Language Teachers Emphasis - Literature review Example

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Language Teachers Emphasis xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course instructor xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date submitted xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Teaching language in diverse cultures has been caught in wars between universality and the desire to maintain cultural particularity. It is mostly strained by two components; should it emphasis the difference between the native and the target culture or how far should the teacher hold non native speakers to native speakers’ convections of language use and the native speakers’ norms of interpretation (Byram et al 1991). An intercultural approach in teaching language aims at getting the real understanding of the cultural fabric of the society; in this case, cultural sensitivity needs to be considered in training language teachers (Baumgratz 1992). There has been suggestion to subject language teaching to be in line with the current thought in terms of linguistic and social sciences (Pennycoook 1990). Moreover, language being as social semiotic says much about cultural shaping and representation and therefore language can be considered as heterogeneous and heteroglossic as language itself (Halliday 1978). Teachers need to focus less on language structures and function and more so on the social process of enunciation. They should focus less on seemingly fixed, stable cultural entities and identities on both sides of national borders, and most importantly on the shifting and emerging third place of the language learners (Crozet & Liddicoat 1999). It’s clear to understand that, learners of a language, which in this case is foreign, are trying to learn language cords that they did help shape or define and therefore they are poaching on the territory of others, placing them in opposition to the current practice of discourse community speaking that language. In this scenario, teachers need to emphasis on addressing student as potential heteroglossic narrators not as deficient monoglossic enumerators ( Kramsch & Nolden 1994). For a very long time there have been developments in the purposes and emphasis of language teaching, varying from linguistic competence to sociolinguistic or communicative competences. There is therefore an emphasis in that, there is a possibility of tracing cultural dimension in language teaching theory all through the modern language teaching. When teaching a language, there is a need to focus far from linguistic competence so as to enable people communicate successfully. There is a need to know when to speak, when not, what to speak about, what not, with whom and the manner to do so. It’s important to put in mind that when communicating to others whether using our language or their language, the nature of interaction is different and the way the answer can be totally different (Savignon 2001). This interaction difference is brought about by the social identity. This is because people tent to interact with people in terms of the social group they belong to. Therefore to know when to speak and what to speak about is a crucial possession. Failure to identify can result to failure to interact and communicate. Teaching from an intercultural point of view consists of developing learners knowledge of their own culturally shaped worlds view and behaviors , skills and attitudes towards a clear understanding and interaction with people from other cultures. This will help students become intercultural and interliguistically competent. Teachers therefore need to move fro traditional stance to intercultural one which emphasis on developing both linguistic and intercultural competences of learners (Crozet & Liddicoat 1999). Teachers should therefore emphasis on what unites student across the cultures rather than them that differentiate them. Intercultural language learning is not aimed at native speaker level of competent in the target language but learners to follow the norms of intercultural speaker, raising their competences which enables them interpolate the values, beliefs and behaviors of different cultures and to stand on the bridge or need to be bridge themselves between people of different languages and cultures (Byram 2006). Teachers should emphasis on looking at the cultural similarities and differences with the target culture and compare it with their own culture. This because it will draw their knowledge, beliefs and values that will result to cultural knowledge, understanding and competence and at the long run have successful interaction and communication. Then the students will gradually de-centre from their own culture and then develop skills and knowledge necessary for de-centering (Liddicoat et al 2003). Culture is a system of values and norms that are shared among a group of people and brought together to constitute a design for living. Values fall under what that group believes to be good, right and desirable. It implies how things ought to be. Norms are social guidelines and rules that prescribe a certain behavior when confronted by a certain situation. Finally a society therefore means a group of people sharing a common set of norms and values. When these students de-centre, they will find a third place whereby they come in to terms with the elements of different cultures and establish their own understanding of the culture differences between the cultures. The language learners will at last bridge the gap between cultural differences and achieve their personal and communicative goals (Crozet & Liddicaot 2000). Teachers need big task is to develop attitude and skills as much as knowledge. The learners need to be able to see how misunderstandings can arise, and how they can be able to resolve them. They therefore need the attitude of de-centering as well as the skills of comparing. By comparing documents and ideas from two cultures and seeing how it might look from the other perspective, the learners can see how