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, 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction.....................................................................................................2
2. Cultural Training in the Curriculum: The Objectives and the Actual Situation
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2.1 Another Dimension in Language Education............................................4
2.2 The objectives..........................................................................................5
2.3 The actual situation...................................................................................6
2.4 Are private schools more successful in incorporating cultural training?. .7
3. Time Management for Successfully Implementing Cultural Training in the
L2 Classroom........................................................................................................9
3.1 Making the Lesson Plan...........................................................................9
3.2 Course books...........................................................................................10
3.3 INSERTING cultural content..................................................................11
4. Conclusion....................................................................................................16
5. References.....................................................................................................17
6. Appendix.........................................................................................................19
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I might learn, involve me and I will know.
-Benjamin Franklin
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the best ways to involve students in the process of learning a foreign language is to
teach them something about the target culture. Learners of foreign languages usually do not
have the opportunity to acquire the target culture by being directly exposed to it. Therefore,
bringing the target culture in the classroom is essential for their progress.
A small scale research was initiated by the hypothesis that from all the skills taught in
the EFL classroom in public schools, cultural training is by far the most neglected one.
This paper will deal with the importance of incorporating cultural training in language
education in public schools despite the limited amount of time that teachers have. The
research was conducted between March and May, 2013 and it is based on observation of 15
English classes in several public and private language schools, the content of the course
books used during classes, the program prescribed by the Ministry of Education and
interviews with teachers of different age and with different experience.
The observations were made in OOU Krste Petkov Misirkov, Gevgelija; SOU Josif
Josifovski, Gevgelija; Petta Privatna Gimnazija, Skopje; Language and Computer Center
Arka-Mk and Center for Language Education Simbol, Gevgelija. The interviews were
conducted with the teachers whose classes were observed and their colleagues from the same
schools. In addition, there were questionnaires distributed to teachers from other schools:
Center for Language Education Bronco, Skopje, Private Language School Piccadilly, Kriva
Palanka; Private Language School Next Level, Kavadarci. The interviews and the
questionnaires consisted of the same questions. In total, 20 teachers were
interviewed/answered the questions from the questionnaire. (See appendix, p. 20)
The collected data was analyzed and compared in terms of private vs. public schools, the
choice of books, classroom equipment and teachers attitude towards the subject and their
ways of dealing with cultural training. The conclusion which followed was that almost all of
the teachers are familiar with the concept of cultural training and the benefits that come along
with it, but very few of them teach culture explicitly, mostly because of lack of time or
classroom conditions and in some instances because of lack of competence. Additionally I
tried to explore some possible ways of making culture a more prominent component in
language learning.
Curriculum is a means, not and end: If the aim is to engage with particular students in productive
activities that are personally as well as socially significant, covering the curriculum should not
be thought of as the ultimate goal of education. Instead, the specifies knowledge and skills that
make up the prescribed curriculum should be seen as items in the cultural tool-kit which are to be
used as means in carrying out activities of personal and social significance.
- Gordon Wells
involves understanding how to use language to accept difference, to be flexible and tolerant
of ways of doing things which might be different to yours. It is an attitudinal change that is
expressed through the use of language. Thus, gaining cultural skills could largely contribute
to gaining intercultural competence.
Globalization changed the way we communicate. Today, English is the language that
connects us with the rest of the world and intercultural competence is the only thing which
guides us in this new way of communicating. As a result, the combination of learning English
together with cultural training has become nothing less important than the learning of any
other life skill.
2.2 THE OBJECTIVES
There are number of reasons because of which cultural training is an essential part of
language education. In order to use the language for its intended purpose, students need to
achieve lingo-cultural competence. For that reason, teachers must devote time for cultural
training and engage students into exploring the target culture.
