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ОБЩАЯ ПЕДАГОГИКА, ИСТОРИЯ ПЕДАГОГИКИ И ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
MANAGING CULTURE DIVERSITY IN EIL CLASSROOMS: TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS Minasyan E.
УПРАВЛЕНИЕ КУЛЬТУРНЫМ РАЗНООБРАЗИЕМ В АМЯ КЛАССАХ: ВОСПРИЯТИЕ УЧИТЕЛЕЙ Минасян Е. Т.
Минасян Ева Тиграновна /Minasyan Eva Tigranovna - кандидат филологических наук, доцент,
кафедра иностранных языков 1, Российский экономический университет им. Г. В. Плеханова, г. Москва
Abstract: this article focuses on a survey of EIL teachers that aim at identifying difficulties and needs of students in the frames of intercultural education. Learners from diverse cultural backgrounds exhibit different learning and behavioral demands. In most cases, teachers' knowledge of intercultural education and all related skills proved to be limited, rather stereotyped or insufficiently utilized. Within this scope, the article reviews EIL multicultural class management methods and sheds light on several paramount issues which are needed to prepare language learners for intercultural communication in the increasingly globalized world.
Аннотация: статья посвящена учителям АМЯ (английский как международный язык), которые направлены на выявление трудностей и потребностей студентов в рамках межкультурного образования. Слушатели из разных культур имеют разные образовательные и поведенческие требования. В большинстве случаев знания учителей межкультурной компетенции и навыки оказываются ограниченными, стереотипными или недостаточно используемыми. Данная статья рассматривает методы управления многокультурным классом и проливает свет на ряд важных вопросов, которые необходимы для подготовки изучающих для межкультурного общения в глобальном мире.
Keywords: cultural diversity, teachers' perceptions, intercultural education, globalized world, EIL teachers.
Ключевые слова: культурное разнообразие, восприятие учителей, межкультурное образование, глобализированный мир, учитель АМЯ.
Introduction
Globalization and migration waves have caused alteration of teaching and learning styles in most countries, as well as in Russia. The development of intercultural competence is necessary for educators to respond effectively to both their native and immigrant students' needs, thus offering education of equal opportunities. Intercultural language teaching and learning has undergone a shift that reflects greater awareness of language and culture interdependence and inseparability as in the modern world we need to develop in learners' not only competence, but rather communicating and negotiating skills across languages and cultures. 'Teaching from an intercultural perspective involves developing in learners critical cultural awareness of their own culturally-shaped world view and behaviors' [1]. They need to master multicultural skills and attitudes in order to understand and interact with people from other cultural backgrounds successfully, that is, to be both linguistically and interculturally competent.
The article analyses the insights of cultural components of a coursebook and make suggestions on developing a variety of interactive tasks and activities alongside with a set of standard materials to engage learners cognitively, behaviorally and effectively in culture learning.
Culture and language as interwoven phenomena
Culture is a complicated mulifaced phenomenon encompassing 'a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals and lifestyles of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artefacts they produce and the institutions they create' [2]. Language and culture are deeply interwoven and are acquired simultaneously providing support for the development of each other. Therefore, 'the person who learns language without learning culture risks becoming a fluent fool' [3], which makes the relationship of language and culture inextricable relationship meaningful, even a necessity in language learning.
To meet the demands of learners focused on the intercultural communicative competence, educators should ensure that diverse cultural components and skills are integrated into language study. Interculturally competent communicators have to share abilities of understanding people of diverse social and cultural identities, as well as analyzing and adapting their own values, behaviors and beliefs. Intercultural competence displays a range of affective and cognitive capacities, such as attitudes - acknowledgement of different identities, respect for otherness, tolerance for ambiguity and empathy; behavior - flexibility and communicative awareness; cognitive abilities - knowledge discovery, interpreting and relating, critical cultural awareness [4].
An acknowledgement and understanding of the links between culture and language has resulted in fundamental alteration of educative approach and language materials. Teaching resources of English as international language provide mostly intercultural communicative tasks designed appropriately for target groups of multinational learners, so they get actively engaged in the discussion of cultural issues in the units by exploring and demonstrating knowledge of their home and target culture peculiarities.