misunderstanding of what is said or written or even done by someone with a different social identity. The teachers therefore need to emphasis on the skills of comparison, interpretation and relating. Teachers need to emphasis on the ability to tolerate other people’s belief, values and behaviors and that learner’s behavior ( beliefs values and behaviors) has a capability of being rejected or reacted on. They therefore have to be aware of their own values and how this influences their views of other people’s values. There is a need of critical knowledge of the learner’s values as well as those of other people by the students. The main purpose of the teachers is not to change leaner’s values but to make them explicit and conscious in any evaluative response to others. Culture influences language teaching in two ways: linguistic and pedagogical. Semantic, pragmatic and discourse levels of language are affected linguistically. Pedagogically, the choice of language materials is influenced by the cultural content of language materials and the cultural basis (McKay 2003). Due to the fact that many students learning a certain language come from monolingual and monoculture environments, they are culturally bound and they tend to make premature and inappropriate judgments about their cultural characteristics as well as that of others. This results to them considering others whose language they are learning as peculiar and even ill mannered and this de-motivates language learning process. The teachers therefore need to emphasis on the act of learning and understanding other people’s language for proper relationship and coexistence According to Thanasoulas (2001), language teaching is culture teaching. And therefore, language teachers should also teach cultures. This is due to the fact that language does not exist in a vacuum, so students must be made to understand the context in which that language is used. They should therefore have a clear understanding of the other people’s culture so as not to go beyond what is expected. Language is said to have no independent existence, it only exists in the brains, mouths, ears, hands, and eyes of its user. Teachers therefore should have a clear understanding of the both parties. I.e. the student and the language culture (Crystal 1997). Learners having less or no insight about other people culture, have difficulty in associating their situations with real people (Kitao 2000). By this I mean that they may think that they are studying a language of some fictive people. If they get to understand that they are studying a language spoken by real people, then they will easily learn the language. It is a matter of fact that teachers use course books to teach languages. However, some books fail to provide the students with culture specific expressions. Teachers should therefore know that successful learning is acquired through culturally and linguistically integrated language instructions. When these instructions are used the learner attains intercultural competence which enables him/her to behave adequately when confronted with actions, attitudes and expectations of the representative of the language talked. According to Tomalin (2008), culture is a fifth skill and therefore language teachers should handle it appropriately so as to raise cultural awareness to the students. This should not be limited to cultural references of the target language such as holidays, special days or cerebrations but should also comprise of cultural expressions used in normal speech and day to day life by the native speaker so as to comprehensively develop language awareness. Use of idioms, proverbs, superstitions, similes need to be used consistently. Teachers need to plan in advance on how to handle the issue of culture awareness of learners. This will be a key aid to the teacher to choose the appropriate cultural content that he/she is going to introduce to the students and how systematically it is going to be implemented. Culture teaching should be practiced deeply and penetrated in skills that learners need to improve linguistically throughout the teaching session. Students should be able to understand that what ever they are learning should be practiced everywhere rather than in isolation provided they are meaningful. This conclusively states that, teachers should present the target language with its authentic use bearing in mind that its not only important to be linguistically competent but also be able to use and understand the language where and when necessary as the native speaker does. Teachers need to emphasis on the awareness of differences in cultures in terms of time, space, verbal and nonverbal communication. When learners understand these differences and what is considered normal in other cultures is the first step towards tolerance and acceptance of diversity. In such a scenario it will not be so difficult to understand that some people in some cultures find certain behaviors like touching conversation partners as a more thing than others. When such a thing happens to people who consider that action normal, then they won’t mind regardless of the differences. Teachers need to work hard and develop critical cultural awareness. In this case the students are able to interpolate and analyze explicit and implicit value in phenomena from own culture perspective and others too. This can only be achieved by classifying fundamental cultural differences (Hofstede 2001). But teachers must try and avoid stereotyping by remembering that these classifications are meant for reflecting tendencies in societies and those individuals differ in substantial ways from what is normal or average in their society. Cultural differences occur due to differing mental programs that contain national culture and they reflect dominant value systems. Real life interaction is the only avenue to making communicative language truly communicative. To achieve this, the interculturally competent students will gain a certain insight of the other culture and also develop a sense of their own