A proficient speaker of any language is not s/he who can only construct grammatically
correct sentences. A proficient speaker is pragmatically precise in communication and uses
the language in a way that reflects the culture of the native speakers. Language consists of
many other elements apart from the grammar rules and vocabulary. All languages are shaped
by the culture of the speakers, by their history and contemporary ways of living, their values,
their belief system and other more or less visible segments of culture. Unless the learner is
made aware of all this, s/he will never be close to proficiency and there will always be a
possibility for misunderstanding because it is language in its cultural context that creates
meaning: creating and interpreting meaning is done within a cultural framework.( Scarino
& Liddicoat, 2009). Scarino and Liddicoat further on differentiate between the two ideas of
language viewed as a social code vs, language viewed as a social practice and they point out
that in developing a professional stance to language teaching, it is important to consider
how language as code and language as social practice are balanced in the curriculum.
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The objectives do not reflect what really happens during English classes. The need of
combined language and culture education has been widely recognized by both private and
public schools, although this alone is not enough. Every teacher will admit that cultural
training is beneficial, but very few will answer affirmatively when asked if they can
successfully implement this idea into practice. The following charts show how teachers
answered some of the questions in the questionnaire (see appendix, p. 18).
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Pic. 1: ,
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Teachers with more experience show more enthusiasm. All the teachers who claim to
teach culture have at least 10 years of experience. All of them are aged above 31. During the
observations it was seen that more experienced teachers tend to pay attention to things like
sharing travel experiences from the countries of the target culture, talking about famous
people, mentioning holiday traditions and even inserting popular quotes and proverbs during
discussions.
However, a more structured way of teaching culture is almost never present in the EFL
classroom, regardless of the age or the experience of the teachers. Within classes of 40
minutes, cultural training cannot be inserted as a single activity unless the students have
advanced knowledge or if the teacher has a method which is highly effective. In that case the
prescribed program is quickly covered, and dedicating time to cultural training as an activity
on its own is very possible. This is the case only with experienced teachers who feel more
comfortable in their role of a teacher, have a lot of knowledge of the culture and plan their
lesson in details. But most of the time, teachers are racing against time to go over the units of
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the course books and assign classes for revision and tests. With a fixed program, teachers
usually care little about expanding the syllabus or combining the course books with some
extra materials. As shown in the figures above, only 6 of 20 answered that they add cultural
content to their lessons.
So, with an obvious necessity of cultural training in the classroom, why do teachers tend
to minimize this part of language teaching? All of the nine teachers who answered that they
sometimes skip the pages with cultural information in their books stated lack of time as one
of their reasons. Ten teachers who claimed that they do not expand the syllabus to teach about
the target culture also stated lack of time as their main reason. Lack of time is undeniably
teachers greatest concern and there is very little they can do to make their jobs easier.
2.4 ARE
TRAINING ?
Private schools seem to have been more successful in transmitting the cultural traits of
the target culture through language education. Considering this, one could ask why teachers
in public schools would simply not adopt approaches from private language schools.
Private language schools pay more attention to cultural training, but time (even though it
could be) is almost never a problem here. Public schools cannot adopt the same way of
language teaching. Private schools are more successful in cultural training and the main
reason is time management and freedom in designing the syllabus.
Teachers who work in private language schools find it easier to make an estimation of
how much time can be dedicated to cultural training. It can be said that this is due to the
duration of classes which are usually 20 minutes longer than English classes in public schools
which last 40 minutes. During the extra time, teachers can play games, play videos, make
presentations, play music and discuss different topics like movies, literature and travelling in
the countries of the target language. But if we calculate the total amount of time for English
classes per week in private and public schools it appears that teachers in public schools are
those who have 20 minutes more, considering that students in public schools have English
classes three times a week, which is one additional class compared to the private schools
where courses usually consist of two classes per week. Then why does it seem that teachers in
private schools have more time to do cultural training activities?
According to the teachers who work both in private and public schools there is a clear
distinction between these two. First of all, teachers in private schools are more flexible with
the syllabus, or in other words, they can create the syllabus according to the students needs.
