Overview
A dramatic change in the real world and in
language teaching has taken place in the past
couple of decades. The increasing pace of
globalization, electronic communication,
popular media, the Internet, and social
networks has affected all of us to varying
degrees, and definitely all young people and
language students in profound ways. Today,
it is an unavoidable conclusion that the new
generations will work, communicate, and
socialize with people who are speakers of
diverse languages and members of different
cultures. For this reason alone, today's
language learners will be required to interact
and communicate effectively across various
types of boundaries and in a range of
contexts. To communicate effectively,
learners, as members of society, have to
become proficient in both the language and
the culture of its speakers (McKay &
Bokhorst-Heng, 2008).
While some language learners study English
as a Foreign Language (EFL) to pass exams
and tests, it is important for their teachers to
remember that today's young or youngish
learners are likely to be in the employment
world and function within various social
groups for many decades. Reasonable 18-
or 19- year-olds are probably not very
concerned with their educational,
professional, or vocational opportunities that
await them when they are 25, but their
teachers must consider the potential and
future options of their students. To this end,
being proficient in the culture of language
speakers may provide economic and social
opportunities that, today, to many might
seem somewhat unbelievable. For example,
most EFL teachers could probably name a
student or two or three among the students
in their classes who have obtained
employment with a multinational company
or a government position that requires these
learners to interact with speakers of other
languages -- in English -- in the course of
their daily functioning. A lack of cultural
proficiency, in addition to linguistic
proficiency, may make or break such
opportunities in a way that today's students,
sitting in the classrooms, can't even imagine.
An instrumental objective of teaching social
and interactional norms, in addition to the
linguistic properties of a foreign language
(FL), should focus on cultural pragmatic
systems. These represent key variables in
students' abilities to negotiate their roles and
their ability to participate in -- or be
marginalized or even excluded from --
various social, academic, or employment-related groups or interactions.
The original goals of teaching culture in
second or foreign language (L2/FL)
classrooms were proposed by Ned Seelye
(1988). Since that time, these basic
objectives have been modified and
examined by various researchers, but
fundamentally these have remained the foci
of much pedagogy in language, culture, and
cross-cultural communication. These goals
specify that the key accomplishments of
culture teaching are to help learners develop
the following new perspectives and abilities:
An understanding that, in all
societies, people exhibit
culturally-conditioned behaviors
A realization that, in all
languages, social variables such
as age, sex, social role, and social
status determine the ways in
which people speak and interact
An awareness that, in all societies,
people display conventionalized
language uses and behavior in
common (or typical) situations
An awareness of the cultural
connotations assigned to words
and phrases in L2/FL
An ability to evaluate and refine
generalizations (and stereotypes)
about the L2/FL culture, based on
real-life evidence and experience
Skills for researching another
culture, i.e. how to locate,
organize, and evaluate new
information about another culture
Intellectual curiosity about L2/FL
culture, as well as insight, respect,
and other positive attitudes
toward members of other cultures
In later years, some methodologists noted
that Seelye’s model was not sufficiently
specific for classroom teaching and that it
provided few techniques for achieving these
pedagogical objectives. In the contexts of
FL teaching, for example, some teachers are
not native speakers of the language they
teach and thus themselves may not have a
great deal of experience in another culture.
Other criticisms contended that Seelye's
theoretical model did not provide extensive
details about how to integrate the
development of learners' cross-cultural skills
into language-centered curricula which
traditionally cover grammar teaching and
learning. Despite these practical issues with
Seelye's outlined tenets, his model has stood
the test of time and served as a valuable
foundation for further elaboration, research,
and publications that have been a mainstay
of culture teaching for the past several
decades. The remainder of this paper
provides an overview of practical
approaches and techniques to teaching
culture in the classroom in conjunction with
instruction in the essential language skills.
It goes without saying, however, that this
brief review of strategies and tactics for
cross-cultural teaching and learning is
minimalist, and a number of additional
sources of pedagogical techniques are
currently available.
