which may be needing repair. Yet the bulletin board may
refer to a wholly different context, such as an attack on the athlete for
endorsing Nike shoes. In this way, any meaning we construct is a transaction
between our own perspectives - developed from our past experiences in the world
- and the reality of that present world.can infer from this meaning-making
process an interpretation of culture. Every new perspective on culture is the
transaction between each individual’s culture (developed from a personal
history of the world) and social culture (composed of the histories of others).
An individual culture (IC) refers to each individual’s conception, which
becomes a culture in itself. The world outside the individual - other people
and their environments - becomes the social culture. (SC). When we apply these
terms to the language classroom, SC will include not only people in the
immediate society of the language learners, but also those who live in the
target language culture (TC) - the culture of the second or foreign language
being learned. Any knowledge or meaning that we generate is the result of
transactions between IC and SC. As a consequence of the interaction between
them, a new perspective on culture is developed through a process that is
always incomplete, and continuously evolving. The triad relationship among
these terms, which draws on Peirce’s theory, is illustrated in Figure 2.
is the differences between IC and SC
that allow us to generate new meaning and knowledge and to gain new
perspectives. The process is unlimited, however, because individuals have
separate and unique cultures. That is, we can never duplicate the SC in our IC,
nor are we in danger of doing so, because we never share identical histories.
Each of us will always create our own unique meanings based on our differing
experiences (Pierce 1992). For example, people may belong to the same social
culture, but have different interpretations about the role of women in society,
because each person’s life trajectory will have assumed a different shape in
relationship to ideas about women. This uniqueness creates an availability of
alternatives, a rich bank of differing viewpoints, which allow transactions
between IC and SC to continually generate differences.a difference us beyond
our understanding or expectation, an anomaly occurs. Characterized by
ambiguity, difficulty, conflict, and uncertainty, anomalies are unexpected
situations, which generally result in frustration, struggle, dissatisfaction,
and surprise. While anomalies may occur in any setting, they are especially
prevalent when speakers operate from different communication rules. Bodily
contact, for example, can be very different between cultures, as is indicated
by distinctions between contact cultures - those of the Middle East, Latin
America, and Southern Europe - and those of the non-contact cultures, such as
the United States and England. Speakers interacting who come from a mixture of
non-contact and contact cultures can find themselves irritated and frustrated
by their conversational partners’ apparent failure to understand. However, such
a difference can also create a tension that actually propels learning. Tension
increases when an anomaly occurs. Uncertainty forces us to rethink our
experience, and to search until we find answers, or generate new thoughts for
solving what puzzles us about unfamiliar situations. In this search, our
thinking and meaning-making constantly moves forward.semiotics lends credence
to a new theory of culture, one in which culture is no longer a set body of
information or “facts” to be memorized, but a process for generating frameworks
of perception, a value system, and a set of perspectives. It is a mistake to
assume that knowledge is a static object ‘out there’ to be acquired by the
first or second/foreign language learner. Changes in culture rely not on
gaining ‘knowledge products’ but on the process of transaction.can draw on
Peircian semiotics in explaining all learning from a perspective of cultural
differences. Such anomalies will always have to be faced, whether in the
foreign language (FL) classroom, where learners from the same country are learning
a target language, or in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom,
where learners from different countries are learning English. Cultural
differences can exist between people from different cultures and within the
same culture. However, individuals who share the same culture may encounter
fewer differences than do individuals from differing cultures, because each
person’s interpretation is limited by the social group in which he or she
resides.
.4 Creating an environment that
supports learning
Integration of culture in the
curriculum. If we define culture as knowledge apart from the individual, it is
easy to consider it as content, a body of knowledge that should be the focus of
the curriculum. However, if culture or cultural differences are to be integral
to the process of learning language, then the foundation of curriculum shifts
from content to learning processes. A curriculum which views culture as a
process rather than as a body of facts can be illustrated. These illustrations,
however, will be clearer if the pedagogical premises are discussed in advance.
