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Background and Research
28
T36
Teaching and Learning: Language and Culture
Alfred Nobel’s Peace Prize wished to reward “the person
who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity
between nations.” What could be more critical today? As
teachers of world languages, our medium is language, but our
message is one of cultural ambassador. Besides, what is more
intriguing to a student than to learn how to make a new friend
from another culture, to enter another world? This motivation is
what stimulates our students’ curiosity and helps them master
the language. But once hooked, how can we make the most of
their interest?
Five-Senses Culture
We can start by integrating culture into the whole language
instruction process, making sure that culture underscores
every language activity and is at the core of the unit. We can go
beyond cultural “awareness” and try to experience the target
culture in the classroom with smells, touches, simulations,
tastes, rhythms, and video clips. Learning is enhanced when
exchanges with people from the target culture happen early
and often. As Byram et al. say in “Developing Intercultural
Competence in Practice,” “the task is rather to facilitate
learners’ interactions with some small part of another society
and its cultures … and encouraging them to investigate for
themselves the otherness around them.” Let’s lift it off the page!
Measuring Culture
When it comes to culture, students are always asking, “Does
it
count
?” Although we have currently come a long way in
measuring the language proficiency of our students, we are
challenged to do as well with testing cultural appropriateness.
Culture has to be taught systematically and then, assessed.
How powerful it is to show students evidence of their own
cultural competence, yet more exploration of how to best
assess cultural competence is needed.
Seeing Our Own Culture with New Eyes
As language teachers, we also make the most of students’
interest when we show how language shapes our thoughts,
and leads to how we behave. Most of us don’t become aware
of our own cultural assumptions until confronted by another
world view. When I was in Japan, for example, people frequently
apologized as part of their daily conversation. They said, “Sorry
I disturbed you” when calling someone on the phone. How does
Janet Glass
Dwight Englewood School, Englewood,
New Jersey Rutgers University
this habit of polite language reflect its culture? Accepting
responsibility is a very high priority in Japan. As a result, we
find it is a culture that discourages blame and is relatively free
of lawsuits. Cultural instincts become internal, hidden, and
subconscious. Through the target language, we strive to have
our students uncover these influences, empathize with the
people, and be able to interact in culturally appropriate ways.
Research Says
Meanwhile, research has confirmed what we have sensed.
In a survey of young students studying language and culture,
their responses to “People from other countries are scary” and
“Hearing a language that’s not English makes me nervous”
was a resounding “No!” Students not in the program answered
“Maybe” and “Yes.”
So, as we make the foreign become familiar, the familiar will
become a bit more foreign. By bringing cultural experiences
into the classroom, measuring the outcomes, aiming for deep
understanding and exchanges, we put linguistic and cultural
abilities together and at the forefront of our shrinking world.
¡Sí, se puede!
Bibliography
Byram, Michael, A. Nichols, and D. Stevens. “Developing
Intercultural Competence in Practice.”
Multilingual Matters
Ltd
. 3 (2001).
Kennedy, Teresa, et al. “The FLES Attitudinal Inventory.”
Foreign Language Annals
, ACTFL 33(3), May/June 2000:
278-289.
Wright, David A. “Culture as Information and Culture as
Affective Process: A Comparative Study.”
Foreign Language
Annals
, ACTFL 33(3), May/June 2000: 330-341,