Teaching Culture as L2/FL Pragmatics
Being aware of socio-cultural frameworks
does not mean that as an outcome of
instruction learners have to become "native-like," but an awareness of L2 cultural norms
can allow learners to make their own
informed choices of how to become
competent and astute language users
(Hinkel, 1995). Generally speaking, the
teacher's task is to provide learners the tools
that they need to recognize that they are
indeed making choices when they employ
particular language features and that these
choices will have an impact on the effect of
the communication (see Seeley's goals for
culture learning noted earlier).
Culture may find its manifestations in body
language, gestures, concepts of time,
hospitality customs, and even expressions of
friendliness. While it is essential for
learners to attain language proficiency and
to be linguistically competent, in many
cases, this is not sufficient. To become
proficient and effective communicators,
learners need to attain L2/FL socio-cultural
competence. Knowing the grammatical
form of apologies, such as, for example:
excuse me
I'm sorry
My apologies
or
I regret (that … / noun)
does not automatically confer the knowledge
of when, to whom, and under what
circumstances to use these expressions. In
various circumstances, an inappropriate use
of an apology can be disruptive, somewhat
offensive, or discourteous, even though
many learners typically believe that an
expressed apology is always (always) polite.
Quite reasonably, learners first apply the
standards that exist in the first language (L1)
communities where they were socialized.
People who interact with language learners,
as well as L2 researchers, have commented
repeatedly (see the numerous publications
on L2 speech acts, including apologies) that
misused expressions of politeness or even
unintended rudeness are ubiquitous in L2
interactions. Not understanding the socio-cultural norms of a community can impact
non-native speakers' (NNSs') ability to
function in a L2 community.
According to Hymes (1996), the learning of
culture is an integral part of any and all
language learning and education because it
crucially influences an individual's view of
his or her place in the society, the success of
everyday interactions, the norms of speaking
and behaving, and the socio-cultural
expectations of an individual's roles. He
further notes that those who do not follow
the norms of appropriateness accepted in a
community are often placed in a position
that exacerbates social disparities and
inequality.
Today, when the numbers of EFL students
have grown dramatically, it is becoming
increasingly clear that the learning of a
second culture does not take care of itself.
Thus, L2 learners cannot always make the
best of their professional, social, and
interactional opportunities until they become
familiar with fundamental L2 cultural
concepts and constructs. Most importantly,
an ability to recognize and employ culturally
appropriate ways of communicating in
speech or writing allows learners to make
choices with regard to their linguistic,
pragmatic, and other behaviors. Without
instruction in and an understanding of L2
cultural and socio-pragmatic norms, learners
by definition do not have and cannot make
the essential choices that necessarily have to
be made to their own advantage.
Although traditionally courses and texts for
language teachers concentrate on teaching
L2 linguistic skills, it may be difficult to
separate the teaching and learning of any
FL, from the culture of its speakers. For
example, what represents polite ways of
speaking and appropriate ways of writing an
essay may depend on culturally-dependent
concepts that are closely bound up with the
linguistic skills needed to speak or write
well in the L2. Realistically speaking, many
teachers and learners often overlook the fact
that the "knowledge of the grammatical
system of a language" must be
complemented by understanding the culture-specific meanings in communication (Byram
and Morgan, 1994, p. 4).
To be useful and practical, the fundamental
teaching of L2/FL culture needs to address
how individuals can obtain and manage
cultural knowledge in various contexts,
under a diverse range of circumstances, and
in different places, communities, and
interactions (Arens, 2010). It goes without
saying that the basics of language have to be
taught, but they can be taught in conjunction
with appropriate uses of grammar and
vocabulary, for example, when it comes to
considerations of register or contextually
suitable pragmatic behaviors that reflect
socio-cultural norms and systems. Teaching
culture as L2/FL pragmatics needs to rely on
language learning from a cross-cultural
perspective, rather than studying grammar
and vocabulary patterns. Attaining
linguistic proficiency is undoubtedly very
important, but in many cases it is not
sufficient for successful cross-cultural
communication. At the present time, the
ultimate goal of all cultural and cross-cultural education is to enable learners to
become effective in a global economy, an
international community, and across
national boundaries.
Teaching L2/FL practical cultural skills
The very purpose of teaching L2/FL cultural
and pragmatic interactional norms is to
enable learners to communicate effectively.
