Developing Cultural Awareness In Foreign Language Teaching

#CCU 6

We all know that understanding a language involves not only knowledge of grammar and phonology but also certain features and characteristics of the culture. Such kind of differences exist in every language such as  the place of silence, tone of voice, appropriate topic of conversation, and expressions as speech act functions (e.g. apologies, suggestions, complains, refusals, etc.).

Since every culture has its own cultural norms for conversation and these norms differ from one culture to another, some of the norms can be conflict with other cultures’ norms. Consequently, communication problems may arise among speakers who do not know or share the norms of other culture.

Learning to understand a foreign culture should help students of another language to use words and expressions more skillfully and authentically; to understand levels of language and situationally  appropriate; to act naturally with persons of the other culture, while recognizing and accepting their different reactions, and to help speakers of other tongues feel at home in the students’ own culture.

The use of role-play in EFL classrooms can help students to overcome cultural “fatigue” and it promotes the process of cross-cultural dialogues while at the same time it provides opportunities for oral communication. In developing cultural awareness in the classroom it is important that we help our students distinguish between the cultural norms, beliefs, or habits of the majority within the speech community and the individual or group deviations from some of these norms.

Source : Developing Cultural Awareness In Foreign Language Teaching

              by Ismail CAKIR (Ph.D) Kirikkale University

              Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE July 2006 ISSN 1302-6488

  Volume: 7 Number: 3 Article: 12