Teaching culture in the English Classroom

Xiang Jinxia

Abstract:This essay argues that culture and language are inseparable and therefore must be taught together. It recognizes that there are two ways of understanding the world culture and it is important to be aware of this in any discussion on the subject. A superficial understanding of the concept of culture and a deeper understanding of culture in the language of a people. It also argues that students may learn to speak with grammatical accuracy but fail to understand the discourse system and so be culturally inappropriate. English, as an international language challenges the need for teaching specific cultural information of a superficial kind and still needs to expound the deeper and more subtle linguaculture of the language. Finally, the essay puts forward the value of movie studies as a comprehensible means of teaching language with its culture.

Key Words:linguaculture language teaching language learning

Culture plays an important role in language teaching and learning, while language is also the carrier of culture, when language learners expect to master a foreign language ( their target language),they need to get a good command of its culture so as to use the targte language efficiently ang effectively.This paper discusses the significance of culture in language teaching and learning by presenting some examples in some aspects.

Ⅰ.Language and linguaculture

When the Pepsi Cola company began to sell their product in China they advertised themselves with the arresting slogan: Come alive with the Pepsi generation!"Come alive" here means"be rejuvenated"or "refreshed", "reawakened", "reanimated", "reactivated". The image is of a person whose life is colourless, bland, insipid, boring, jaded and irrelevant, who is not "with it". This person is encouraged to drink a Pepsi and by doing so to identify themselves with other Pepsi drinkers who are pictured as awake, alive, vital, engaged, vibrant, successful, dynamic and vigorous. Pepsi is the agency, medium or instrument to change a person, to bring about a metamorphosis, a conversion from dullness, irrelevancy, from being a "stuffed shirt", an old "fuddy duddy"a stick-in-the-mud to being cool, chic, trendy, up-to-the-minute, sophisticated, groovy and hip. When it was translated into Chinese it came out as:Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave!

This amusing story illustrates the difficulties of understanding English when one is unaware of the cultural context in which it exists.What becomes startlingly clear is the complex interpenetration of language and culture."Come alive with the Pepsi generation!"when isolated from its culturally-specific bed of meanings, becomes an absurd statement.The slogan is packed with metaphorical connotations, implications and nuances. It exists within a linguaculture which is the larger social, cultural and psycholinguistic structure in which all languages are embedded.

Ⅱ.Definition of culture

What then is culture?Peterson and Coltrane offer the following definition:“an integrated pattern of human behaviour that includesthoughts,communications,languages,practices,beliefs,values,customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviours of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations."They are:Thoughts,Communications,Languages.Practices,Beliefs,Values,Customs,Courtesies, Rituals. Manners of interacting and roles, Relationships and expected behaviours.

Ⅲ.Courtesies and Rituals

The courtesies and rituals of a culture present an immediate and particular problem for strangers.

An American was visiting a Chinese home. The host introduced the American to his wife. The American turned to his host and said, ‘Your wife is very beautiful. The host smiled and demurred politely.Where! Where! (Nali!Nali!) The American, somewhat puzzled, took this to be a question and proceeded to detail the outstanding features of the wife's beauty. Her hair, her smile, her eyes!" he said.The host was confused and embarrassed as was the American visitor when he realized that Where! Where!' was not a question in this instance but a ritualistic response, a courtesy specific to the Chinese culture. The American was linguistically correct in responding to “Where! Where!” as a question.But his response was not culturally appropriate.

Ⅳ.Linguistic competence and cultural awareness

Here we make the distinction between linguistic competence on its own and linguistic competence within a framework of cultural awareness.

Peterson and Coltrane put it like this: "Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language. Language learners need to be aware,for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. They should know that behaviours and intonation patterns that are appropriate in their own speech community may be perceived differently by the members of the target language speech community.They have to understand that, in order for communication to be successful,language use must be associated with other culturally appropriate behaviour."

Here they identify culturally appropriate ways of : addressing people, expressing gratitude,making requests,agreeing or disagreeing with someone.

Ⅴ.Behaviours and intonation patterns

They also point to“behaviours and intonation patterns”as being significant areas of cultural difference.

“Hey you! Come here!” as a form of address is linguistically correct but is only culturally appropriate at certain times.

You would not address your grandfather in this manner. It would be culturally inappropriate.

“Excuse me, granddad, would you please come over here? I want to show you something.” would be appropriate.

A good example of the subtleties of intonation in English may be seen in the following example:“You're from Australia,arent you?”This may be said with two different intonations which alter the meaning significantly.If it is said with a rising intonation on the words “arent you?” then it means that the speaker is genuinely unsure of where the person comes from. They are asking a question. If it is said with a downward intonation on the same words it means that the speaker knows that the person is from Australia and is merely seeking confirmation of that fact.

Ⅵ.Distinction between a grammatical system and a discourse system

Krasner quotes from Michael Agar who says:“ the main problem in interethnic communication is not cause by grammar. Although languages use grammar as the system of expressing ideas, it is the discourse system that produces the greatest difficulty the grammatical system sends the message while the discourse system tells how to interpret the message.”

This distinction between a “grammatical system”and a“discourse system”is useful when considering the question of teaching culture in the English language classroom.

Good grammar sends the message but the interpretation of the message can only be gained through understanding the discourse system.

A discourse system may be understood in the same sense as the linguaculture in which each and every language has its existence.

Ⅶ.Language proficiency and communicative proficiency

Krasner gives a very good example from her own experience as a migrant from Russia to America. On her arrival in America she attended English classes.On one occasion the teacher gave a lesson on the culturally appropriate way of presenting oneself at a job interview.

