The Role of Culture in Teaching And

Learning of English as A Foreign Language

By
Lecturer .Ahmed A .Hamza
.M.A in EFL Methods of Teaching
College of Education for Human Sciences
University of Babylon

2017
 ii
Abstract

Culture is indispensable part of language learning. As language is a

culturally conditioned phenomenon so language and culture are
interconnected and their relationship is central to language learning.
Culture as social custom covers a wide spectrum of things related to
human life and society. It is represented by ways, styles, and customs of
daily life, and by various commodities such as houses, food, and clothes
involved in everyday life. Thus, the study attempts to investigate the role
of English culture in the process of learning that on the part of Iraqi EFL
undergraduates and how teaching can be best affecting that role.
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Chapter One
:1.1Statement of the problem
Culture may be defined as a ‘social heredity’ transmitted from one
generation to another generation with the accumulation of individual
experiences, or a mode of activities differentiating people of one society
from another society. Culture cannot be a biological phenomenon but a
learned pattern of social behaviour to be followed. It is a wonderful and
unique phenomenon of human society with colourful diversity always
changing its patterns which is the greatest beauty of human society.
Culture forms beliefs, conveys ideas, and shares knowledge on customs
and values. All of these characteristics are communicated through
language which is an integral part of culture. (Seelye 1981:67)

Culture as a social process deals with the use of language and

communication experienced by people in given circumstances. They tend
to learn more than one language for the satisfaction of communicative
needs in their academic and professional career. The process of learning a
second or foreign language not only requires an individual to practice
linguistic forms but also necessitates to become familiar with the culture
of target language in order to interpret intercultural communication.
Therefore, in the learning of English as a Second or Foreign language
awareness so as to obtain proficiency in intercultural communication of
target language.( Widdowson 1990 :40)( Krashen 1981 :62)
Culture is not taught in a vacuum or learned in isolation; an ongoing
dialogue and negotiation takes place between teachers, students, subjects,
and context. This happens both explicitly and implicitly, and the implicit
dialogue and negotiation is especially in focus here. Teaching and
learning are influenced by many factors both inside and outside the
classroom and, at the same time, also influence the context. It is beyond
the scope of this chapter to discuss and analyze all possible factors that
may influence teaching and learning, or to identify all influences that
teaching and learning may have on the context. It is observed that
language is used in a cultural phenomenon to exchange ideas and
opinions or share experiences. It is so much interrelated that without
understanding properly the cultural setting and social behaviour of a
language use, it leads to misinterpretation and breakdown in the language
communication, or it may result into errors and misunderstanding because
language is not simply sending or receiving information but it functions
as a social behaviour in certain cultural context. There are difficulties
which are very complex to understand for foreign or second language
learners according to required context to interpret and communicate.
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Research in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) indicates
problems faced by the learners in communicating language in context. A
number of language instructed programmes focus on the development of
skills, i.e. (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) but the teaching of
cultural context has not been introduced in any of the language learning
programmes. However, the understanding of target culture not only
develops competence in communication but also raises awareness
regarding the use of language in intercultural communication. Thus, the
study tries to shed the light on the role of culture in the process of
learning English as a foreign language and how teaching can best reflect
that role.
The aim of the study: The study aims at investigating the 1.2
role of culture in learning English as a foreign language and
how teaching can reflect that role

1.3 The limitation of the study: The study is limited to EFL

undergraduates-college of Education for social sciences-university of
Babylon during the academic year 2016-2017
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Chapter Two

2.1Review of related literature

Culture is a word with a long history and many meanings, including

high culture (film, theatre, poetry, and more), lived culture (cultures-
within-cultures), and national culture Therefore, it is not surprising that it
has proven difficult to agree on a definition of culture. Here, we will limit
ourselves to one aspect of the discussion on culture This is the question of
whether culture is to be understood as a collection of stable, slow-
changing systems of values and behaviors that groups of people share, or
if, on the contrary, culture is constantly negotiated, constructed, and
shared between individuals in different social contexts. (Prodromou
1992:38)

This question is of particular interest and importance for teachers of

culture because it has great implications for the choice of teaching
methods a teacher will use. Culture may also, however, be seen as a set
of more open structures, lacking clear borders and constantly changing.
This understanding of culture as something more complex has to do with
process, development, and transformation. Individuals do not only belong
to one culture, but to several, and the number of cultural communities
they are part of is not fixed, but may increase or decrease over time.
Culture is constantly created and negotiated between individuals and
consists of many cultural communities that one shares with some, but not
with all. .( Coleman1996:67)

The contributors to this book all belong to Danish academic culture,

but some differ when it comes to food and sports culture. The
contributors all belong to the English-speaking community, but where
some of them are actively involved in the community of those with small
children, others have already left for the community of those parenting
teens. This may be used as an illustration of the ways in which
individuals share many, but not all cultural communities , and that the
 4
ones they share may change over time. As was the case with the
descriptive view , the complex view of culture may also influence the
way teachers plan and conduct their teaching. If culture is not fixed, but
something created and negotiated between individuals and between
individuals and context, a teacher-centered , lecture-based approach to
teaching culture yields very little meaning. On the other hand, if one
believes it is possible to present learners with a precise description and
clear-cut picture of Chinese culture , an experience and participation-
based learning-by-doing approach to teaching may be considered a waste
of time.( Jiang 2006 :22-6)
It is observed that language is used in a cultural phenomenon to
exchange ideas and opinions or share experiences. It is so much
interrelated that without understanding properly the cultural setting and
social behaviour of a language use, it leads to misinterpretation and
breakdown in the language communication, or it may result into errors
and misunderstanding because language is not simply sending or
receiving information but it functions as a social behaviour in certain
cultural context
a. the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that
depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to
succeeding generations; 
b. the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial,
religious, or social group
So culture isn’t something as simple as film and dance, and it’s not a
quantifiable thing that some places or people have more of and others
less. Like language, culture is a symbolic system we use to understand
the world around us: it’s the sum total of all our TV dopey neighbors and
nagging wives, our knowledge that green means go and thumbs up is
good, the shared values we hold that say walking around barefoot in
public is inappropriate and fast cars and big TVs are signs of social status,
and how we construct all of this into a subtle but always present
worldview.( Kramsch 1993 :44)

