Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 2009, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 63–76 © Centre for Language Studies National University of Singapore

Addressing Culture in EFL Classrooms: The Challenge of Shifting from a Traditional to an Intercultural Stance  

Si Thang Kiet Ho
(SiThangKiet.Ho@vuw.ac.nz) 
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

   

Abstract
 

Intercultural language learning has become an important focus of modern language education, a shift that reflects greater awareness of the inseparability of language and culture, and the need to prepare language learners for intercultural communication in an increasingly multicultural world. This paper reports on an on-going study into the presence and status of cultural content in tertiary EFL teaching in Vietnam and the effect of intercultural language learning on learners’ EFL learning. In the paper, I will critically analyze the underlying assumptions about culture in two traditional EFL textbook units currently used in a Vietnamese university. The cultural components of the units will then be proposed using a set of standards for intercultural language learning drawn from the literature. The proposed cultural components aim at raising learners’ cultural awareness and engaging them cognitively, behaviourally and affectively in culture learning. The approach may be implemented in any language courses and is appropriate for the study of any target culture.    

Outline

1 Introduction   

2 Background  

    2.1 Language and culture

    2.2 Intercultural communicative competence
    2.3 Intercultural language learning
        2.3.1 Definition of culture learning

        2.3.2 Dynamic view of culture

        2.3.3 Culture as practice
3 Methodology

    3.1 Intercultural language learning

    3.2 Methodological considerations           

4 Discussion

    4.1 Methodological considerations

    4.2 Developing the cultural component

        4.2.1 Exploring self

        4.2.2 Noticing/observation

        4.2.3 Cultural exploration

        4.2.4 Comparisons and reflections  

        4.2.5 Mediation between cultures

5 Limitations and future directions

6 Conclusions

References

Appendices

Intercultural language learning is a stance on language teaching and learning that emphasizes the interdependence of language and culture and the importance of intercultural understanding as a goal of language education. It is increasingly being promoted as a way to develop learners’ ability to negotiate meanings across languages and cultures and prepare them for living in a multicultural world.

The importance of developing intercultural communicative competence alongside linguistic competence has resulted from learners’ needs for acquiring intercultural skills for cross-cultural communication in which they may encounter linguistic and cultural barriers. Teaching from an intercultural perspective involves developing in learners critical cultural awareness of their own culturally-shaped world view and behaviours as well as the skills and attitudes to understand and successfully interact with people from other cultures, that is, to become interculturally as well as linguistically competent. EFL teachers therefore need to shift from a traditional stance to an intercultural one to develop both linguistic and intercultural competences of learners.

This paper will first critically analyze the underlying assumptions about culture in two traditional textbook units of Speaking and British Culture used in a Vietnamese university, one dealing with families and the other with food and drinks. The cultural component of each unit will be then developed on a set of standards for intercultural language learning through a variety of interactive tasks and activities to engage learners cognitively, behaviourally and affectively in culture learning.
 

Culture is a highly complex phenomenon. Kramsch (1998) describes culture as “membership in a discourse community that shares a common social space and history, and common imaginings” (p. 10). Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino and Kohler (2003) define culture as

a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals and lifestyles of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artefacts they produce and the institutions they create. (p. 45)

Language and culture have an inextricable and interdependent relationship. Mitchell and Myles (2004) argue that “language and culture are not separate, but are acquired together, with each providing support for the development of the other” (p. 235). This relationship can be reflected in terms such as linguaculture (Friedrich, 1989), languaculture (Risager, 2005) language-and-culture (Liddicoat et al., 2003) or culturelanguage (Papademetre & Scarino, 2006). It is also shown in cultural denotations and connotations in semantics (Byram, 1989), cultural norms in communication (Kramsch, 1993) and the mediatory role of language in the social construction of culture (Kramsch, 1996). Liddicoat et al. (2003) also claim that language and culture interact with each other in a way that culture connects to all levels of language use and structures; i.e. there is no level of language which is independent of culture (Figure 1). Moreover, the fact that language expresses, embodies and symbolizes cultural reality clearly shows that language and culture are bounded together (Kramsch, 1998). The relationship between language and culture is made meaningful in language learning as “the person who learns language without learning culture risks becoming a fluent fool” (Bennett, Bennett & Allen, 2003, p. 237).

Fig.1: Points of articulation between culture and language (Liddicoat et al., 2003, p. 9)

The concept of “intercultural communicative competence” (Byram, 1997) has refocused the goal of language education with culture integrated into language study. The use of the term “intercultural” reflects the view that EFL learners have to gain insight into both their own and the foreign culture (Kramsch, 1993). Intercultural communicative competence refers to the “ability to ensure a shared understanding by people of different social identities, and [the] ability to interact with people as complex human beings with multiple identities and their own individuality” (Byram, Gribkova & Starkey, 2002, p. 10. This competency emphasizes the mediation between different cultures, the ability to look at oneself from an ‘external’ perspective, analyze and adapt one’s own behaviours, values and beliefs (Byram & Zarate, 1997). An interculturally competent learner therefore displays a range of affective, behavioural and cognitive capacities (Byram, 2006, pp. 22–26):

• Attitudes/Affective capacities
      - Acknowledgement of the identities of others
      - Respect for otherness
      - Tolerance for ambiguity
      - Empathy

