TOPIC 4: Relevance of the knowledge of foreign languages as an instrument among people and countries. Interest in linguistic diversity by getting to know a foreign language and its culture. •
Introduction.
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Relevance of the knowledge of foreign languages as an instrument among people and countries.
Language as a barrier to international communication.
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Reasons to learn a foreign language.
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Towards a multilingual world.
Interest in linguistic diversity by getting to know a foreign language and its culture.
Legislative framework.
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Concept of culture.
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Reasons to teach culture.
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Developing cultural awareness.
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Reflection of culture in Current Curriculum
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Culture-based activities.
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Cultural goals and activities.
Conclusion.
Bibliography. 1. As it is established in the Organic Law 8/2013 LOMCE “the domain of a second language has become a priority in the global world we are living in.” The new social demands of a world in continuous expansion where the relationships between individuals, countries, agencies and corporations become more frequent
and closer, have produced a change in the conception of the teaching of any foreign language. Now, we are not interested in learning about a language but being able to communicate in that language. As a response to these necessities, the Decree 54/2014, which establishes the Official Curriculum in Castilla -La Mancha, states that the learning of a foreign language will be centred in communication. Furthermore, “the English classroom should be the place where students can find the kind of activities they can use in real life”.
Nowadays, it is a necessity to communicate with people who speak different languages. This is the reason of the attempts to create a universal language in order to get common understanding, although all of them failed. At first, the use of a death language as LATIN was proposed. Later on, the members of the European Community tried to create a new language (ESPERANTO), but they also failed. Finally, a living language was adopted as lingua franca (ENGLISH). All these attempts were made in order to avoid the barriers produced by the use of different languages all over the world. Taking these aspects into account, all through this topic we will study the importance of learning a foreign language and its culture, as it is reflected on the Decree 54/2014. Thus, to get such a complex purpose, students’ motivation and interest towards the foreign culture will be the key to succeed in the teaching/learning process. After this brief introduction, I will move on to the first part of the topic, which will be aimed at checking the importance of foreign languages and their culture in current societies. 2. The first aspect we must bear in mind when teaching a foreign language is that it is impossible to teach it without considering the speakers’ culture and, what is more important, without culture it would be impossible to reach the communicative
competence in the foreign language since this concept includes a strong cultural element. 2.a. It seems clear that language can act as a barrier to communication. Moreover, the lack of understanding through a common language is also a barrier for progressing. In order to solve these great problems, some options were given although any of them was entirely successful: •
Increase the number and availability of translating (written medium) and interpreting (oral medium) services.
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Develop an auxiliary language that everyone will understand. In order to be effective and useful, this language should be easy to learn, relatable to mother tongues, it should also be standardized and neutral. The only known attempt was the ESPERANTO.
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Develop an existing language that everyone will understand (lingua franca).
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Provide increased motivation and opportunity to learn foreign languages. That is, promote the teaching/learning of different languages to children in different educational settings.
2.b. At this point, an important question emerges: why is learning a foreign language necessary? In order to answer this question in an appropriate way, it is required to deal with CRYSTAL who pointed out some important reasons to learn a foreign language: •
Learning a foreign language is not a luxury, but a real necessity in order to get common understanding among different countries. Moreover, in Europe, the learning of a foreign language is a criterion of responsible international membership.
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It promotes understanding, tolerance and respect for the cultural identity, rights and values of others. Learning a foreign language broadens our minds since we discover other ways of thinking about things.
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Foreign language teaching plays an important role in preparing our pupils to cope with an ever-changing environment. In other words, students will be able to overcome their insecurity and develop their confidence as they face up to social and personal demands found in other contexts.
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The success in international commerce is becoming more and more dependent on foreign language teaching.
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Learning a foreign language is the only way to fully appreciate our own language.
Therefore, it can be claimed that a language is a way of understanding the world and a way of organizing the relationships among people. This fact makes necessary the inclusion of social and cultural aspects in the teaching/learning process in such a way that some aspects such as “tolerance, critical thinking, catering for diversity, communicative abilities, self confidence, respect, interest in travelling, reading information, interest in traditions, habits or events” (LOMCE, Title IV) will be worked out. 2.c. Nowadays, we live in a multi-lingual world. This fact has gained importance along the years. It started in the XIX century with the development of media such as the railway and steam-ships, which made distances shorter and improve the relationships among countries. In the XX century, some countries showed their wish to co-operate among them. It was the born of the European Community. Moreover, we cannot forget that in our current society aspects such as migration, tourism or mass media are fostering the learning of other foreign languages. Nevertheless and, despite the existence of thousands of languages, English was adopted as the universal, diplomatic and commercial language all over the world. But, why was English adopted as the universal language to get common understanding? To answer this question, some reasons can be argued: •
Historical Reasons: due to the legacy of British or American Imperialism.
