www.ccsenet.org/elt English Language Teaching Vol. 5, No.

3; March 2012

Developing Cultural Awareness in Foreign Language Teaching

Zahra Ghorbani Shemshadsara
Department of English, Roodbar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran
E-mail: [email protected]

Received: November 1, 2011 Accepted: December 28, 2011 Published: March 1, 2012
doi:10.5539/elt.v5n3p95 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n3p95

Abstract
Culture awareness has become an important focus of modern language education, a shift that reflects a greater
awareness of the inseparability of language and culture, and the need to prepare students for intercultural
communication. The paper reports on an ongoing study into the presence and status of cultural understanding in EFL
teaching. In this paper, the underlying assumptions and influences of culture awareness in Language teaching and
learning critically analyzed.
Keywords: Culture awareness, Cultural sensitivity, Ethnocentrism
1. Introduction
The need for a strong commitment to the development of cultural understanding within the classroom context is
clear in the light of recent development both nationally and internationally. Strasheim (1981) argues there is no
question that the successful integration of culture and language teaching can contribute significantly to general
human knowledge, that language ability and cultural sensitivity can play a vital role in the security, defense and
economic well-being of the country and that global understanding ought to be a mandatory component of basic
education (Stratiem 1981, cited in Hadley, 1993). Hadley (1993) asserts that cultural understanding must be
promoted in various ways so that students are sensitive to other cultures prepared to live more harmoniously in the
target language community. As Stern (1992) reiterates, One of the most important aims of culture teaching is to
help the learner gain an understanding of the native speakers perspective (p. 216) It is a matter of the L2 learner
becoming sensitive to the state of mind of individuals and groups within the target language community (p. 217).
Wieto (2010) claims cultural sensitivity becomes little because it does little to solve deep-seated problems of
inequity. She suggests that multicultural education needs to be understood as arrogance reduction; that is, as
encompassing both individual and structural changes that squarely confront the individual biases, attitudes, and
behaviors of educators, as well as the policies and practices in schools that emanate from them.
2. Cultural Awareness
Tomlinson (2001) holds that cultural awareness involves a gradually developing inner sense of the equality of
cultures, an increased understanding of your own and other peoples cultures, and a positive interest in how cultures
both connect and differ (cited in Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2004, p. 3). Tolinson and Masuhara, (2004) claim, an
increased cultural awareness helps learners broaden the mind, increase tolerance and achieve cultural empathy and
sensitivity. According to Tomalin and Stempleski (1993), cultural awareness encompasses three qualities:
- awareness of ones own culturally-induced behavior
- awareness of the culturally-induced behavior of others
- ability to explain ones own cultural standpoint (p.5)
Knutson (2006) points out that the development of students cultural awareness starts by encouraging them to
recognize their cultural identity in relation to other cultures. For this reason Knuston (2006) suggests teachers should
analyze students real world and academic needs in terms of cultural knowledge, awareness or ability to function
in appropriate ways (Kuuston, 2006, cited in Beaudrie, et al (2009), p. 167-169). Tannen (1992) in the United States
holds that cultural identity is likely to diverge based not only on learners national and linguistic background but also
on their ethnic heritage, religious beliefs, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation (Tannen, 1992, cited in
Kumaravadivelu, 2003).
Woolward (1997) argues identity gives an idea of who we are and of how we relate to others and to the world in
which we live. She also claims identity marks the way we are the same as others who share the position, and the