In consequence, the teaching of practical
language competencies has to develop
learners' cross-cultural awareness, at the
very least. In addition, however, instruction
in functional pragmatic skills needs to
extend beyond cultural appreciation of, for
example, literature and the arts to building
realistic and usable intercultural abilities
(Scarino, 2010). It is hard to imagine that
the effective teaching of incremental
language skills, such as speaking or
listening, intended for functional
communication can take place in isolation
from instruction in L2/FL culture. A good
analogy in this case may be learning basic
math skills: knowing math rules would not
be helpful at all if a learner cannot compute
such small daily necessities as car fuel
efficiency per liter, currency conversions in
shops in another country, or the taxi fare
required to reach a particular destination.
The knowledge about specific cultural
attributes of a community does not
necessarily enable to learners' to
communicate effectively in social,
educational, and professional interactions
where both linguistic and pragmatic skills
have to be deployed (Hinkel, 2001).
In the teaching of language and culture, a
significant challenge for FL teachers lies in
specifically what elements of pragmatics
and culture to teach and how to teach them.
Much research carried out in pragmatics and
sociolinguistics over the past several
decades has focused on the socio-cultural
norms of politeness and appropriateness in
performing various types of speech acts and
in writing. In the case of speech acts, such
as requests, clarifications, apologies, and
small talk, for example, the linguistic and
pragmatic features of such specific speech
acts can be taught in the classroom to focus
on repeated and frequently routinized uses
of language, together with the important
differences according to the social status of
the speaker and the hearer, and other
situational factors. Speech acts can be direct
or indirect, and thus vary in the degree of
their politeness or even comprehensibility.
For example, You attended the class
yesterday, right? is an indirect speech act in
English, and it can mean that the speaker
would like to borrow class notes and is not
merely inquiring about the hearer's class
attendance. However, if the hearer does not
fully grasp the pragmatic function of this
speech act, then the speaker's
communicative goal may not be achieved.
In this case, the pragmatic context is crucial
for the speaker's meaning to be understood.
Many L2/FL researchers have found that
violations of cultural norms of
appropriateness in spoken or written
interactions between native and nonnative
speakers or between speakers of different
languages often lead to sociopragmatic
failure, uncomfortable breakdowns in
communication, and stereotyping (see the
work of Michael Byram or Ron Scollon &
Suzanne Scollon on cultural
misinterpretations, miscommunications, and
communication failures). In many
situations, when FL learners display
inappropriate pragmatic and language
behaviors, they are often not even aware that
they do. The teaching of ways of speaking
and writing in L2/FL has to strive to develop
learners' skills in the socio-cultural features
of language so as to provide them
appropriate choices. Without such
instruction, language learners and users may
simply have very few options.
The need to teach second or foreign
culture
The central and complex meaning of culture
refers to socio-cultural norms, worldviews,
beliefs, assumptions, and value systems that
find their way into practically all facets of
language use, including the classroom, and
language teaching and learning. Most
people are not even aware of socio-cultural
beliefs and assumption, and thus cannot
examine them intellectually. Scollon and
Scollon (2001) state that the cultural
concepts of what is acceptable, appropriate,
and expected in one's behavior is acquired in
the process of socialization and, hence,
becomes inseparable from an individual's
identity. For example, in the classroom, the
roles of the student and the teacher are
defined by the socio-cultural values of the
larger community and the society. If
teachers believe that they are required to
lead and dominate conversations, introduce
topics, and provide linguistic models, FL
students' culturally-determined views on
how participatory learning is to be
accomplished in the classroom may do little
to bridge the cultural gap. Most teachers,
even those with minimal classroom
experience or exposure, know how difficult
it can be to convince some students to adopt
a different model of learning. On the other
hand, an explicit discussion of the roles and
tasks of teachers and students in the learning
process can lead to a more productive
classroom atmosphere.
The complexity of teaching culture lies in
the fact that, unlike incremental language
skills, such as listening, reading, speaking,
or writing, culture does not represent a
separate area of L2/FL instruction. In
language learning and teaching, the crucial
socio-cultural principles that determine the
norms of appropriate and polite behavior
and language use within the frameworks of
the society represent the manifestations of
culture (Hinkel, 2001, 2006). To members
of a particular community and culture, these
assumptions appear to be self-evident and
axiomatic. On the other hand, they are not
always shared by members of other cultures
whose values are similarly based on
unquestioned and unquestionable
fundamental assumptions and concepts. It is
also important to note that ways of using
language (e.g. speaking, listening, reading,
and writing) and socio-cultural frameworks
in different communities may conflict to
varying extents, as in the above example
(Hinkel, 1999).