cultural identify. Thus the language teacher must understand how cultural background and attitudes towards foreign cultures may affect his/her students. This is because this understanding will enable the teacher in developing materials and strategies which are aimed at addressing certain issue in a certain group (Wachter & Decavele 2004). Language teachers should emphasis on the students knowing the culture of the involved language. This is due to the fact that, language involves knowing the alphabets, arrangement of words, grammar, literature and languages of the body, behavior and cultural customs (Taylor 1979). Moreover, non verbal behaviors need to be comprehensively covered. This is due to the fact that, they are culturally determined and can contribute to misunderstanding (Samovar 1986). For instance many cultures use eyes in the communication process (Smith 1997). American maintains good eye contact with the audience. Unfortunately, in some cultures, they teach that it is not good to look in the eye of someone when talking especially to girls, mostly if the person involved is older than them. This mostly affects the Arabic cultures. Cultures differ when it comes to confrontation, so emphasis need to be involved in the language classes. The English for instance have open, direct and frank confrontation in parliament debating and heckling of public speaking. Britons hit hard and expect the same in return. However, most Asians evade form engaging in a sharp exchange more than American and incase there is any, they maintain calm not to hurt the feeling of the other party or even embarrass them so teachers should concentrate on whatever unites people across cultures rather than they be left to deal with what divide them. From the social anthropological perspective, the main point should be teaching culture through the learners own language for this language will later be used in a specific way to interoperate the other culture (Ager 1993). However from the psychological and linguistic perspective it’s important to create modifications in learner’s concepts and schemata by a process of further socialization and experimental learning in the other language, which in it self carries the foreign culture. Teachers need to have a clear understanding of the learners needs so as to cater for them accordingly (Willems 2002). They have to understand of the learners investments in the target language and their changing identities (Norton 2000). This being the matter there is a dire need for the teachers to be prepared to handle students educationally, psychologically, technically and ethically. This means that their main role which should be emphasized should be to provide accurate language models, material development, evaluation, communicators and analyzers (Richards 1990). He/she has to impart new knowledge and skills and become very familiar with ethnography, cultural, anthropology, anthropological linguistics, culture learning theory and intercultural communication (Sercu 2002). Language teachers are agents of change; they have a responsibility of ensuring teachings that bring about that change. They have to ensure that their children understand the world around them, to communicate effectively across linguistic and cultural boundaries (Kelly et al 2002). They need to facilitate and challenge the interaction between the other culture and the one for the learners .i.e. ensure that the learner’s consciousness is transformed by making them reflect on whet they are, what their cultures are and how to relate with the other culture effectively (Boylan 2001). There is a need to preserve language even if it may seem obscure. This is because languages contain cultural information which is important for human advancement. Language and culture influence each other therefore they should never be separated but should be viewed in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Language is open, dynamic, energetic, keeps on evolving and personal and therefore it implies its complexities of communication (Holmes 2008). This implies that, the teachers should therefore concentrate not only on language studies but seeing, understanding and communicating with the language users throughout the world. This means that language is not only a body of knowledge but also as a social practice in which one participate (Kramsch 1993). Language is what people use to coexist. For students to coexist then there must be a clear understanding of how culture interrelates with language every time it is used (Crozet & Liddicoat 1999). Students have diverse cultures with differing culture values from home and community environment. If they are given equitable learning opportunities, they can capitalize on their linguistic and cultural experiences as intellectual resources for new learning in the class rooms and increase their coexistence with the other students (Stern 1992). Students must be able to communicate with each other at a personal level despite their cultural background but to affect this they must they must understand the cultural influences in the behaviors of others and also the influence pattern of their own culture over their thoughts, activities and their form of linguistic expression. Teachers need to emphasize on preparation of organized inventories that will include both linguistic and extra linguistic aspects of the other culture; by doing this language will be a bridge from one cognitive system to another (Seelye 1968). Culture of certain people refers to all aspects of shared life in the entire community, so language is studied and used with a context, derived from the culture distinctive meanings and functions which must be assimilated by language learners so as they can be able to control the language and communicate effectively with the native speakers. Teachers should concentrate in developing cultural awareness and sensitivities. They should try and create awareness of the culture differences. Learners should be exposed to all distinctions as much as possible so as to develop