The teacher said that in America when presenting for a job interview one should:

1. Shake hands firmly with the interviewer.

2. Smile a lot

3. Keep eye contact with the other person

4. Be positive about yourself

This advice contradicted Krasner's Russian cultural upbringing which had taught her that:

1. It was impolite for a man to shake a woman's hand.

2. Smiling all the time was a mark of insincerity, of personal phoniness.

3. It was indiscrete to maintain eye contact with a person.

4. Being positive about oneself was a kind of bragging or showing-off.

This example may well apply to Chinese as well.

Krasner sums up:“language proficiency and communicative proficiency are two different things.”

Ⅷ.Cultural Frames

The fact is that we all live within cultural frames.The notion of a “cultural frame” is a pattern of behaviour which started developing within us, unconsciously, as a child. The goal of language teaching is to help students to understand that there are different cultural frames. Our cultural frames consist of certain cultural conventions.

Krasner describescultural conventions “asinformation about how people behave both linguistically and extra-linguistically in common everyday and crisis situations.”

Ⅸ.Connotation

Connotation takes a step deeper into the relationship between language and culture. Connotation is the point at which language and culture come together to form meaning.

An example of connotation is the different set of associations connected to the word privacy. Privacy is a very positive concept in Western culture. To seek privacy is regarded as essential from time to time and basic to one's mental and physical well-being.

In Chinese there is no word that precisely captures the Western concept of privacy. The Chinese word for privacy is embraces the ideas of secrecy, selfishness and deceitfulness. To seek privacy in China is to raise doubts about your integrity as a person. So it becomes critically important that the connotations of privacy in English speaking countries be clearly explained in the foreign language classroom.

Here is a word that has connotations in the Western culture that are misunderstood in China. In the West nepotism has a negative connotation, whereas in Asian countries it is regarded as a normal and acceptable business practice. In China to favour your relations is a mark of respect, trust and confidence in them. It is good “guanxi”. In Western culture it is seen as a corrupt action and a misuse of ones personal power and position. It becomes obvious then that language and culture cannot be separated.

Ⅹ.English as an International Language

Sandra Lee McKay argues that English is now an international language and that it will not be long before the number of people throughout the world who speak English as a second language (L2) will outnumber the native speakers of English(L1). The great majority of these L2 English speakers will have no wish to visit or migrate to an English speaking country.

She proposes three basic characteristics of English as an international language (EIL):

1. there is no necessity for L2 speakers to internalize the cultural norms of native speakers of that language.

2. an international language becomes denationalized.

3. the purpose of teaching an international language is to facilitate the communication of learners' ideas and culture in an English medium.

It is difficult to dispute the truth of McKay's argument.

In China, English is now a compulsory subject for all children from 8 years old and upwards. Most of these young Chinese learners will never visit an English speaking country. Why then do they learn English? The answer is because English is an international language. It is the lingua franca of international exchange.

Ⅺ.How do you teach culture in alliance with language?

I have asserted the inseparable relationship between language and culture and the necessity of teaching language with culture in the classroom. I have also set out to define culture.

One must now pose the question: how do you teach it? What are the techniques and pedagogical methods for teaching language within its own cultural frames?

There has been much discussion on this question and I offer the following guidelines and suggestions.

Ⅻ.Krashens Distinctions

Stephen Krashen laid down the ground rules in his seminal work, Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition published in 1981, and still valid in its basic principles.

Krashen introduced the distinction between language acquisition and language learning.

Krashen said that we learn a language through the subconscious process of acquisition' whereby we develop a feeling for correctness. Language learning he described as the conscious learning of grammar which he said was learning about a language'.

The best environment for acquisition learning is one in which there is a low affective filter. The affective filter describes the level of stress and anxiety in a language classroom. In a classroom with a low affective filter the students are relaxed because they are not being corrected all the time. In fact there is very little error correction.

XIII.The Use of Movies

A well selected movie with optimal content is an excellent way of fulfilling Krashen's principle of acquisition learning.

A four year study was conducted by Niu Qiang, Teng Hai and Martin Wolff on the use of movies in the English classroom. They found that the screening of movies was widespread in English classrooms across China but, in most cases, little was learnt and it was just a way of filling in time.

The first point they make is that the movie must be carefully selected. Movies with excessive violence and bad language are of little value. Secondly, a workbook which lists the new vocabulary and asks key questions must be prepared and distributed to the students for discussion prior to the screening of the movie. This entails a good deal of hard work on the part of the teacher.Thirdly, after the movie has been seen there must be an extensive follow-up. Activities such as dubbing, story retelling, acting, discussing, debating, role playing, etc are but a few proved very effective techniques the teacher can employ to engage the students.

From the above discussion, it is concluded that culture holds a decisive position in language teaching and learning. And some efficient and effective ways of introducing the culture of the target language are presented so that the language learners can immerse themselves in an ideal language learning environment while learning their target language . In this way, the quality of the teaching and learning a foreign language can be greatly improved.

References:

[1]Culture in Second Language Teaching.Elizabeth Peterson and Bronwyn Coltrane (Centre for Applied Linguistics)

[2]Irene Krasner: The Role of Culture in Language Teaching from Dialog on Language Instruction 1999,(13):79-88.

[3]Peterson and Coltrane.

[4]The Cultural Basis of Teaching English as an International Language from TESOL Matters 2003.

[5]Stephen Krashen's.Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.