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ways in which we are different from those who do not (Woolward, 1997, cited in Beaudrie, et al. (2009), pp.
167-169).
Galloway (1984) has proposed a framework for building cultural understanding based primarily on process skills,
but incorporating both factual and sociolinguistic content. She suggests organizing instruction around four primary
categories of understanding:
1) Convention: The goal of this type is to help students recognizes and understand how people in a given culture
typically behave in common situations. Galloway identifies two types of conventions: (1) context determined
conventions, which includes extralinguistic behaviors that are characteristics in a given situation and (2)
function-determined conventions related to sociolinguistic formulae or conventional utterances that are used to
perform tasks in context. For example if one were teaching about foods, the teacher might focus on such
context-determined factors as mealtimes, types of food, conventions of etiquette as well as on appropriate
expressions associated with accepting and declining invitations, making reservations at a restaurant
2) Connotation: The category of connotation deals with the many culturally significant meanings, that are associated
with words. As students examine their own networks of association they can begin to discover that the underlying
meanings of words are determined by their cultural frame of reference. Galloway (1985) states certain words evoke
a cluster of feeling and images. For example the word time may make one nervous. At the symbolic level, it
represents pressure, stress, deadlines, schedules, responsibility. Simply, a person may fear death etc.
3) Conditioning: A third category of cultural understanding has to do with the fact people act in a manner consistent
with their cultural frame of reference, and all people respond in culturally conditioned ways to basic human needs to
learn how to interpret behaviors that are different from their own without making judgments based on their own
standards. Students need to learn how to interpret behaviors. If the students begin to expect cultural differences as
natural and inevitable and realize that there are indeed a variety of possible differences to the universal need for food,
shelter, social contact, and the like, they may begin to view the other culture more emphatically.
4) Comprehension: This category of cultural understanding includes such skills as analysis, hypothesis formation,
and tolerance of ambiguity. According to Galloway (1985), comprehension goals can best be achieved by paying
attention to the source of ones information, examining ones stereotypes avoiding overgeneralization, and the ways
to resolve conflicts.
Ho (2009) claims still, the development of the cultural awareness in English language classes may be influenced by
a number of constraints, namely the teachers cultural knowledge, the availability of native English speakers, time
allowance for culture teaching in each lesson or even the system of education itself. The teacher has been considered
the expert knower of the language (Kramsch & Sullivan, 1996) and his/her own cultural knowledge thus seems to be
the main source for students to learn about. However, this role of the teacher has been diminished (Kramsch &
Sullivan (1996, Ho, 2009, p. 6376). With the booming of information technology and the effects of globalization
that make many countries dependent on each other, students are now able to get access to many cultural resources
and explore the target culture themselves. The availability of native English speakers as a rich cultural resource is
also an important issue for consideration. Time allowance for culture teaching is also a big issue for teachers as
lessons are already very loaded. In spite of that, if teachers know how to incorporate language and culture in
language teaching in a flexible way, they can solve the problem easily and even make their lessons more interesting
(Ho, 2009, p. 6376).
3. Culture Teaching
Kumaravadivelu (2003) holds that culture teaching played a subterranean role in most L2 education. It became part
of what Michael Byram (1989) has called the hidden curriculum, indirectly seeing to create in the learner empathy
toward and an appreciation for the culture of the target language community (cited in Kumavadavilu, 2001, p. 268).
According to a more recent review by Stern (1992), culture teaching has generally included a cognitive component,
an affective component and a behavioral component. The cognitive component relates to various forms of
knowledgegeographical knowledge, knowledge about the contributions of the target culture to world civilization,
and knowledge about differences in the way of life as well as understanding of values and attitudes in the L2
community. The affective component relates to L2 learners curiosity about and empathy for the target culture. The
behavioral component relates to learners ability to interpret culturally relevant behavior, and to conduct themselves
in culturally appropriate ways.
Kumaravadivelu (2003) holds what the traditional approach to the teaching of culture ignores is the rich diversity of
world views that learners bring with them to the language classroom. That is, even if a group of learners appear to
belong to a seemingly homogeneous national or linguistic entity, their life values, life choices, life-styles, and,

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therefore their world view may significantly vary. In that sense, most classes, according to Kumaravadivelu, are not
monocultural cocoons but rather are multicultural mosaics.
Robinson (1985) was one of the first in the field of L2 education to argue that instead of treating culture as a
collection of static products or facts that may be presented to learners in discrete items, it should be viewed as a
process, that is, as a way of perceiving, interpreting, feeling, understanding. This perspective views culture as part of
the process of living and being in the world, the part that is necessary for making and understanding meaning.
Robinson (1985) talks what she calls cultural versatility, which implies expanding ones repertoire of experiences
and behaviors, not subtracting anything (p. 101). When people expand their cultural repertoire, they would
become a little bit of other, and would have a degree of psychological match with more people (p. 101)
The idea of culturally shared meaning has been further elaborated by Kramsch in 1993. She sees culture both as
facts and as meanings, and she sees the L2 classroom as a site of struggle between the learners meanings and those
of native speakers. Through this struggle, L2 learners create their own personal meanings at the boundaries between
the native speakers meanings and their own everyday life. She asserts that from the clash between the familiar
meanings of the native culture and the unexpected meanings of the target culture, meanings that were taken for
granted are suddenly questioned, challenged, problematized (p. 238). To sum up, Kramsch (1993) would like
teachers and learners to create what she calls a third culture in the L2 classroom. She describes the third culture as
a conceptual space that recognizes the L2 classroom as the site of intersection of multiple world of discourse. She
advises teachers to encourage learners to create this third culture while, at the same time, not allowing either the
home culture or the target culture to hold them hostage to its particular values and beliefs. She further adds the true
understanding of the cultural dynamics of the L2 classroom can emerge only through an understanding of the
cultural identity that teachers and learners bring with them. Such an understanding is possible only if teachers and
learners develop what Kumaravadavilu calls critical cultural consciousness. The development of critical cultural
consciousness requires the recognition of a simple truth: there is no one culture that embodies all and only the best
human experience; furthermore, there is no one culture that embodies all and only the worst of human experience.
4. Culture Conflict
Levine and Adelman (1982) maintain cultural conflicts occur as a result of misinterpretations, ethnocentrism,
stereotypes, and prejudice. Preventing these conflicts is possible with increased awareness of our own attitudes as
well as sensitivity to cross-cultural differences. Developing cultural sensitivity does not mean that we need to lose
our cultural identitiesbut rather that we recognize cultural influences.
Patrikis (1988) recognizes the dangers of ethnocentricism (based on the ideas and beliefs of one particular culture
and using these to judge other cultures) and bias in the presentation of cultural materials, and warns about several
sins of commission that can occur in discussion of culture. The first of these is stereotyping, which consists of
exaggerating some aspects or characteristics of a culture or its people. Patrikis affirms that we must learn to
distinguish between types (common traits) and stereotypes (fixed images) to teach our students to identify types and
stereotypes and to recognize the limitations of the type. The second sin is that of triviality, which consists of
reducing the dizzying variety of cultural elements to the silly, the out of date, or the quaint, thus presenting tokens of
a culture divorced from the meaning of their context. The third sin is that of political bias, which can result either
consciously or unconsciously when we select elements of the culture to feature or include while ignoring others.
Related to this problem is the fourth sin of dangerous incompleteness which consists of leaving a whole subculture
or other crucial part of culture out of the discussion. A course, for instance, on the Middle East that focuses only on
Islamic culture, and leaves out consideration of Jews, Christians, and other minorities to the sin of dangerous
incompleteness.
Liddicoat (2002) mentions that there are generally two views toward culture awareness: the static versus the
dynamic. The static view of culture does not recognize the link between language and culture. It merely transmits
cultural information to learners and ignores the constantly developing nature of culture. On the contrast, the dynamic
view of culture requires learners to actively engage in culture learning, rather than only learn about the cultural
information of the target culture in a passive way. They are encouraged to view cultural facts as situated in time and
space and variable across time, regions, classes and generations. The dynamic view of culture also requires learners
to have knowledge of their own culture and an understanding of their own culturally-shaped behaviors. Weavers
(1993) cultural iceberg shows that a large proportion of our own culturally-shaped knowledge is invisible and mostly
subconsciously applied in our everyday interactions (cited in Kiet Ho, 2009, p. 63-76).
Morgan et al (1994) hold that it is only in the 1980s that scholars begin to delve into the dynamics of culture and its
vital contribution to successful language learning. (cited in Thanasoulas, 2001). More specifically, when the learner
understands the perspectives of others and is offered the opportunity to reflect upon his own perspectives, through a

