Challenges to culture teaching:

There is already no time.
o However, students will be more successful in developing second language
communication skills if they have an understanding of culture and will persist in
their studies longer if they have a positive attitude toward the language/culture.
(Finkelstein, 1998).

It is more difficult to teach, no model.

Teacher and learner may yearn for easier and quicker learning about culture as opposed
to learning in a new culture.

Culture keeps changing and you have to keep current.

Highly-charged issues are difficult to deal with in the classroom.

What kind of culture should be taught? Civilization? History? Fine arts?

How should language teaching/learning and culture teaching/learning be integrated?
Trends in language teaching over the decades
The presentation of culture has often been limited to a list of facts (some of which may actually
be stereotypes or perhaps personal anecdotes).
Period
Trends/movements
Grammar-translation
Nature of
culture/Focus on
Big “C” facts
Role of culture in foreign
language classroom
Cultural knowledge for the
reading of literature
1950s-1960s
late 60s
Audio-lingual movement
Little “c” facts
Knowledge of culture
necessary for building
vocabulary
Differences that might
impede
communication in L2
1970s-1980s
Advent of socio-linguistics
Language pragmatics,
Communicative competence
(“I” of personalization)
Socio-linguistic facts
(greeting, apologizing,
etc.)
Knowledge of culture to
avoid communication fauxpas/breakdown
Proficiency
1990s-present
“Riding the intercultural
wave” (Jaeger, 1995)
Process of culture
learning
Teaching for intercultural
competence
Essential integration
of language and
culture
CARLA Summer Institute, Culture as Core
Culture = core
Context and purpose for
authentic language
instruction
What is culture learning?
Behavioral competence and change in attitude.
The development of skills for analysis of what one encounters.
OBSERVING, not necessarily needing to participate.
Some useful terms
Big “C”culture: “formal” culture: institutions, history, literature, fine arts, sciences, geography,
monuments
Little “c” culture: daily living and culture patterns, acting appropriately
Objective culture: cultural creations and patterns of everyday behavior
Subjective culture: invisible, less tangible aspects of culture, worldview, values, beliefs,
assumptions, style, language use, nonverbal behavior, communication style, cognitive style
Culture-specific: The worldview and behavior specific to a particular culture.
Culture-general: Dependent on universal categories: overcoming ethnocentrism, developing
appreciation and respect for one’s own culture and for cultural difference,
understanding/acquiring the skills in basic cultural adaptation processes, dealing with identity
issues that attend to intercultural contact and mobility (Bennett, Bennett & Allen, 1999, pp. 1920)
Critical Incident: a situation in which communication breaks down due to cultural and/or
linguistic difference. [Students can analyze what happened and why. Source for examples:
Brislin, et. al. 100 Critical Incidents.]
What is Intercultural Competence?
Knowledge: of a social group and the products and practices in one’s own and in one’s
interlocutor’s country; of the general processes of societal and individual interaction.
Skills/Behavior:
Skills of discovery and interaction: how to communicate; how to establish relationships; how to
acquire knowledge; how to separate fantasy (i.e. what one sees on soap operas) from reality;
Skills of interpreting and relating: the ability to interpret a document or event from another
culture, to explain it, and to relate it to documents or events from one’s own culture.
Attitude: recognizing culture-specific and culture-general phenomenon; developing cultural selfawareness; developing empathy and curiosity for cultures; tolerance (assessed by lack of
judgmental language); willingness to explore; willingness to consider other points of view,
readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own.
To change attitudes:

accept students’ present attitudes and help them explore where they originated

encourage exploration of all cultural values, beliefs, and traditions to value cultural
diversity in general (Finkelstein, 1998)
Critical cultural awareness: an ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria,
perspectives, practices, and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries.
See Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Competence. Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters
[pp. 56-73] for precise objectives for attitudes, skills and knowledge of intercultural learners.
It is through conflict that all change and learning take place…in the
collision of points of view that unsettles complacency, in the encounter
of the new that requires re-framing of the old, in the clash between one
practice that can only be forwarded at the expense of another
(Galloway, 1999, p. 164).
Intercultural competence is the general ability to transcend ethnocentrism, appreciate other
cultures, and generate appropriate behavior in one or more different cultures. […] It is to be able
to relate effectively and appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts. […] It requires a
culturally sensitive knowledge, a motivated mindset, and a skillset (Bennett, Bennett & Allen,
1999, pp. 13, 19)
IC is an ability that enables individuals to operate effectively and appropriately in more than one
language-culture, and an ability that is increasingly valued and needed in today’s world and in
the years ahead.
IC involves:
A + ASK

awareness + attitudes, skills, knowledge
Awareness involves exploring, experimenting, and experiencing (Fantini, 1999).
The four levels of cross-cultural awareness:
1) student sees culture in a stereotyped, superficial manner;
2) student is aware of more subtle expressions of culture and becomes frustrated with
inability to function “normally”;
3) student accepts cultural event as an alternative behavior, rather than a “wrong” one;
4) student understands how members of the target culture feel.
(Mantle-Bromley, 1992, p. 118)