Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

These are excerpts from a recent Mike Guest column in the Daily Yomiuri in Japan entitled Playing 'culture card' to win points

He is very negative here giving 12 examples of how not to teach culture.

they are;

1) You can use culture as an excuse to exclude other people.

2) Culture is an acceptable way of stating your in-group's superiority.

3) Culture allows you to claim some universal human value as somehow belonging exclusively to your group.

4) Culture mean focusing on differences, espcially on rules and prohibitions.

5) Remember: Your people have personalities. other people have culture.

6) Claim that culture is implicit in absolutely everything that other people do.

7) You can use cultural reductionism to justify your prejudices, no matter what the cultural traits are.

You can plausibily maintain anything you want to believe about a culture, no matter how unrealistic these claims may actually be.

9) Your culture equals, conveniently, whatever you happen to believe.

10) Culture can explain why people from other cultures dislike or don't understand you personally.

11) Culture can be a convenient way of avoiding justifications and explanations.

12) Claim that the cultures of foreign languages will infiltrate the speaker like a virus.

So how should we teach culture ?

[Mike_2007]

[spiral78]

I think 'teaching culture' is about communicating how culture influences language - both verbal and non-verbal. This doesn't imply that any specific culture is superior in any way to others - it's a matter of helping our language learners express themselves (in English contexts) in ways that confirm that they are educated, professional, and competent in English contexts.

I'm quick to catch cultural crossover behaviors (again, verbal or non-verbal) that make my learners appear less-than-professional or educated in an English language context. They've always appreciated this...

but I teach immigrants and professionals who work in international contexts, not students who just need to pass tests.

[naturegirl321]

SOme culture is important, like knowing how big people's personal space is or whether to shake hands or give air kisses. Especially if students are planning on going to live in another country, they'll have to understand culture.

[MELEE]

I'm currently reading Context and Culture in Language Teaching which is a very interesting read.

Teaching culture is not teaching a lesson on Halloween or whatever.
Teaching culture is about explaining the difference between date and appointment.

You can not effectively teach a language without teaching it's companion culture.

[gaijinalways]

[anninhk]

You might not be asked such a question in England about the weather but there are certainly people who might ask you, if you come from a former colonial country or elsewhere, why you don't go back where you came from!

[Mike_2007]

[gaijinalways]

But what if you have an appointment for a date ?

[Girl Scout]

I like to teach the history of idioms, proverbs, wives tales and cliches. There is a lot of cultural background in the development of these phrases. There is such and overuse of them in China and very often they are used inappropriately.

[Justin Trullinger]

Language and culture are often intertwined in ways that are hard to separate. It seems to me that all language has a cultural element. (Those of you who know Spanish, what do diminutives mean?)

But I'd be careful with.

[MELEE]

I think there is a problem in this thread in that people are not using the same definition of culture.

An effective user of English, be they a native speaker or not, on the speaking end is an effective user not because they know a lot of vocabulary or structures, but because they know when to use which vocabular and which structure. On the listening end, they are an effective user of English because they no not only the words and structures the speaker used, but they know the ones the speaker choose not to use and so they are able to understand the message being sent.

Two native Speakers from different countries can and often do misunderstand each other becuase they have different cultures. Of course we have to try to prepare our students to understand and be understood by the widest possible audience.

But it's wrong for anybody to think they can teach communication in a language without culture. Which is why I said that teaching culture is not reading text on halloween. Teaching culture is teaching the meaning we assign to words. When you make an appointment, one person wants to see the other and has to "fit in" to the person they want to see's schedule. A date is a mutually diserable meeting. Many languages only have one word for the two concepts--that's culture.

[gaijinalways]

[mcl sonya]

[quote="Justin Trullinger"] (Those of you who know Spanish, what do diminutives mean?)

dimunitives are common in many languages, they take a word and make its meaning smaller and/or cuter. kind of like scott to scotty.

I talk a lot about culture in my class. I kind of feel like that, as being a waijiao my job is to teach them things that their Chinese teachers can't.. I mean really they're being exposed to a foreigner for the cultural and practice with a native speaker aspect.

[MELEE]