Secondly, they have classrooms which are only used for language learning and these
classrooms are usually better equipped. Finally, if students show interest, teachers could
organize visits to the country of the target language and culture at the end of the courses.
At any rate, it would be a false conclusion to say that teachers in public schools do not
care about teaching culture. Trying to compare language learning in private and public
schools is impossible since they are two processes which take place in different sets of
conditions. A solution to the problem must be found elsewhere, not in trying to make English
classes in private and public schools more similar.
According to the 10/90 Rule, the 10% of time that you take to plan your activities in advance
will save you 90% of the effort involved in achieving your goals later. The very act of thinking
through and planning your work in advance will dramatically reduce the amount of time that it
takes you to do the actual job.
-Bryan Tracy
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Time is limited, the syllabus is extensive and the simple calculations tell teachers that
their primary concern should be covering the material. Despite being aware of the need for
cultural training in the L2 classroom, teachers in public schools often leave out cultural
content due to lack of time. Teachers have their tight schedule and seem to be pressed for
time and. Most often time is too short to even cover the basic lessons in the textbooks and
adding extra material is virtually impossible during English classes.
Pre-planning of lessons and thinking about which teaching aids to use will certainly take
some extra time, but it will not take any of the time in the classroom. A well-planned lesson is
the one which is created beforehand, especially when it comes to culture, which is a broad
subject. According to Alex Case, an ELT scholar and an editor of a teacher-advising blog
called TEFLastic, any lesson including culture should be designed with a great deal of
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consideration. Among many other things, cultural training should fit in the syllabus, have a
clear language focus, a lot of Student Talk Time and be practical.
English teachers who work in public schools say that their tight schedule does not always
allow them to spend time exclusively on teaching culture, so at the end of the day, it all
usually comes down to teachers enthusiasm and how wisely they choose the course books.
Teachers who understand the importance of wider-than-grammar language education choose
books which combine grammar exercises with everyday language, pragmatics and culture
and put some additional effort into inserting cultural content in the lessons.
of things that need to be thought over: the amount and level of grammar, new
vocabulary, reading, and writing, and of course what is the concern of this researchculture. All of the course books include culture, but the organization and representation of
the information is different in every book.
Cultural content is kept to the minimum in the books intended for primary schools,
especially in the lower grades. This is expected, bearing in mind that the focus with
beginners is acquisition of vocabulary. But the higher the level, the more cultural information
we see. Dream Team 2, has around 20 lessons which include culture, Blockbuster 2 has
around 17 and Messages 1 around 15. Welcome 2 has barely 5.
Between New Headway and New Opportunities the main distinction is on the level of
organization. The New Headway is a book which has many short texts and notions of the
target culture (mainly information about the life in the UK) throughout the whole book. In
addition to the scattered texts on history, pop-culture, geography and famous people, the
authors of New Opportunities have devoted special sections for culture which gives more
focused and clear material for lessons. Also, New Opportunities has around 25 pages of
lessons on culture, while New Headway around 15.
Clearly, the number of pages devoted to culture is not the only concern of the teachers.
As mentioned previously, all the activities should be balanced. Having a book with broad
lessons on culture and no grammar at all, will not serve any purpose and vice versa- books
with mechanical exercises will be boring and cause students to be ignorant of a great deal of
what should be learning a foreign language.
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cultural training or to be more precise, the concern that cultural training has no effect at all.
The other two are connected with the lack of time: the difficulty to tie cultural training with
the syllabus and the possibility that cultural training could take so much time that it will turn
the class into communicating about communication.
Still, the only way for teachers to deal with the lack of time is to incorporate cultural
information in the regular activities during English classes i.e. to tie the cultural training with
the syllable. This will make grammar exercises and the practice of the four skills more
enjoyable and purposeful.
