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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20534/EJLL-17-1-28-30
Shukurova Zumratkhon Ismoilovna, Uzbekistan State World Languages University, Ph. D. Researcher, Senior Teacher E-mail: zumradxons@gmail.com
Teaching culture of the second language
Abstract: Knowledge of two or more languages has always been a natural consequence of cultural exchange. Multilingualism of countries and the communication among them became a reason for studying the culture of these countries. Therefore, educational institutions of many countries have implemented teaching and learning of foreign languages as they find the need for their students to be competitive in the global career field. The communication among different cultures and the efforts of education have added to the multilingual/culture of many countries.
Keywords: culture, language, teaching, language teaching approaches, cultural context.
The rapid development of the world also influences in language science. Because any human activity of all spheres are required the linguistic knowledge and they are directly connected with language. That is why from the history of linguistics, various aspects of it appeared in every period. In this period of development of language science, its aspects also developed. Hence, instead of the structural paradigm, which was topical and highly demanding in the last century, the system of anthropocentric, functional, cognitive and dynamic paradigms started to function. In anthropocentric paradigm, there can be understood moving of the interests of the researcher from the object of cognition to the subject of it, in another word it can be explained like analysis of human being in language and language analysis in a human being. It gives the understanding of the concept of the factors of human being in a language like interconnection of language, thinking and consciousness of a person, language, and mentality of a man, language and culture, language and communication of human being etc.
It should be pointed that lingua-culture is one of the topical directions in the anthropocentric paradigm of modern linguistics. It studies interrelation, influences between language and culture, and investigates language as the phenomenon of culture. According to V. Telia, culture is described as a world-conception, world-perception, and world-understanding of a people. Therefore, lingua-culture is the verbalized culture, the culture externalized in signs of language. Hence, signs of language (in the linguistic sense of this term) are regarded as the substances for signs of culture [1, 207-216]. Culture itself is not, however, simply a body of knowledge but rather a framework in which people live their lives and commu-
nicate shared meanings with each other. It is one of the means of understanding any nation through its variety aspects. It is also a language of any nation. Moreover, learning the culture can help to understand the learning language better and deeper. Because language can be one of the means of representation of one's culture. Therefore, benefits of learning about culture raised awareness in ELT students concerning both native and target societies. Teaching the culture of target society in comparison with native and understanding/explaining their distinctive features through language might simplify reception and perception of the language of any society.
As other fields of linguistics, ELT is also increasingly developing nowadays. A number of created methods and techniques can be an example for them. In modern foreign language teaching system, one can find different approaches and method of teaching the target language. Thus, the following chosen approaches can be useful in teaching the culture of foreign languages:
a) The Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is considered one of the most effective methods of teaching any foreign language. Because, nowadays, in teaching language the main goal is to teach "language use" in communication, instead of "learning language" and its elements through analysis. Also, CLT is the key for learners to express themselves in a more natural way in the target language. Moreover, Finocchiaro and Brumfit maintain that CLT provides for the teaching of everyday, real-world language use in a variety of socio-cultural situations in which integration of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and language skills with culture as well are selected according to their priority in authentic communication [2, 92-110]. The Communicative Approach aims to put foreign language
Teaching culture of the second language
teaching in a clearly defined social and cultural context together with the socio-linguistic viewpoint that the society, economics, culture and the people who use it
generally influence language [3, 76]. Therefore, Canale and Swain describe communicative competence as integrated by four parts [4, 1-47]:
Scheme 1.
Based on the above mentioned competences one can fully use communicative competence in the process of teaching the culture of a target language. For instance, "tea" is considered as a traditional drink in Great Britain similarly with Uzbek culture. In both countries, "tea" is main symbolic drink in human hospitality. But there is the difference in the way of drinking them in both cultures. In order to teach this tradion of a target language in comparison with a native one, the linguistic competence of the learners is required. Also, through integrating discourse, socio-linguistic and strategic comptences learners can use phrases and expressions for interpreting them in an appropriate social meaning in communication. Through this teaching vocabulary of the target language in comparison with native one will help to understand intercultural competence ofboth languages and use them easily in communication.
b) Content-Based Language Instruction is another effective approach to teaching a foreign language, which can be introduced for teaching the culture of a target language. This approach mostly focuses on teaching the content (what could be taught in the language) of a foreign language rather than teaching language itself. Language becomes a tool of learning new things instead of a topic. Nowadays CBI is very popular among EAP teachers and learners. This approach also helps to improve some other skills such note-taking, summarizing, critical thinking and extracting main ideas from the source. Although involving students for collaborative project works help them to develop their social skills what can be useful for their future life. Language use depends on the cultural background of the user. Therefore, learning a foreign language implies learning about the culture of its native
speakers, which is no less relevant in the context of CBI.