intercultural and international understanding. Teachers should be able to help students when confronted by psychological blocks and effects of the other culture, by helping them turn the experiences incurred during learning the language into increased cultural and self awareness. They are required to be very sensitive to the sensitivity of students and therefore use techniques that will promote cultural understanding. Teachers should try and play a therapeutic role so as to help learners move through all the stages of acculturation. If they are aided through these processes sensitively by the teacher, they will smoothly pass through all stages of culture and thereby increase the chances for succeeding in both languages achieving certain understanding, abilities and attitudes (Rivers 1982). Teachers should emphasis to students knowing of other culture other their own. He/she should play a big role in breaking down cultural barriers prior to introducing language teaching activities. There should an emphasis about similarities between people starting from student’s family, between families, school and then cultures. Language should be taught and presented in the contexts accompanying the native ones. In this I mean that, when teaching language in diverse cultures, the first language can be used to enhance learning. There should be a target to improve student’s awareness of their culture and that of the others whereby they are helped make comparisons among cultures(Wardhaugh 1998). The comparison will help students have enriched experiences of some culture elements which are globalized and know that culture diversity exist. Irrespective of many cultures in the language classroom, learners and teachers expect culture. There are diverse expectations as a wish to learn about the ways and lives of the people who speak the language learned, or a need to know how to behave or even how not to behave when surrounded by these people. Students are expectant of receiving all that involves these culture and teachers should do so as to fulfill the cultural act of language (Jodi & Richard 1990). The main purpose of learning language is for communication. However, many students find difficulties at interpersonal level when establishing a conversation with a native speaker of that language. This is due to the fact they lack communicative competence. By this I mean they don’t possess the knowledge and experience to correctly use socio-cultural norms of that language (Hymes 1964). According to Blum-Kulka (1986), language norms vary from culture to culture and therefore students should be able to understand more than just linguistic knowledge so as to use these languages effectively, but they need to know in details about the other culture so as to enhance effective coexistence (Jung 2002) Pragmatic failure is a common case when learning language. This happens when two speakers fail to understand what the other is talking about (Thomas 1983). In appropriate choice of words may cause a speaker who in this case is a student to appear unintentionally rude, un-cultural or even awkward. Thus pragmatic failure is a common source of intercultural communication breakdown. Therefore when teaching language teachers need to try and make students understand the other peoples cultural beliefs so as not to offend them when interacting communicatively. This involves a comprehensive understanding of their cultural beliefs and those of the other culture to make adjustments so as to make communicate without hurting any party. When language and culture are integrated in a class, then the students become aware of speech acts, connotations, etiquette and the appropriate behavior. Therefore language teachers should also be culture teachers and therefore they should be able to analyze both cultures (Byram et al 1994). Students must be made to understand the difference between the language they are learning and their mother tongue in connection with appreciation, positive feelings and apology. These vary from culture to culture and when students understand them completely, then they can live together in harmony with the other culture (Wierzbicka 1991). Students therefore must be provided with accurate linguistic and intercultural skills so that they can compare them with their own and those of the target language so that they can know the underlying differences and learn to appreciate the other culture. Human behaviors is culturally based, therefore teachers need to pay attention to the needs of language learning together with the culture of the native speakers. This has to involve the four skills of language teaching: speaking, listening, reading and writing of which culture is a component of all the four. For teachers to achieve the desired goals in teaching language there is a need to use different ways to teach culture but this vary with the age of the students. For young, they can use songs, pictures and cartoons and for the others they can use songs and cultural items to make students understand in deep the cultural component of language (Csajbok-Twerefou 2010). The use of special texts or narratives with the information of the target language about their culture is also a strategy that can be utilized to have a successful and an interactive class (Henrichsen 1997). Language etiquette need to be integrated in the language teaching which are the sequential organization beyond sentence either as activities of one person or as the interaction of two or more people (Agyekum 2005) References Ager, D. 1993. Language Education for Intercultural Communication. U.S: Multilingual Matters LTD. Byram, Michael, Esarte-Saries, V., and Taylor, S. 1991. Cultural Studies and Language Learning: AResearch Report. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baumgratz, Gisela .1992. Competence Trans-cultural education exchange. Paris: Hachette. ByramM., Morgan, C., and Colleagues.1994. Teaching and Learning Language and Culture: Great Britain: WBC Boylan, P. 2001. 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