If culture is viewed as a process of transaction, then students need
opportunities to generate meaning in transaction. Therefore, classroom
environments must allow and encourage students to their own culture, to
transact with cultures (SC) outside their unique, individual cultures (IC), and
to reflect on these transactions. The tension produced by the resultant
anomalies can only be a useful learning tool if learners first recognize their
own beliefs, conflicts, struggles, and difficulties. Recognition of this
individual stance, however, is insufficient for growth; we must also encounter
alternative perspectives by actively exploring meaning with others. In shared
exploration , learners use others as vehicles to help them to generate new
tension, for ‘it is in talking with others that we begin to be able to hear
ourselves and to consider other perspectives’. Thus, sharing individual meaning
constructs with others, and reflecting upon those episodes of sharing, helps
students to clarify and interrogate the assumptions, which underlie those
beliefs, while reflection allows them to rethink their meaning constructs.
However, tension may occur during the process of rethinking because students may
be critical of what they have to come to know. In addition, ‘this reflection
leads to decisions about whether and how we will revise those constructions. In
such processes, we generate additional meaning and gain new perspectives that
foster learning and change. A new perspective may allow us to arrive at a
generalized understanding of our previous meaning or to take new action. In the
face of such concepts we are required to define culture as an integral process
of learning and thinking rather than as discrete facts.for teaching cultural
awareness. There are numerous expert language teachers and teacher trainers who
have written extensively about the many vehicles that have proven successful
for the teaching of cultural awareness. Only a very brief sketch can be
included here of those deemed most practical:method. The teacher begins each
discussion period with a presentation of one or more items in the target
culture that are distinctly different from the students’ culture. The
discussion then centers on why these differences might cause
problems.assimilators. Developed by social psychologists for facilitating
adjustment to a foreign culture, the culture assimilator is a brief description
of a critical incident of crosscultural interaction that would probably be
misunderstood by the students. After the description of the incident, the
students are presented with four possible explanations from which they are
asked to select the correct one. If they make the wrong choice, they are asked
to seek further information that would lead them to the correct
conclusion.capsule. This technique is somewhat similar to culture assimilator,
but cannot be assigned as a silent reading exercise. The teacher gives a brief
presentation showing one essential difference between an American and a foreign
custom. It is accompanied by visuals which illustrate the difference, and set
of questions to stimulate class discussion.. This technique is especially
useful for directly involving students in crosscultural misunderstandings by having
selected members act out in a series of short scenes a misinterpretation of
something that happens in the target culture. The cause of the problem is
usually clarified in the final scene.unit or Total Physical Response. Primarily
designed as a listening exercise, this method employs a carefully constructed
list of oral commands to which students respond. The commands are arranged in
an order that will cause students to act out a cultural experience.. Many
aspects of culture that are not usually found in a textbook are present in the
newspaper. The teacher asks students to compare a certain item in the foreign
newspaper with its equivalent in their newspapers. Good cultural insights can
readily be found in headlines, advertisements, editorials, sports pages,
comics, even the weather report. The humour found on the comic page is
especially revealing.media. Films, filmstrips and slides provide cultural
insights as well as providing a welcome variety of classroom activities.
Excellent filmstrips on culturally related subjects are available commercially,
and slides that teachers have collected in their travels can be worked into
short, first-hand cultural presentations.culture island. The teacher maintains
a classroom ambiance that is essentially a culture island through the use of
posters, pictures, a frequently changing bulletin board, all of which are
designed with the purpose of attracting student attention, eliciting questions
and comments.
