Hinkel Chapter 11

Hinkel Chapter 11: Cultural Mirrors

How is culture reflected in textbooks used for teaching English as a foreign language/ESL? Distinguish cultural content from cultural medium (culture of learning). Variety of teaching materials from around world.

·         There are several paradoxes arising form cultural mirrors found in materials and methods used in language classrooms around world.

·         Suggestions: 1. Broader definition of cultural content of texts.

2. Teachers and learners take more reflective/ethnographic stance when tackling cultural contentment & cultural processes involved in learning foreign language.

·         Extent and quality of inclusion are sometimes assessed using textbook evaluation checklists. Not always enough culture figured in. Representation of culture is more complex than the kind of portrayal implied by many evaluation checklists.

·         The medium for learning about target cultures in classroom is part of culture of learning.

·         From early-on, students and teachers are socialized into expectations about what kinds of interactions are appropriate in class, how texts should be used, and how they should engage in teaching/learning processes.  (expectations arising from culture of learning can be powerful determinants of what happens in classroom interaction. Can lead to possible mismatches between cultures portrayed in textbooks and culture so learning used by teachers/students to acquire appropriate knowledge, skills, or attitudes about target cultures.

·         The solution is not to include more representative elements of target cultures in texts.

o   We must reflect on ways of using the human resources of the classroom more effectively for intercultural education.

·         Learning a foreign language is not just mastering an academic study but more focused on learning a means of communication.

·         Communication in real situations is never out of context, and because culture is part of most contexts, communication is rarely culture-free. Now recognized that language learning and learning about target cultures can’t realistically be separated.

·         Just what is culture?

o   Meorman’s definition: “Culture is a set-perhaps a system- of principles of interpretation, together with the products of the system.”

o   Framework of assumptions, ideas, and beliefs used to interpret others’ actions, words, and patterns of thinking. Students must become aware of different cultural frameworks to interpret intended meanings through different cultural assumptions.

·         Communicative competence: can look at 5 aspects:

o   Grammatical

o   Sociolinguistic

o   Discourse

o   Strategic

o   Intercultural (seen in social effectiveness and appropriateness); the ability of a person to behave adequately in a flexible manner when confronted with actions and attitudes and expectations of other foreign cultures.

§  Social effectiveness: ability to achieve instrumental and social goals

§  Appropriateness: suitable communication in given situation in particular culture.

·         There exist many strong arguments for developing students’ intercultural competence, given increasingly international nature of work of many professions. “In the contemporary world, a person does not need to travel to encounter representatives of other cultures: popular music, the media, large population movements, tourism, and the multicultural nature of many societies combine to ensure that sooner or later students will encounter members of other cultural groups.” (198).

o   Damen 1987 states, “The current dedication to the development of the communicative competence of language learners mandates the development of intercultural communicative skills and an understanding of the process of culture learning on the part of students and teachers alike.”

·         What do we expect vs. what actually exists

o   Expect: materials that raise learners’ awareness of intercultural issues and enable them to communicate effectively and appropriately in variety of communicative contexts. Expect English-language teaching curriculum design and evaluation, including textbook eval, to include consideration of culture and intercultural communication. YET not the case! “culture” is not even indexed in many books.

·         Communicative Competence: grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competences, can add intercultural

o   Intercultural: social effectiveness (ability to achieve instrumental and social goals), appropriateness (suitable communication in given situation in particular culture); the ability of a person to behave adequately in flexible manner when confronted with actions, attitudes, and expectations of representatives of foreign cultures

o   Student doesn’t need to travel far to develop intercultural competence (look at our music and media!)