Teaching culture in language classrooms:
The pragmatic function and a linguistic
form
In the teaching of L2/FL pragmatics in the
context of listening, speaking, reading, or
writing, two overarching instructional goals
lie at the focus of instruction. The
pragmatic function (i.e., the socio-cultural
purpose/goal) of speech acts, such as
requests or apologies, or in writing, say,
email messages or academic papers, can be
found in practically every curriculum for
teaching speaking or writing. The linguistic
form of, for example, speech acts or
conversational routines is one of the most
easily accessible and familiar areas of
teaching L2/FL listening or speaking, e.g. I
can't come to your party (direct refusal) vs. I
am very sorry, but I'll be out of town that
entire week (an apology followed by an
indirect refusal). The pragmatic function of
these expressions is the same --a refusal, but
the speaker's choice of form may cause
different reactions from the hearer.
For example, to increase learners' linguistic
repertoire, the majority of FL textbooks for
teaching speaking devote a great deal of
attention to the form of polite and casual
expressions, idioms, and short dialogues,
and even their appropriate pronunciation and
intonation because, for instance, transfer of
intonation from L1 to L2 can have very
subtle negative consequences for interaction.
For instance, in textbooks for learners of
English, formal and informal expressions,
e.g. greetings, partings, or invitations, are
frequently distinguished for the benefit of
the learner. However, few texts indicate the
appropriate contexts or status, age, and
familiarity distinctions that crucially affect
when such expressions can be used or when
they cannot. Nor is the highly formal style
typically found in books, or in presentations
by news anchors, or in speeches in front of
groups, as opposed to those that are needed
in daily conversations among real people,
such as bosses or teachers. Highly formal
and bookish expressions, for example, can
convey an erroneous impression that the
speaker is being "uppity" and is not
particularly interested in getting along with
the hearer. (As a side note, I've heard many
learners of English express confusion in
regard to when, where, and with whom to
use informal, formal, and highly formal
styles.) The distinctions between pragmatic
forms of many politeness and conversational
expressions in listening and speaking, or
easily identifiable discourse markers in
reading and writing are relatively easy to
teach in classroom instruction in practically
any of the fundamental language skills.
Teaching culture in listening and
speaking
What makes a particular expression or
speech act situationally appropriate is not so
much the linguistic form or the range of the
linguistic repertoire, but the socio-cultural
variables, which are rarely addressed in
classroom instruction (see Seeley's goals
above). Partly for this reason, it is not
uncommon to hear learners use informal
greetings with peers or professors alike
simply because these are very common in
daily interactions.
Such socio-culturally inappropriate
greetings and conversational closures, as
well as other speech acts, are likely to cause
a bit of a surprise. However, as has been
mentioned, for obvious reasons, their
impropriety has little chance of being openly
discussed in real-life interactions. The
socio-cultural variables that can make a
perfectly acceptable expression unacceptable
in different interactions or settings reflect
the numerous aspects of L1 or L2 culture
that do not easily lend themselves to
textbook exercises or lists of expressions.
Nonetheless, it is the socio-cultural features,
such as gender, age, the degree of
familiarity, and the social status of the
participants in the interaction that can lead
to uncomfortable breakdowns and
miscommunications.
Few of these conversational devices,
however, distinguish between those that are
appropriate in peer-level and casual
interactions and those that should be used in
conversational exchanges with hearers who
are strangers, or those who have a different
socio-cultural status or are of different age
and gender. Furthermore, in such examples,
the situational variables are rarely taken into
account in classroom listening selections.
While it can be very appropriate to strike up
a conversation with a stranger, say, at a bus
stop or in a waiting room, in many European
or North American countries, such behavior
would not be considered appropriate in
many other countries. Yet, few, if any,
textbooks even mention that in various
languages polite greetings can be used only
when people know each other or are
introduced by a mutual acquaintance.