The methodological considerations are based on a unit form a coursebook New English File, intermediate level (Oxford University Press). The unit titled Food: fuel or pleasure? discusses all the aspects of eating habits, dieting, cuisines and restaurants over the world. The warmer-up activity addresses a question for brainstorming referring to different dishes and food associated with specific countries (Japan, the USA, China, France, Mexico, Italy). Such tasks with underlying cultural assumptions and presenting insuffient data, need to be reformulated by educators to help learners to develop their own knowledge through cultural exploration and understanding. In most cases, even educators lack enough culture competence and need to explore and increase self-awareness related to some cultural issues. Consequently, being equipped with relevant intercultural knowledge and reconstructing the activities is necessary to ease the learning process. The other materials of the unit cover the topic of Food from multicultural points with a range of tasks: quiz, reading, listening, speaking, all focused on developing language competence and cultural awareness in learners.
Conclusion
Overall, the cultural information provided in the unit contains some stereotypical information and most activities test learners' comprehension about the cultural facts. Hence, in the multicultural classroom learners need to be provided equal opportunities to explore their own culture and compare with the target culture through sharing their observations. To arouse learners' curiosity and engagement for culture learning, educators can give students a pair work, as bringing photos illustrating typical types and procedures of food consuming by different cultures, or watching videos to observe cultural behaviors of a target society, or make 3-minute pitches to present the key cultural elements of food and eating habits [5]. Consequently, all these activities can help to develop tolerance and understanding of diverse cultures from peer-mediation, exploration, comparing and contrasting. Learners are also highly motivated to develop their cultural awareness through personal experiences.
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References
1. Si Thang Kiet Ho. Addressing culture in EFL classroom: the challenge of shifting from traditional to an intercultural stance // e-FLT, 2009. С. 63-76.
2. LiddicoatA. J., Papadmetre L., Scarino A. & Kohler M. Report on intercultural language learning // Canaberra ACT: Commonwealth of Autrelia, 2003. С. 45.
3. Bennett J., Bennett M. & Allen W. Developing intercultural competence in the language classroom. In culture as the core: Perspectives in second language learning // USA: Information Age Publishing, 2003. С. 237.
4. Byram M. Language teaching for intercultural citizenship: the European situation // University of Auckland, 2006. С. 22-26.
5. Minasyan E. T., Developing oral proficiency via creativity in EFL classroom // Вестник образования и науки. № 11 (23), 2016. С. 91-94.
ПРЕДМЕТНАЯ НЕДЕЛЯ РУССКОГО ЯЗЫКА И ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ КАК ЭФФЕКТИВНАЯ ФОРМА РАЗВИТИЯ ЖИЗНЕННЫХ СТРАТЕГИЙ
ОБУЧАЮЩИХСЯ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ШКОЛЕ
1 2 Балашова Е. С. , Полякова Ю. А.
'Балашова Елена Сергеевна /Balashova Elena Sergeevna - учитель русского языка и литературы;
2Полякова Юлия Александровна /Polyakova Yulia Aleksandrovna - учитель русского языка и литературы, Муниципальное бюджетное общеобразовательное учреждение Средняя общеобразовательная школа № 2, г. Суздаль
Аннотация: формирование жизненных стратегий учащихся играет большую роль в современном мире, поэтому данная работа актуальна на сегодняшний день. В статье дается определение жизненной стратегии, а также представлены основные цели и задачи проведения предметных недель в современной школе в качестве эффективной формы развития жизненных стратегий обучающихся. В данной работе предложены основные формы и методы работы на примере проведения предметной недели по русскому языку и литературе. Кроме этого, в статье предлагается тематика для проведения некоторых мероприятий. Рассматриваются основные результаты, ожидаемые при проведении таких предметных недель. Статья может быть полезна педагогам, работающим в общеобразовательных школах.
Ключевые слова: жизненные стратегии, предметная неделя, формы работы, неделя русского языка и литературы.
Формирование жизненных стратегий учащихся приобретает в современном мире особое значение, поскольку изменения, происходящие в различных сферах нашего общества, влияют на ценности, определяющие выбор подрастающим поколением способов конструирования собственной жизни. Под жизненной стратегией можно понимать форму целенаправленной организации человеком собственной жизни, включающая его отношение к собственным возможностям и ресурсам, их актуализации и реализации. (Е. П. Варламова, С. Ю. Степанов) [2, с. 57]. Мы рассматриваем понятие «жизненные стратегии» как способ сознательного конструирования собственной жизни, способ жизненного самоопределения и самореализации, базирующийся на смысложизненных и ценностных ориентациях развивающейся личности, ее планах и прогнозах самоосуществления [1, с. 4].