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process of decentering and a level of reciprocity, there arises a moral dimension, a judgmental tendency which is not
defined purely on formal, logical grounds. To this end the learner needs to take the role of a foreigner so that he
gains insights into the values and meanings that the latter has internalized and unconsciously negotiates with the
members of the society to which he belongs. Kramsch (1993) also believes that culture should be taught as
interpersonal processes and rather than presenting cultural facts, teachers should assist in coming to grips with the
other cultures. She maintains that by virtue of increasing multiculturality of various societies, learners should be
made aware of certain cultural factors at work, such as age, gender, social class provided that the former usually
have little or no systematic knowledge about their membership in a given society and culture, nor do they have
enough knowledge about the target culture to be able to interpret and synthesize the cultural phenomena presented
(Kramsch, 1988). The corollary of this perspective is to view the teaching of culture as a means of developing an
awareness of, and sensitivity towards, the values and traditions of the people whose language is being studied.
5. Implications for Language Teachers
To Leveridge (2008), language teachers must instruct their students on the cultural background of language usage,
choose culturally appropriate teaching styles and explore culturally based linguistic differences to promote
understanding instead of misconceptions or prejudices. The students, when using the learnt language, may use the
language inappropriately or within the wrong cultural context, thus defeating the purpose of learning a language.
Because language is closely entwined with culture, language teachers entering a different culture must respect their
cultural values. As Englebert (2004) describes: to teach a foreign language is also to teach a foreign culture, and
it is important to teach a foreign culture, and it is important to be sensitive to the fact that our students, our colleges,
our administrators, and, if we live abroad, our neighbors do not share all of our cultural paradigms (cited in
Leveridge, 2008, p. 100).
Language teachers must realize that their understanding of something is prone to interpretation. The meaning is
bound in cultural context. One must explain the meaning of the language used, but the cultural context in which it is
placed as well. Often meanings are lost because of cultural boundaries which do not allow such ideas to persist.
Porter (1987) argues that misunderstandings between language educators often evolve because of such differing
cultural roots, ideologies, and cultural boundaries which limit expression. As Hui (2005) puts forth language
teachers must remember that people from different cultures learn things in different ways. For example, in China
memorization is the most pronounced way to study a language which is very unlike western ideologies where the
onus is placed of free speech as a tool for utilizing and remembering vocabulary and grammar sequences. Maley
(1986) asserts that when a teacher introduces language teaching materials, such as books and handouts, they must
understand that these will be viewed differently by students depending on their cultural views. In fact, one should
not only compare but also contrast the cultural differences in language usage. Visualizing and understanding the
differences between the two will enable the student to correctly judge the appropriate uses language idiocyncracies.
(Leveridge, 2008). Valdes (1987) argues that not only similarities and contrasts in the native and target languages
have been useful in as teaching tools, but when the teacher understands cultural similarities and contrasts, and
applies that knowledge to teaching practices, they too become advantageous learning tools.
5. Conclusion
A shift from a traditional to intercultural stance in EFL enhances students awareness of the inextricable and
interdependent relationship between language and culture and teaching culture as an integral component of
language teaching. It also helps to develop teachers intercultural perspectives that may have an impact on their
language teaching methodology and syllabus design. This shift is a challenge that EFL teachers and learners have to
deal with to meet the goals of foreign language education in our modern world.
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