Teaching culture in reading and writing
In the teaching of FL writing, teachers may
draw on many examples from speaking and
establish parallels to help learners develop
cultural awareness in language use. One of
the well-known problems in the teaching of
FL or L2 writing in non-English-speaking
contexts is that FL learners often do not
provide a sufficient amount of politeness
and recipient-oriented discourse in their
communications. Writing professional or
business correspondence can be an excellent
vehicle for teaching written discourse.
Similar to the high degree of politeness and
formality that is expected in Farsi, for
example, spoken interactions with one's
social superiors, such as bosses, teachers, or
those who are older, written
communications also need to display a great
deal of recipient-focused strategies. Written
discourse also needs to show interest and
sympathy toward the reader, and include, for
example, formal uses of titles and forms of
address, hedged and softened inquiries and
requests. To help learners take a different
view of the necessary politeness in writing,
teachers may need to provide explicit
instruction on reader expectations in another
culture, the value of overt reader-oriented
politeness and interest, and how to achieve
these in writing. It is important for learners
to know that the uses of formalities and
politeness strategies are requisite in written
communications with speakers of English,
regardless of whether the actual prose is
written in English or in another language. In
the case of Anglo-American professional or
business correspondence, it is perfectly
acceptable for a communication to be
author-focused, as in I'd like to …, I'd prefer
that …, or I am interested in …. Unless they
are instructed otherwise, this can also the
approach that many English speakers would
take in writing in a interactions with
speakers of other languages.
Materials and activities for culture
learning in the classroom
The learners' actual goals in attaining FL
linguistic proficiency may serve as guides
for determining their needs in learning
culture. For example, if learners intend to
obtain employment in local or multinational
companies, their need of L2 cultural
competencies may be different from those
who are concerned with passing language
tests or who are enrolled in weekend
conversation classes. In many settings,
however, instruction highlighting the
influence of culture on second or foreign
language use can be made effective and
productive when working on particular L2
activities.
In light of the fact that manifestations of the
influence of culture on language use are very
common, materials for teaching cultural
concepts and their outcomes are usually easy
to create. The tasks associated with training
learners to become careful and sharp people-watchers and observers of culturally-appropriate and common interactional
routines and expressions can serve as a basis
for very productive and effective projects
that are interesting and enjoyable for
learners. For intermediate learners, for
example, a teacher may choose to make a
basic checklist of linguistic and social
features of speech events and interactions to
encourage students to carry out their "field
research" when watching TV shows and
movies, or surfing the web, as well as in
restaurants, stores, and offices.
The primary goal of this activity and people-watching is to make learners aware of the
linguistic and social factors that play a
crucial role in interactions in any language
or culture. The next step would be to
compare the politeness and conversational
routines in the learners' L1 to those found in
a range of language materials (e.g. movie
clips, recorded audio and video interviews
plentiful on the Internet and countless
websites, taped dialogues that accompany
many student texts and software, or perhaps
even materials for test preparation). In
addition, advanced students can participate
in role-plays, short skits, or mini-plays, for
which they write scripts to center on
linguistic features of particular speech acts
or types of FL conversational exchanges.
A couple of additional activities for teaching
culture in listening, speaking, and writing in
FL classrooms are suggested below. They
are designed with the curricular objective of
teaching a range of L2 or FL socio-cultural
concepts and their outcomes in real-life
language use. All these have been popular
for years with many different groups of
learners at various levels of proficiency.
Extensive culture-teaching projects and
activities, as they are presented below, are
intended to continue for two or three weeks
and certainly do not need to be implemented
exactly as they are described. Teachers can
choose to use only portions of them, as
desired.
Beginning learners are usually
curious about a foreign culture, and
they often need to experience small
bits of it. With beginners, an
emphasis should probably be placed
on a tangible cultural experience that
can be discussed, explained, and
exemplified -- and less so on culture
learning (Byram & Morgan, 1994).
Traditional foods, souvenirs, pictures
of landscapes and cityscapes, maps,
books, and other real-life artifacts
from English-speaking countries can
become ready examples of objects
from the local culture.
