Culture teaching in foreign language classroom

MID TEST

CROSS CULTURE UNDERSTANDING

Culture Teaching in Foreign Language Classroom

Name : Tienny Makrus Student ID : 0712150010

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER TRAINING

CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA

JAKARTA – 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction …………………………………………………………….………….. Page 1

II. Culture Matters for Teachers ……………………………………………….. Page 2

III. Present Culture in Foreign Language Classroom ……………...…... Page 3

IV. Build an Inclusive Culture ………………………………..……………....... Page 5

V. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………….. Page 7

References …………………………………………………………………………….. Page 9

Culture Teaching in Foreign Language Classroom by Tienny Makrus 1

Culture Teaching in Foreign Language Classroom [Tienny Makrus]

I. Introduction

Foreign language learning is comprised of several components,

including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language

proficiency, as well as a change in attitudes towards one’s own or another

culture. L. Damen (1987) in Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the

Language Classroom defines culture as follows:

"Culture: learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day living patterns. These patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction. Culture is mankind's primary adaptive mechanism" (p. 367).

Banks, J.A., Banks, & McGee, C. A. (1989) in their book

Multicultural Education defined culture as:

"Most social scientists today view culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways."


Therefore, we defined culture as the behavior, patterns, beliefs,

and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on

from generation to generation. The Products result from the interaction

between groups of people and their environment over many years.

In keeping with the convention within the field of Foreign Language

Education of referring to language abilities as separate skills (e.g.,

listening, speaking, reading, and writing), teachers often refer to culture

as the "fifth skill". Unlike vocabulary and grammar, which are concrete in

their content, culture is quite fluid and amorphous and therefore difficult

to define. In general, culture as the fifth skill emphasizes the learner's

ability to perceive, to understand, and ultimately, to accept cultural

relativity. Culture as a fifth skill refers to a set of abilities:

• The ability to perceive and recognize cultural differences.

• The ability to accept cultural differences.

• The ability to appreciate and value cultural differences.

II. Culture Matters for Teachers

How can teachers build awareness of their own culture, especially

values and beliefs? Understanding your own cultural background and

connecting that background to the foreign students in your classroom

creates a rich learning environment in which teacher value each other.


The following activities can deepen your understanding of the ways in

which your culture influences your practice as a teacher.

Learn about your own history, heritage, community, family, and

culture, as well as other groups to which you belong.

Talk to friends and family; share stories, and listen to the stories of

other’s life experiences and family histories.

Write about your celebrations, traditions, beliefs, and cultural

practices.

Reflect on the things you value in your life including significant

artifacts, customs, family events, and the ways in which you

celebrate them.

List some characteristics of your culture. Consider your

communication style and other cultural norms.

List the things that you do in your classroom that come from your

cultural perspective. Check your list with a teaching colleague. How

are your lists different and similar?

III. Present Culture in Foreign Language Classroom

Use reflection and inquiry as you explore and examine how your

own culture identity emerges and influences your professional practice.

From the list below, chose some topics that you would like to explore with

your foreign language students. Discipline yourself to journal your


observations; categorize some of the incidents that happen as you move

through your inquiry. Be sure to find someone with whom to share your

experience. Remember that learning is shaped through interaction with

others. Write about and reflect on the current culture in your classroom.

Use the questions as guidelines for reflecting on your own teaching

practice:

BELONGING. How are students greeted in my classroom? Who is

silent and who participated? What kinds of adult / student

interaction patterns occur? What about student to student? To do

this over time, you might want to make a class list and begin to

make checks by students’ names as they enter your room. Review

this information at the end of the week, and record your

observations in a journal. Collect three or four of these weekly

observations and share them with a colleague. Invite a colleague to

observe your classroom, and share notes. Are you observing

psychological or cultural differences?

CONDUCT. What are the rules of conduct in the classroom? Who

knows what they are? How is following them recognized? How are

errors corrected? What kinds of conduct are allowed, and what

kinds are not acceptable? What happens to students who follow the

rules and to those who do not? How does this affect their status in


the classroom, school, and their neighborhood? To answer these

questions, take some data in your own classroom. You could ask

students to answer these questions in small groups, and record

their responses. Alternatively, you could observe your classroom

carefully as you go about teaching. Notice the number of times that

you reward and reprimand students. Write these numbers down.