In CBI classes, culture is a very important aspect together with the acquired specific vocabulary of students. For using CBI, teachers should take into consideration that the students have background knowledge of the target language, so they have the necessary linguistic skills to understand language. Then the culture connected tasks in the English classes become easier for the CBI teachers since they can present culture through the specific vocabulary or expressions students need to acquire. Teachers may bring to the classes different sources, they could be reference books, audio, video or even real people; he or she may use visual materials bringing out important cultural facts, newspapers or magazines from that country with both cultural and factual content. The teacher might ask students to be divided into small groups and make a little research on the specific task, and then present it in a creative way. Also, debates, role-plays and case studies are considered very effective tools that give a great opportunity for students to express their opinions, findings as well as to imagine themselves "in the skin of a foreigner".
c) Task-Based language Teaching is the next approach that implements classroom activities in which students use authentic materials and have specific tasks to do in order to meet real-world language obj ectives. As an example, the activity "Using Cultural Objects" can be represented. In this activity, the teacher uses the products of a culture (like bus tickets, metrocards, postcards, photographs, stamps, and images in song lyrics etc.) that can be very effective in a task-based language classroom. In TBLT clasess "Culture Composition" activity developed by To-malin and Stempleski, has its purpose the development
ofwriting and speaking skills, as well as the recognition of cultural artifacts. The teacher hands out various pieces of realia, collected from travels abroad to English speaking countries, such as bus or air tickets, receipts, coupons, money, and photographs. The items are mixed up and in random order. Students are put into groups of two or three. They identify each item and then make up a story about their set of items. The groups present their stories to the rest of the class, each person in the group taking a turn to tell part of the story. As an item occurs in the story, it is shown to the class and placed on the table. When all groups have finished, the students write their own individual version of their story [5, 30-60]. These types of activities are beneficial for TBLT approach. It brings students to work together in pairs or small groups to be oriented in the specific information. They develop skills of sharing and discussing what they have discovered and interpreting the information within the context ofthe target culture and in comparison to their own one.
Even though, in order to teach students for learning foreign cultures, intercultural capabilities also needed to be developed. One of the suggested ways of developing intercultural capabilities is an interconnected set of activities involving:
• noticing cultural similarities and differences as they are made evident through language;
• comparing what one has noticed about another language and culture with what one already knows about other languages and cultures;
• interacting on the basis of one's learning and experiences of diversity in order to create personal meanings about one's experiences, communicate those meanings, explore those meanings and reshape them in response to others.
After developing intercultural competencies of the students there are several practical ways to teach effectively culture, along with teaching a language can be suggested:
- Provide students with authentic materials — watching films, news broadcasts or TV shows can pro-
vide students with sufficient information about nonverbal behavior, such as the use of personal space, eye contact or gestures. On the other hand, reading authentic fictional or non-fictional materials can also be a good introduction to the values and norms of the target language culture. These materials also help the students improve their language skills, especially in terms of listening and understanding written texts.
- Compare and contrast proverbs — apart from being very informative about the two cultures, proverbs can lead to a discussion about stereotypes or values represented in the proverbs of both cultures. Furthermore, proverbs and idioms form a significant part of every language and knowing them is advantageous for every learner.
- Use role-plays — they especially support students in making the shift in perspective from their own culture, which can become a strange one and is looked at from the outside, and the target culture, which becomes more familiar. In the process, students practice speaking and using language in changeable situations.
- Research cultural items — While also practicing their presentation or writing skills in the target language, the students can inform their classmates about an assigned item from the foreign culture and contextualized the gained knowledge.
Noticeably, a change of content to language instruction requires a change in the curriculum. The PRESETT program, which is widely using in Uzbekistan, involves these modern approaches in teaching foreign languages in higher institutions. In the case of ELT, with English now being used globally across different cultures, English educators will not only need to be more culturally and linguistically aware but also able to design curricu-lums with an international and multicultural focus. In the modern approaches such as Task-Based Language Teaching, Content-Based Language Teaching, and Communicative Language Teaching, there is a great role for culture and social awareness.
References:
1. Телия В. Н. Лингвокультурология - ключ к новой реальности феномена воспроизводимости несколькословных образований // Язык. Культура. Общение: Сборник научных трудов в честь юбилея С. Г. Тер-Минасовой. -М.: Гнозис, - 2008. - С. 207-216.
2. Finocchiaro M& C. Brumfit. The functional-notional approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - 1983. - P. 235.
3. Long-Fu. Teaching English cultural background: Introducing the target culture in the Chinese secondary school English classes. Ph. D. Thesis. The university of Tampere. - 2001.
4. Canale M. & Swain M. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Lingistics, 1/1, - P. 1-47. - 1980.
5. Tomalin B., and Stempleski S., Cultural Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - 1998. - P. 157.