Part II A practical analysis of
using linguacultural texts in teaching
.1 Lesson plans on
linguacultural texts
Dating customs: To compare
relationships between men and women in the UK and the US with the relationships
between men and women in Kazakhstanee culture.: A task sheet for each student,
copies of texts.: Photocopying the task sheet overleaf. Making enough copies to
give one to each student.: 45 minutesClass:to the class that they are going to
compare relationships between men and women in two cultures.the class into
pairs, and distributing the texts.students read the text divided in two parts:
the student A reads the first part; the student B reads the second part. Then
after reading in pairs each of them explains his or her part to the partner.the
pair work, volunteers take turns to report their opinions.the discussion of the
text, for consolidation giving task sheet with multiple choice questions.work
in groups of 4-5, discussing the customs listed on the task sheet, and
indicating whether each practice is the same or different in their culture.up
with a whole-class discussion on the following questions:have you learned about
relationships between men and women in the UK and the US from these
activities?you make any generalizations about relationships between men and
women in the UK and the US?what ways are the relationships different from the
relationships in your culture?what ways are they similar?homework, you could
ask the students to write a short composition, comparing and contrasting
behaviour between men and women in the UK and US with behaviour between men and
women in their culture.: To widen students’ knowledge of weddings in the
country of the target culture.: Copies of texts: To do a “ Wedding”
presentation, it is important to find out what the students already know about
the topic, and to get them involved from the start.: 45 minutesclass:
.Writing the topic in a circle in
the center of the board.
. Asking the class to call out any
words or phrases they know associated with the topic. They may volunteer things
like ‘proposal’, ‘bride’, ‘groom’, ‘ceremony’, ‘wedding dress’, ‘flowers’,
‘children’, etc.
. Then, writing these associations
in the spidergram.
. Making sure that everybody in the
class understands all the words and phrases.
. Then giving the activity to
compare and contrast the customs of wedding of English-speaking countries and
their own culture. Finding the equivalents to beliefs and habits from their
culture, asking to find equivalent to the saying: “Something old, something
new, something borrowed something blue…”
. Drawing a line with a question
mark on it between words or phrases that seem to contradict each other. For
example:in Britain/USA _______?_____ Wedding in Kazakhstan: to give more
information about the leisuring activities in the target language country.:
News article about the “Cricket”, visual materials on the theme.: 50 minutes:
Selecting a relatively short article about this kind of sport, to prepare
enough copies of text to each student.class:
.Dividing the class into groups of
two or three students. Distributing the copies of the news article.
.Explaining the task to the
students. Half of the groups are to read the news article and then write a
brief radio news report for their home culture, describing what has happened in
the target culture. The other groups are to write a radio news report for the
target culture.
. The students work in their groups,
reading the news article and writing their radio news reports.
. One member of each group
role-plays a radio news announcer and reads the group’s news report.
. Next, conducting a whole-class
discussion on the different perspectives presented by each group in its news
report. The discussion should center on the following questions:did the news
reports for the home culture differ from the news reports for the target
culture?what ways, if any, were the reports similar?
Horse Racing: To provide students
with newest information about the horse-racing in Britain/USA, to teach them to
work efficiently with the text.: A text about the “Horse racing” in the target
language country.: 45 minutes.: To choose the text about the
horse-racing.class:ask students to sit in a circle in two separate groups. To
give two different parts of the text in pieces cut beforehand. The students
complete the text, then with the instruction of the teacher each group checks
if they did it in the right order.next activity is devoted to the sharing of
the information. The members of the first group stand in the inner circle and
the members of the second group stand in the outer circle. The group standing
in the inner circle stands facing the members of the second group. Then each
student explains his or her part of the text to the partner.that the students
work in a whole class, ask and answer questions.the class into two groups,
asking them to find the similar information about this sport from their own
culture.similarities and differences of “horse racing” in two cultures.: To
make students aware of the holidays of the target language country. To make
them work efficiently on the texts.
“Easter”.: 80 minutes: Preparing
four texts, dividing them between the students.class:ask students to divide
into two groups, to distribute the texts, one text to one group. Students
quickly read their text for general understanding.each team selects a leader
who tells a summary of the text in 5 sentences. The activity is conducted as a
competition; the team, which tells the best summary, wins.team gets a task to
prepare 10 true/false sentences about their text in details, and they ask their
rivals.next activity is devoted to writing. Each group prepares a good summary
in a written form; they are given a sheet of paper beforehand.the end, in turn
the leaders of the groups read out their summaries loudly, so that all the
students understand the content very well.a home task students are given to
prepare a report about the holidays and traditions to celebrate them in our
country. Each student consults his or her theme with a teacher.