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External Economic Reasons: due to the USA’s dominant economic position.
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Practical Reasons: since English is the language of international aspects such as air traffic control, emergency services, business, informatics, international tourism, etc.
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Intellectual Reasons: most of the scientific and technological information is in English.
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Entertainment Reasons: English is the most commonly used language of music, computers, video games, the Internet and communications, etc.
Taking into account all these aspects and reasons to learn a foreign language and, more specifically, English language, it is also necessary to establish some guidelines to be included in any foreign language teaching programme: •
To promote the awareness of linguistic diversity as a resource of cultural value.
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To foster a multilingual world as well as the inter-cultural knowledge.
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To promote foreign language learning as a key for personal and professional development.
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To promote the continuous learning of foreign languages regardless the age or cultural status.
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To collect and spread information about foreign language teaching/learning processes.
Once we have studied the importance and reasons to learn a foreign language, I will deal with the second part of the topic, which will be devoted to the interest in language diversity. 3. Historically speaking, countries such as America, United Kingdom, Spain or France have never felt the necessity of learning a foreign language since their languages were widely spread all over the world. In contrast, small countries such as Denmark or Norway accepted the official multilingualism.
Nevertheless, the necessity of getting common understanding among different countries and cultures makes that the necessity of teaching a foreign language emerges. For this reason, a basic question is made: what is the most suitable age to start teaching a foreign language? 3.a. Many years ago, with the 70’s law, the teaching of a foreign language was delayed until the age of 11. Later on, with the introduction of the LOGSE (1990), the teaching of the foreign language started at the age of 8 (second cycle of Primary Education). Nevertheless, the ORDER 23rd April 2002 established the teaching of English in Infant Education and in the first cycle of Primary Education. Bearing this fact in mind, we can state that the earlier we introduce a foreign language, the better will be our students’ competence and they will acquire the language in a meaningful, funny and motivating way. Thus, we can claim that there is no limit age to start the learning of a foreign language, although the younger a child is, the easier the acquisition is. However, it is necessary not to forget that teaching a foreign language does not only imply the teaching of linguistic aspects but also the cultural elements it contains. For this reason, language is considered as a vehicle to get to know a culture. 3.b. DURANTI (1997) considered the concepts of language and culture as interrelated: to be part of a culture means to share the propositional knowledge as well as the rules of inference required to understand if certain propositions are true or not. It is also possible to talk about a procedural knowledge (knowing how to say or use something such as cooking, weaving, answering the phone, etc.) 3.c. Thus, it can also be stated that culture and communication are inseparable since culture not only establishes who talks to whom, about what and how communication works. It also helps to determine how messages have to be encoded, their meanings, conditions and circumstances under a message may or may not be sent, noticed or interpreted. Culture is the foundation of communication.
3.d. But, why should we focus on culture instead on other aspects of the Curriculum? The following reasons have been argued: •
We should concern ourselves with culture since someone who is learning a foreign language is also learning its culture and the skills required to be competent in that language.
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The inclusion of culture in the foreign language curriculum avoids the stereotypes.
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Culture enables students to take control of their own learning as well as to achieve autonomy by evaluating and questioning the context where the learning process is taking place.
Therefore, it can be claimed that anyone who learns a foreign language will also learn about its culture aspects such as geography, economy, social values, sports, etc. This way, our students will become aware of different behaviors. Nevertheless, KRAMSCH (1993) proposed four new ways to teach a language and its culture: •
Establishing a sphere of inter-culturality: the link between the linguistic forms and social structure has to be established. In order to understand foreign culture is necessary to put that culture in relation with the own one. This comparison will lead us to a real education process.
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Teaching culture as an inter-personal process: the consideration of language as social practice implies that meaning is not an isolated property of the text. Therefore, the language has to take into account the culture when we use it.
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Teaching culture as difference: the use of stereotypes has to be avoided since each culture has its own differences. Aspects such as age, sex, social class, regional origin or ethical background have to be taken into account to teach real culture.