Also, you may begin to note the gender and race of students. Is

there a difference based on these characteristics? Watch for

patterns that emerge from your notes. Invite your colleague to

observe your classroom, and then discuss her observations.

LEARNING. Pay attention to these issues. Who is earning the

highest grades in your class? Who is engaged in learning? With

whom do you spend time, and who gets little of your attention?

How much time do you spend giving feedback and to which

students? Which students are suggesting topics for learning and

doing? Which students wait for you to lead them? Notice patterns

among boys and girls, among cultural and linguistics groups, and

among the students with varying abilities.

IV. Build an Inclusive Culture

Be aware that an inclusive culture is not just about sharing cultural

experiences, but about using the diverse background, values, and


experiences that individual students and teachers bring to the classroom

to expand our understanding of how our world works. Understanding our

own and others’ culture is about creating spaces to not only recognize and

value diverse culture, but to support the inclusion of new values and

beliefs into our everyday lives and activities.

ACTIVITIES:

Create professional development opportunities that allow teachers

time to reflect on their cultural heritage with peers (memoir writing,

artifact sharing, and shared cultural celebrations).

Share your experiences, celebrations, and important events with

your students. Integrate storytelling (writing, speaking, drawing,

and creating) into your curriculum.

Bring in your cultural “artifacts” that may or may or may not be

familiar students, and have students hypothesize and discuss their

purpose, meaning and value.

Create space that everyone in your classroom can access. Together

make a class quilt, student bulletin board, or family photo album.

Integrate celebrations into your classroom in which everyone in the

class can share—have the class make up their own!


Use conversations about your own cultural background and

experiences to prompt students to share their own backgrounds

and heritage.

V. Conclusion

By way of conclusion, we should reiterate the main premise of the

present study: the teaching of culture should become an integral part of

foreign language instruction. ‘Culture should be our message to students

and language our medium’ (Peck, 1998). Frontiers have opened and never

before have nations come closer to one another—in theory, at least. As a

result, people from different cultures weave their lives into an international

fabric that is beginning to fray at the edges by virtue of miscommunication

and propaganda. In order to avoid this ignominious cultural and political

disintegration, and foster empathy and understanding, teachers should

‘present students with a true picture or representation of another culture

and language’ (Singhal, 1998). And this will be achieved only if cultural

awareness is viewed as something more than merely a compartmentalized

subject within the foreign language curriculum; that is, when culture

“inhabits” the classroom and under girds every language activity.

According to Singhal (1998), language teachers ought to receive both

experiential and academic training, with the aim of becoming ‘mediators in

culture teaching’ (ibid.). At any rate, culture teaching should aim to foster


‘empathy with the cultural norms of the target language community’ and

‘an increased awareness of one’s own ‘cultural logic’ in relation to others’

(Willems, 1992, cited in Byram, Morgan et al., 1994: 67). This cultural

logic, though, is achieved through ‘a recognition of ‘otherness’, and of the

limitations of one’s own cultural identity’ (Killick & Poveda, 1997).

While "culture" as a word and concept might be hard to define

succinctly, there is little argument that it is the linchpin of much of what

we do in our language classes. Ask your students why they're studying a

language. Odds are that the reason they give will be culturally based:

travel, food, music, literature, relationships—all require a particular

knowledge not just of the language, but of the cultural particulars of a

people and place. That said, how we teach culture remains a thorny issue

for all of us.


REFERENCES

Damen, L. (1987). Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language

Classroom. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Banks, J.A., Banks, & McGee, C. A. (1989). Multicultural education.

Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Peck, D. 1998. Teaching Culture: Beyond Language. Yale: New Haven

Teachers Institute.

Singhal, M. 1998. Teaching Culture in the Foreign Language Classroom.

Thai TESOL Bulletin, Vol. 11 No. 1, February 1998.

Byram, M., Morgan, C. and Colleagues. 1994. Teaching and Learning

Language and Culture. Great Britain: WBC.

Killick, D. & Poveda, J. 1997. Perceptions of Cross-Cultural Capability: is

EFL Another Language? Proceedings of the conference at Leeds

Metropolitan University, 15-16 December 1997.

Teacher’s Guide to Folklife Resources for K-12 Classrooms. Retrieved

October 26, 2010, from http://www.loc.gov/folklife/teachers.html

The Library of Congress American Memory Collection. Retrieved October

26, 2010, from http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/teachers.html�

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