How Teach Culture
The Importance Of Teaching Culture In The Foreign Language Classroom
1/14/10 11:34 PM
Radical Pedagogy (2001)
ISSN: 1524-6345
The Importance Of Teaching Culture In The Foreign Language Classroom
Dimitrios Thanasoulas Member of TESOL Greece and the AILA Scientific Commission on Learner Autonomy akasa74@hotmail.com I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Doreen Du Boulay for her assistance and insightful ideas, and record my thanks to my friends Joshua Jackson and Eleni Vassilakis, who were unstinting in their support, reading drafts of the paper and making thought-provoking suggestions. Nevertheless, any shortcomings or problems regarding the present thesis remain my responsibility. Finally, I would like to thank my family, Theodoros and Eugenia Thanasoulas, for their emotional and financial support, and my sister Penny, who, though she does not know it, has helped me in many ways. “She’s The One.”
Abstract
The thesis is concerned with the contribution and incorporation of the teaching of culture into the foreign language classroom. More specifically, some consideration will be given to the why and how of teaching culture. It will be demonstrated that teaching a foreign language is not tantamount to giving a homily on syntactic structures or learning new vocabulary and expressions, but mainly incorporates, or should incorporate, some cultural elements, which are intertwined with language itself. Furthermore, an attempt will be made to incorporate culture into the classroom by means of considering some techniques and methods currently used. The main premise of the paper is that effective communication is more than a matter of language proficiency and that, apart from enhancing and enriching communicative competence, cultural competence can also lead to empathy and respect toward different cultures as well as promote objectivity and cultural perspicacity.
Introduction
Foreign language learning is comprised of several components,
1/14/10 11:34 PM
Radical Pedagogy (2001)
ISSN: 1524-6345
The Importance Of Teaching Culture In The Foreign Language Classroom
Dimitrios Thanasoulas Member of TESOL Greece and the AILA Scientific Commission on Learner Autonomy akasa74@hotmail.com I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Doreen Du Boulay for her assistance and insightful ideas, and record my thanks to my friends Joshua Jackson and Eleni Vassilakis, who were unstinting in their support, reading drafts of the paper and making thought-provoking suggestions. Nevertheless, any shortcomings or problems regarding the present thesis remain my responsibility. Finally, I would like to thank my family, Theodoros and Eugenia Thanasoulas, for their emotional and financial support, and my sister Penny, who, though she does not know it, has helped me in many ways. “She’s The One.”
Abstract
The thesis is concerned with the contribution and incorporation of the teaching of culture into the foreign language classroom. More specifically, some consideration will be given to the why and how of teaching culture. It will be demonstrated that teaching a foreign language is not tantamount to giving a homily on syntactic structures or learning new vocabulary and expressions, but mainly incorporates, or should incorporate, some cultural elements, which are intertwined with language itself. Furthermore, an attempt will be made to incorporate culture into the classroom by means of considering some techniques and methods currently used. The main premise of the paper is that effective communication is more than a matter of language proficiency and that, apart from enhancing and enriching communicative competence, cultural competence can also lead to empathy and respect toward different cultures as well as promote objectivity and cultural perspicacity.
Introduction
Foreign language learning is comprised of several components,