Culture, like language, is how we make sense of the world within a

group of people who are fluent in the same system of symbols, whether
those symbols are made up of vowels and consonants or generations of
storytelling. This cultural pattern of a society takes hundreds and
 5

thousands of years to form and is changing all the times, and compelling
individuals of society to learn and adjust, and when an individual comes
into cultural communication, it requires cultural understanding, social
behaviour, and emotional reactions which help learner develop
confidence to use language and interact in communication
Teachers must instruct their students on the cultural background of
language usage. If one teaches language without teaching about the
culture in which it operates, the students are learning empty or
meaningless symbols or they may attach the incorrect meaning to what is
being taught. 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.( Jæger 1995:31)

In EFL classrooms, as we teach the language, we would automatically

teach culture. The forms of address, greetings, formulas, and other
utterances found in the dialogues or models our students hear and the
allusions to aspects of culture found in the reading represent cultural
knowledge. Gestures, body movements, and distances maintained by
speakers should foster cultural insights. Students’ intellectual curiosity is
aroused and satisfied when they learn that there exists another mode of
expression to talk about feelings, wants, needs and when they read the
literature of the foreign country. For depth of cultural understanding it is
necessary to see how such patterns function in relation to each other and
to appreciate their place within the cultural system. If language learners
are to communicate at a personal level with individuals from other
cultural backgrounds, they will need not only to understand the cultural
influences at work in the behavior of others, but also to recognize the
profound influence patterns of their own culture.( Plveruness 1999:70)

While developing cultural awareness in the EFL classroom it should

be kept in mind that the native language is learned along with the ways
and attitudes of the social group, and these ways and attitudes find
expression through the social group. Learning to understand a foreign
culture should help students of another language to use words and
expressions more skillfully and authentically; to understand levels of
language and situationally appropriate; to act naturally with persons of
the other culture, while recognizing and accepting their different
reactions, and to help speakers of other tongues feel at home in the
students’ own culture. While most learners indeed find positive benefits
in cross-cultural living on learning experiences, nevertheless a number of
6

people experience certain psychological blocks and other inhibiting

effects of the second culture. Teachers can help students to turn such an
experience into one of increased cultural and self-awareness. It is possible
that learners can feel alienation in the process of learning a foreign
language, alienation from people in their home culture, the target culture,
and from themselves. In teaching foreign language we need to be
sensitive to the fragility of students by using techniques that promote
cultural understanding. (Cohen2003 :95) ( Jiang 2000:50)
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Chapter Three
Procedures

The population: It consists of Iraqi EFL students ,in College of 3.1

.Education-of Babylon University during the academic year (2016-2017)
The sample: (60) male and female fourth year students from 3.2
.English Dep. were chosen as the sample of the study
The research instrument: A questionnaire form was chosen as 3.3
.the tool of the study
Constructing the questionnaire items 3.3.1
The questionnaire form consists of (5) items. Each item is
weighted in accordance to the frequency of respondents' use. Four
degrees of frequency were tested for each item represented by the
weights(always, sometimes ,rarely& never).
Statistical means: The following formula was adopted to obtain 3.4
:results for the study which is as follows
f*w/n ∑
summation =∑
w=weight
n=number of respondents
f=frequency
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Chapter Four

Chapter Four
The Analysis of Results

To obtain the reseach results, statistical means were used to check

the frequency use of each item of the questnaire as shown in the
following tables:

Table(1) Frequency & power of the items

Items Frequenc powe

y r
1- I recognize the cultural differences 45 75%
with my mother tongue language while
learning English
2-Being exposed to English literature 33 55%
helps me to develop critical thinking
towards foriegn thoughts
3-I am able to differentiate the cultural 25 42%
factors relating the uses of spoken
English as compared with my mother
tongue
4-I added new language behaviours as 30 50%
while learning English
5-English teachers are able to reflect the 20 33%
foriengn culture while I am taught by
them

There are three degrees to test the power of item's frequency use as
shown in the line below:
3 1 o

The items that fall between (3) and (1) are more powerful than those that
fall between(1) and (0).The diagram .This indicates the following:

1-Culture has its own influence on learning English as it is apparent in the

answers of the respondents. Most of them are able to recognize that there
differences between their culture and the foreign culture to which they are
exposed when they are learning English

2-EFL learners are able to some extent argue thoughts and beliefs of
foreign culture as they are exposed those thoughts throughout the
literary works of English

3-Due to little chances that are available to EFL learners to use English
for communication, the respondents showed less powerful frequency in
recognizing the cultural factors that are related to English language use .

4-The techniques that are followed by teachers of English are less

sensitive towards representing cultural differences while teaching English
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Conclusions

The study reached the following conclusions:

1-Culture has a vital and important role in the process of learning English
as a foreign language as language and culture are inseparable .

2- Cultural differences normally exist when learners are exposed to a

foreign language.

3-As far as foreign language is used, cultural factors will be considered as

well as language forms and structures

4-Teachers of English should relate culture to language so that learners

can develop their critical thinking towards the foreign culture
 11
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