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Crossing disciplinary boundaries: as teachers, we must link our teaching of language and culture to aspects such as anthropology or sociology. Moreover,
we must get used to what social scientists and socio-linguistics think about the target language. It is also required to know how cultural awareness can be developed. To facilitate this process, we should give our pupils opportunities to: •
Come into contact with native speakers in the own country and abroad.
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Work with authentic materials from the countries of the target language in order to get a permanent link with the foreign country.
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Consider and discuss both, differences and similarities between our pupils’ culture and the target language’s culture.
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Learn the most appropriate social conventions in order to make them aware of the different attitudes and habits of English speaking countries.
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Familiarize students with different forms of non-verbal communication (gestures, facial expressions, etc.) typical in the target language.
We cannot forget that, raising cultural awareness has to be reflected on the Curriculum in the intercultural competence introduced by the Organic Law of Education 8/2013. According to this the following aspects have to be included: •
Respect for human dignity.
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Importance of overcoming negative stereotyping.
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Intercultural competence for living in a multicultural reality.
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Promotion of mutual enrichment through culture.
3.f. However, the teaching of culture is not an easy task since our students can consider it as something useless (they do not use it since they do not have any contact with foreign speakers). It is also necessary to increase their interest and curiosity towards the target language. In order to do that, we can plan culture-based activities.
When planning a set of culture-based activities, the following steps have to be followed: •
Needs and audience: the necessity of developing a set of activities to work on cultural aspects emerges because of the lack of resource materials to explore the target culture in the classroom.
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Objective: the aim of these activities will be to increase our students’ cultural awareness and develop their curiosity towards both cultures (target and own one), helping them to make comparisons among cultures. These comparisons will enrich students’ experience and make them aware of the great diversity among cultures.
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Determining topics: we will select topics related to the word “culture” and the order will not be important. Topics such as “social identity”, “Belief and behaviour”, “Everyday life”, “National history and geography”; “Media: TV, newspaper, radio”; “Arts: Literature, cinema”.
Once these aspects have been considered, we will design the activities following a specific order and organizing them in such a way that we can adapt them to our students needs. All the activities designed to work on culture must contain these elements: •
AIMS to be reached.
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MATERIALS we are going to use.
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PREPARATION of the activity.
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PROCEDURE, that is, how we are going to carry out the activity.
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FOLLOW-UP: depending on cultural and linguistic aims of the lesson, the activity can be followed by the exposition and practice of some items.
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VARIATION: students’ participation, variations to be made if the activity does not work correctly, etc.
3.g. The last step in my discourse will be aimed at explaining the main cultural goals of the target language that must be included in our lesson planning. •
Development of students’ awareness of the target language: we have to introduce constantly any type of cultural facts (geography, socio-logical data, historical personalities, events, etc.) through activities such as typical English games, use of proverbs with cultural information, exercises based on realia (maps, calendars, etc.) to work on foreign holidays, historical events, etc.
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Development of students’ ability to function in the target language: students have to be aware of the differences in life patterns, greetings, telling the time, eating habits, etc.
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Establishing and understanding linguistic cultural references, cultural values and attitudes: it involves the careful selection of readings, films, radio/TV programmes; invite native speakers to class, etc. It is essential to talk about the way people live in cities or small countries; different behaviours (young/old people); points of view of different ethnical groups, etc.
4. As a conclusion I would like to point out the fact that we can justify the teaching of a foreign language for educational, social and cultural reasons in order to make our students more understanding and tolerant in a multicultural society as it is established in the Royal Decree 126/2014, in the general objective for the stage “to know, understand and respect different cultures and the differences among persons…” Language is the way through which human beings are able to communicate but, at the same time, it can make communication fail when acting as a barrier due to the lack of knowledge of the culture and of the language we are learning. As culture is a vehicle for language, we should introduce it as an important element in the teaching/learning process. The main bibliography used for the development of this topic is:
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BREWSTER, J, ELLIS, G & GIRARD, D: “The Primary English Teacher’s Guide”. Penguin (2002).
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CRYSTAL, D: “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language”. CUP. Cambridge, 1987.
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KRAMSCH, C: “Context and Culture in Language Teaching”. OUP. Oxfor (1993).
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HALLIDAY, M.A.K: “Language as Social Semiotic”. Arnold. London (1978).
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TOMALIN, B: “Cultural Awareness”. Oxford. OUP (1993).