·         Just what can a textbook be?

o   Teacher (contains material needed to instruct)

o   Map (overview of structure program of linguistic and cultural elements)

o   Resource (set of materials from which appropriate items will be chosen)

o   Trainer (for inexperienced)

o   Authority (reliable and valid, written by experts)

o   De-skiller (teachers may not use more creative or critical approach)

o   Ideology (reflects worldview or cultural system)

o   Cunningsworth: are the social and cultural contexts interpretable by students? Language textbooks are bound to express some social and cultural values. (often unstated)

o   Few checklists mention historical dimensions or comparative frames of reference (checklists often reflect authors’ awareness and interest in culture)

o   Byram: cultural content criteria: social identity, social interaction, belief & behavior, social and political institutions, socialization and the life cycle, national history, national geography, and stereotypes and national identity

o   Risager: Western Europe: people featured are middle-class, young, isolated, tourists

·         Evaluating treatment of cultural content in textbooks:

o   Giving factually accurate and up-to-date information

o   Avoiding (or relativizing) stereotypes by raising awareness

o   Presenting a realistic picture

o   Being free from (or questioning) ideological tendencies

o   Presenting phenomena in context rather than as isolated facts

o   Explicitly relating historical material to contemporary society

o   Making it clear how personalities are products of their own age

·         C1 refers to learners’ own culture (source culture)

·         C2 is target culture where target language is used as a first language

·         C3, 4, 5 refer to cultures that are neither a source culture nor a target culture (use English as international language, international target cultures)

·         There is an argument that until learners’ first cultural identity is established, it may be harmful to learn about other cultures. In this view, it is acceptable for younger students to learn EFL but not for them to learn about English-speaking cultures. This depends on separability of language and culture, yet many say separation is impossible/undesirable if communicative competence is goal.

·         Cultural identity is negotiated in intercultural contexts and communication competence can be defined as an “effective identity negotiation process in novel communication episodes”

·         Teacher should be able to mediate textbook in classroom interaction, indicating which aspects of source culture would be interesting or problematic for target language speakers (avoid awkward situations) ; this demands intercultural knowledge, skills, and awareness from teacher.

·         Luke: closed text shows unproblematic world that confirms or reinforces learners’ views and beliefs. (text already complete so no need for student response) Open text invites range of possible interpretations. Deliberately incomplete.

·         It is easy to assume textbooks should reflect a target culture but there are mixed reviews on this!

·         International target cultures: English frequently used in international situations by speakers who do not speak it as a first language.

·         3 categories: textbooks based on source cultures, textbooks based on target culture, and textbooks aimed at international target cultures

·         Teacher’s role

o   Ambassador of culture

o   Culture learning through textbooks is like dialogue between author and reader but teacher manages how students see culture mirrored in textbook

o   Neither the teacher nor the students are blank slates regarding target culture. May have previous knowledge. Even if they don’t have target culture knowledge, their resources are their understanding of their own source of culture, which can be exploited in an ethnographic or reflective approach.

·         In an EFL classroom, culture learning is not only a content-based dialogue, but also a medium-based dialogue of learning. Teachers teach influenced by their culture of learning. A culture of learning not only mediates the learning of target culture content, but can deny learning by creating barriers of different interpretation.

·         The problem is that students and teachers culture of learning may not be synchronized with target culture and this culture content can become filtered if source cultures dominate.

·         Possible paradox: teacher and student may share same culture of learning but use EFL textbook based on a quite different culture of learning. Cultural mismatch can lead to miscommunication and student frustration.

·         The more the teacher moves toward the students’ expectations, the greater the distance he or she is from the target culture. Some students may feel that to change their culture of learning is to change their culture. (raises identity problems)

·         Cultural mismatch: Chinese don’t want to ask questions because waste of time; Western teachers emphasize communication rather than linguistic knowledge and mental activity. (some teachers are “poor” because choose pair and group discussion over individual, direct instruction).

·         Implementations

o   Broader definition of cultural content of texts needed and corresponding requirement is that textbook evaluation lists have greater sophistication about cultural elements

o   Teachers and students should take more reflective or ethnographic stance toward cultural content and methodology to raise awareness of intercultural issues

o   More textbooks should include explicit intercultural elements, teachers should be more conscious

o   Developing cultural awareness means being aware of members of another cultural group

o   Students should realize HOW to learn about cultures

·         Conclusions

o   EFL textbooks reflect target cultures and source cultures and international cultures

o   Cultural focus on intercultural competence advantages: encourage development of identity, awareness of others’ identities and element of stabilization in world of rapid change, stabilize self-identity in process of cross-cultural mediation

o   Few EFL materials are culturally neutral