Inviting guest speakers, who are
experienced FL learners and who can
give a talk about what they saw and
did at the beginning of their sojourn,
is probably one of the most effective
activities for investigating another
culture. These talks represent real-life testimonials and evidence that
comes from real people (instead of
teachers or textbooks). The greatest
advantage of inviting guest speakers
is that they can allow beginning
learners an access to second-hand
experiences, and several productive
assignments can be derived from
them. Following the talk, the
information can be used for a short
presentation to small groups of
students or to an entire class.
Learners can construct short
questionnaires that focus on noticing
and analyzing the manifestations of
culture in language use and raising
awareness of politeness norms and
expressions, socio-cultural variables,
such as age, gender, and social
status, pragmatic functions of
various routinized expressions, and
linguistic forms of speech acts (e.g.
the types of common and prevalent
"softening" devices and the specific
contexts of their use). The
questionnaires can be administered
in the learners' L1 to gather
information that can be later used in
L2/FL presentations or short written
descriptions. The tasks can be
simplified for intermediate level
learners or be made more complex
for advanced L2 speakers, depending
on their language proficiency.
Although native speakers of any
language may not be aware of
reasons for their own behaviors, they
are usually aware of linguistic and
behavioral "prescriptions" in abstract
terms. That is, most native speakers
would be able to tell the difference
between what is considered to be
polite or even acceptable in a
particular situation and, if asked,
some may even be able say why
some expression, phrase, or behavior
would be perceived as more polite
than another.
Home videos, movie clips, and
videotaped excerpts from newscasts
and TV programs of all sorts (e.g.
TV commercials, TV shows or
movies for younger learners, or
biographies of the important political
figures, pop stars, movie stars, sports
figures, musicians) can provide a
practically inexhaustible resource for
examining the influence of culture
on language (e.g. routinized
expressions, questions, requests,
clarifications, etc.), interactional
practices, body language, turn
taking, and the length of pauses to
signal the end of a turn. The
information on socio-cultural and
politeness norms of the community
obtained from such materials can be
used in subsequent mini role-plays,
skits, plays that learners can script
and present, as well as short formal
presentations and written
assignments, such letters or emails.
the aspects of FL speech acts
and behaviors that learners
found strange or surprising
the descriptions of polite and
routinized expressions that
they noted
culturally-determined
conventions in speech and
behavior
These projects can be worked on from one
to two weeks, depending on the amount of
the material used in the video-lesson.
Conclusion
In EFL settings, learners' first language and
natal culture invariably provide the sole
available point of reference for
understanding how the world and the society
work, and how meanings are conveyed by
means of language. When students begin
learning another language, they often
discover that speakers of a different
language do not see social constructs and
organizations in similar ways. In more cases
than not, an individual's immediate reaction
is to dismiss these new and foreign
worldviews and ways of doing things as
irrelevant, slightly ridiculous, impractical,
and not very intelligent. As Stewart (1972,
p. 16) stated so insightfully, "[t]he typical
person has a strong sense of what the world
is really like, so that it is with surprise that
he discovers that 'reality' is built up out of
certain assumptions commonly shared
among members of the same culture.
Cultural assumptions may be defined as
abstract, organized, and general concepts
which pervade a person's outlook and
behavior."
Advanced students who are well-versed in
the ways of communicating and doing things
in another culture have a world of
opportunity open to them. These learners
can move between their L1 world and the
world of the other language. They are
keenly aware that, in the process of
communication, they understand and
interpret people, their language uses, and the
world through the framework of reference in
their own language and culture. These
individuals know from experience that
different cultural ways of doing and
speaking are simply undergird by different
socio-cultural norms, assumptions, and
value systems, all of which have distinct
pragmatic manifestations in language and
behavior. In language teaching and
learning, teaching and learning another
culture is intertwined with learning how to
communicate effectively in another
language and learning how to correctly and
appropriately understand and interpret social
and linguistic behavior inextricably bound
up in all human communication. Without
linguistic and cross-cultural competencies
combined, effective communication may be
virtually impossible. Although many L2/FL
teachers typically believe that teaching and
learning about another culture in the
classroom is very difficult, without such
teaching and learning it has no chance of
taking place. "A journey of a thousand
miles begins with a footstep" (Lao Tzu,
section 64, translated by R.L. Wing, 1986).