There are very few teachers who actually undertake redesigning, modifying or enriching
the syllabus. he results of the questionnaires show that only 6 of the 20 teachers interviewed
bring additional materials to teach culture in class. Most of the teachers question whether the
extra effort pays off while the real question is whether the teachers are really willing or
competent to invest themselves into this. For those who are willing time is not a problem.
The following chart shows which activities the participants have used to teach culture.
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A LESSON
Three days before Easter, the teacher devoted a whole class to this holiday.
First, students shared what they knew about the celebration of Easter. Together with the
teacher, they wrote one sentence on the board which best described the holiday. Then,
working in pairs and using the Internet, they had to answer several questions which were
written on the board. In this activity they learnt some new words like: crucifixion, fasting,
orthodox, etc. They also learnt the differences between Christian churches in different parts
of the world. Once they compared their answers, the students had to write a short text, based
on the new pieces of information they learnt.
This was a lesson completely designed by the teacher.
(7th grade, primary school; class observed on 02.05.2013)
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E XPANDING
In a lesson about modal verbs used for giving advice, the teacher talked about the
magazine section in which a doctor, psychologist or any other competent person answers to
readers problems.
The teacher asked the students if they knew how this person is called. Students did not
know, so the teacher played the Hangman with the students until they discovered the meaning
themselves. The answer was:
A G O N Y A U N T.
The students then had to think about why this person was called like that and think of the
Macedonian word for the same person (if there is one).
(2nd year high school students; class observed on 22.03.2013)
P ROVERBS :
One student arrived late. He apologized and the teacher accepted his apology. The
teacher asked his students if they remembered a proverb about being late. Students answered
in one voice: Better late than never.
(7th grade students, pre-intermediate level in a private school; class observed 30.04.2013)
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4. CONCLUSION
Since this is a small scale research the conclusion cannot be of any specific nature. The
purpose of the paper is for that reason not to draw conclusions, but to pinpoint some parts of
language teaching practice which can be used in a more effective way and to emphasize the
need for conducting a large scale research which will additionally explore the issue and help
teachers improve their work. So far, it is clear that cultural training is becoming a part of the
language learning curriculum, although it has not been completely made a part of the L2
classroom due to the complexity of presenting cultural content, lack of time or lack of
competence.
Cultural training requires a lot of preparations, time and experience which teachers do
not always have. But overcoming these obstacles to merge culture with language is worth the
effort since in a classroom where language learning is synchronized with cultural training,
students are more likely to enjoy the activities, successfully acquire the language skills and
become aware of cultural diversity. By carefully planning the lessons and choosing effective
teaching aids, teachers enhance the syllabus and give the students so much more than plain
language courses.
Language and culture are so closely related that they affect each other to the point where
it is impossible to imagine one without the other. Language is system of symbols and culture
is symbolic. They are connected because culture is impossible without communication and
language is the perfect form of communication. Surely, learning the language can be futile
without instructions about the context in which that language was created. If no formal
instruction is provided, it is said to generally take at least 10 years in a second-language
context (as opposed to foreign-language context) to be able to use the language in a
pragmatically native-like manner (Ishihara and Cohen, 2010). If the purpose of learning a
foreign language is to prepare learners to communicate in a given language, providing
cultural training together with the traditional language lessons is essential. The amount of
diverse competence that students gain is much greater than the amount of effort teachers need
to put in to organize the classes.
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5. REFERENCES
Hall, Edward T. The Silent Language. New York: Anchor, 1956. Print.
Whitney, Norman. Dream Team 2, Student's Book. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
Evans Virginia and Elizabeth Gray. Welcome 3: Pupil's Book. Newbury: Express
UK, 2001. Print.
Evans, Virginia and Jenny Dooley. Blockbuster 2. Newbury: Express UK, 2005. Print.
Soars, Liz and John Soars. New Headway Intermediate. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2003. Print.
Web sources:
Tomalin, Barry. "Culture - the Fifth Language Skill." Teaching English. British
Council, 29 Sept. 2008. Web. <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/culturefifth-language-skill>.
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6. APPENDIX
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