Cultural Understanding

Problems of Teaching Culture

There are certain problems in attempting to teach a culture, whether one’s own or that of another group.

1.      Students who have experienced a uniform culture often suffer from culture shock when confronted with different ways of thingking, acting, and reacting. It is important to convoy cultural concepts dispassionately and objectively, so that students do not feel that he teacher considers everything in the new culture to be “better” or ‘worse” than in the students native culture.

2.      In attemp syting to fit complicated cultural systems into  a simplified framework which is compreheeotypensible to an early level student, we run the danger of imparting or reinforcing stereotypes of attitudes and behavior.

Goals for The Teaching of Culture

1.      That they understand that people actthe way they do because they are using options the societyallows for satisfying  basic physical and psychological needs.

2.      That they understand that such social variables as age, sex, social class, and place of residence affect the way people speak and behave.

3.      That they can demonstrate how people conventionally act in the most commont mundane and crisis situations in the target culture;

4.      That they are aware that culturally conditioned images are associated with even the most common target words and phrases;

5.      That they are able to evaluate the relative strength of a generality concerning the target culture in terms of the amount of evidence substantiating the statement.

  Culture in The Class Room

Describing and explaining the culture                                   

Teachers have talked at great length about the geoghraphical environment, the hystory of the people their literally artistic and scientific achievment, the institution of their society and even about small, details of their everyday life.

             Experiencing the culture through language use

            Teaching for cultural understanding is fully integrated with the proses of assimilation of syintax and vocabulary. Since language is so closely interwoven with every aspect of culture, this approach is possible, but only when teachers are well informed and alert to cultural differences.

Dialogues, skits, and minidramas

            One of the commonest devices used in the early stages og language learning is the dialogue. Each dialogue should be constructive around and experience compatible with the age and interests of the students, one which will clearly demonstrate behavior culturally appropriate for speaker of that particular language.

Native Speakers in The Class Room

            From time to time native speakers should be invited into the classroom. They should be encourage to prepare questions in order to esblsh a picture of who their visitors is, what he or she does, and other interesting facts about the visitor’s life and works.

  10 simple ways to improve cross culture understanding in a new country

1.      Adapt to the local language: Don’t isolate yourself from the local language and the local way of speaking – the slang, the style, …. the whole nine yards.

2.      Participate in the community functions: Be a part of the local community. The social interactions help with understanding the local culture and appreciating the differences.

3.      Volunteer at a local school or library: Being a volunteer at local school or library is not only a noble thing to do, but it help you equally.

4.      Share your own culture and customs: To improve cross-cultural understanding, share the knowledge of your own culture with the local communities and with local circle of friends.

  Types of courses for teaching culture

These may be of several kinds.

1.      A sequenced presentation of all aspects of the culture.

2.      A constractive study of the target culture and the culture of the language learners.

3.      Interdisciplinary courses in which students study the history, sociology, fine arts, or philosophy of the country or countries where the language is spoken.

4.      A conversationally oriented course in which students learn much about the country and the culture so that they may interact orally in a more effective and sympathetic way with speakers of the language.

5.       Contemporary culture studied through literary texts.

6.      A course similar to number 5 will use film as the medium for study of the culture.