2.2
A critical analysis of lessons devoted to linguacultural communication
During applying linguacultural texts
in teaching cultural awareness of students different techniques were used by
me. They were comparison method, the method of culture capsule, newspapers,
projected media, drama and etc. All the four aims were to be achieved:
practical, educational, cultural and developing.learning a foreign language
students had a chance to learn the traditions, life, customs of the people of
whose language they study. They could get this information through visual material
before, such as postcards with the views of towns, countryside, people,
filmstrips and of course reading material. During my school practice I paid a
great attention to teaching linguacultural texts. Visual and other materials
were additional.language teaching should promote students’ educational and
cultural growth by increasing their knowledge about countries and by
introducing them with progressive tradition of people whose language they
study. The most efficient way to this purpose is to read more texts connected
with the target culture. I think this aim was achieved well., there were some
difficulties through which my students went through. The first problem to my
mind was misunderstanding of some students of English traditions such as
inviting a chimney sweep if he is met on the way to the wedding, or that the
bad weather is thought to be an omen of an unhappy marriage. The second
difficulty was insufficient background knowledge of students and also their
low-level language knowledge. Some of them couldn’t participate in some of the
communicative activities.overcome these difficulties, I used different
techniques and tried to follow the principle of accessibility very strictly. I
tried to supply with the background information first, before giving a certain
task. To waken the inner motivation of the students to learn the language, I
used different warm-up activities, to stimulate their interest to language
learning, and to create the foreign language atmosphere.for the intercultural
misunderstanding, the debatable questions were discussed in a classroom,
compared and contrasted with the mother culture.general the principles of
activeness, accessibility, consecutiveness, visuality, consciousness were taken
into account and were accurately observed.
Conclusion
In my course paper I tried to study
the theory and usage of linguacultural texts in senior stages.aim was to
research the theoretical and methodological bases of linguacultural
communication, and also find out some peculiarities of teaching texts of
cultural character.methods of observation, analysis and comparison I tried to
find out more interesting and possibly new information about the connection
between the language and culture, the interpretation of culture in the foreign
language classroom, the role of culture in education, the importance of the
background knowledge while learning a foreign language, the profit of using
autonomous learning in teaching cultural awareness.paper potentially challenges
the ways in which traditionally existing perspectives view culture and its
relationship to language learning. In what follows, the traditional views of
the role of culture in foreign or second language learning and teaching will be
discussed, and contrasted to a new interpretation of culture. Finally, the
creation of an environment that supports learning, and involves the
introduction of classroom activities were suggested.and theoretical value of
the course paper.practical part I mostly dwelled upon investigating some new
kinds of activities that could be used on the lesson, as my work is connected
with the text, the activities were based on the reading priority. In order to
interest students to read these texts and get the information, I had to use
different original and interesting activities, role-plays, and games.
Theoretically I tried to explain the importance and meaning of teaching culture
together with the language. It is said that the foreign language teacher should
promote the educational and cultural aims while teaching language, which is to
give a good and deep knowledge of language and its culture. Also the
interpretation of the notion ‘text’ was distinctly explained in my paper.with
the theoretical bases of linguacultural communication, I examined and
investigated numerous techniques for teaching cultural awareness, which helped
me to conduct a successful lesson.general, I think that I successfully achieved
my aim and my research gave insight to modern perception of this theme.
Bibliography
1. “Culture
Bound” edited by Joyce Merril valdes
2. “
Language and Culture” by Claire Kramsch
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and Language Learning” Brooks, N.
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Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education” Byram, M.
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Second Language Skills: Theory and Practice” Chastain. K.
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Across Cultures, Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers.” Lado, R.
. “Focus
on Britain today. Cultural Studies for the Language Classroom” Lavery, C.
. “Customs,
Traditions and Festivals of GB” Timanovskaya
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resources.