• Behaviour
      - Flexibility
      - Communicative awareness

• Cognitive capacities
      - Knowledge
      - Knowledge discovery
      - Interpreting and relating
      - Critical cultural awareness

In intercultural language learning (hereafter used as IcLL), the goal is not native speaker-level competence in the target language. Instead, language learners follow the norms of an “intercultural speaker” (Byram, 1997; Kramsch, 1993; Risager, 1998) that require them to acquire the “competences which enable them to mediate/interpret the values, beliefs and behaviours (the ‘cultures’) of themselves and of others and to ‘stand on the bridge’ or indeed ‘be the bridge’ between people of different languages and cultures” (Byram, 2006, p. 12).                                              

Intercultural language learning has become an important focus of language education. It has resulted from “an acknowledgement and understanding of the links between language and culture as well as an understanding of how communication works across cultures” (Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000, p. 1). In IcLL, language, culture and learning are fundamentally interrelated into a single educative approach (Liddicoat et al., 2003). From this concept, culture learning is defined as

the process of acquiring the culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures. It is a dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which engages the learner cognitively, behaviourally, and affectively (Paige, Jorstad, Siaya, Klein, & Colby, 2003, p. 177).

The dynamic nature of culture is emphasized in IcLL. This view of culture contrasts with a static one. The static view of culture does not recognize the link between language and culture (Liddicoat, 2002). 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 (Crawford & McLaren, 2003). The dynamic view of culture also requires learners to have knowledge of their own culture and an understanding of their own culturally-shaped behaviours. Weaver’s (1993) cultural iceberg (Figure 2) shows that a large proportion of our own culturally-shaped knowledge is invisible and mostly subconsciously applied in our everyday interactions.

Fig. 2: The Cultural Iceberg
(Source: Weaver, 1993, http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/iceberg.htm)
 

In IcLL, culture is seen as sets of practices or the lived experience of individuals (Geertz, 1983). Crozet and Liddicoat (2000) and Liddicoat (2002) propose a core set of principles for learners’ language and culture acquisition which involve

• Acquisition about cultures

• Comparing cultures

• Exploring cultures

• Finding one’s own ‘third place’ between cultures

• Exploring self

IcLL involves learners in the process of discovering their own invisible cultural dimensions and cultural otherness and self-reflecting on the influence of their own culture on their language use in interaction with people from other cultures. One of the aims of IcLL is therefore to develop learners’ cultural awareness. Cultural awareness involves “a gradually developing inner sense of the equality of cultures, an increased understanding of your own and other people’s cultures, and a positive interest in how cultures both connect and differ” (Tomlinson, 2001, cited in Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2004, p. 3). Consequently, an increased cultural awareness helps learners broaden the mind, increase tolerance (Tomlinson, 2001) and achieve cultural empathy and sensitivity (Tomlinson & Masuhara, 2004). According to Tomalin and Stempleski (1993, p. 5), cultural awareness encompasses three qualities:

• awareness of one’s own culturally-induced behaviour

• awareness of the culturally-induced behaviour of others

• ability to explain one’s own cultural standpoint

• Exploring cultures

IcLL engages learners in the process of exploring their own and the target culture. Liddicoat (2002) proposes a pathway for developing intercultural competence as a model of learner’s internal processes of noticings, reflections and language production (Figure 3). These noticings are important in progressive change as they can be positive or negative evaluation of the new modified practices or further reflection by the learner. The last section of the pathway involves intercultural negotiation in action that is in a cyclical process. This ongoing learning process will help learners develop intercultural communicative competence in language learning. This pathway therefore requires them to interpret and construct their own model of culture learning through cultural exploration.

Figure 3: A pathway for developing intercultural competence (Liddicoat, 2002)

• Comparing cultures 

IcLL encourages learners to look for cultural similarities and differences with the target culture in comparison with their own culture. Comparison with one’s own culture and the target culture draws on learners’ own knowledge, beliefs and values and leads to increased cultural knowledge, understanding and acceptance, which provides a basis for successful intercultural communication. Byram and Planet (2000) argue that “comparison makes the strange, the other familiar, and makes the familiar, the self strange – and therefore easier to reconsider” (p. 189). With an understanding of their own culture as a starting point, learners gradually decentre from their own culture (Byram, 1989; Kramsch, 1993) and develop necessary skills and knowledge to achieve decentring (Liddicoat et al., 2003).

• Finding one’s own “third place” between cultures 

IcLL involves learners in “the turning inward of cultural information through self-reflection leading to enhanced understanding of the role of culture/language in the construct of world-views” (Crozet, 2007, p. 5). They infer, compare, interpret, discuss and negotiate meaning (Liddicoat et al., 2003) through this process that is referred to as the finding of a “third place” (Kramsch, 1993). In this process, learners decentre from their first culture, observe the target culture and occupy a third place where they can observe and reflect on both their own and the target culture (Byram, 1989; Kramsch, 1993). Kramsch indicates that this third place is the one where L2 learners synthesize elements of different cultures and establish their own understanding of the cultural differences between those cultures. It is on this unbounded and dynamic space where language learners bridge the gap between cultural differences and achieve their personal and communicative goals (Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000).

The proposed cultural components involve the target groups of English-majoring students in a Vietnamese university in Central Vietnam. The Speaking unit is designed for first-year students of English who are required to have pre-intermediate level of English proficiency, whereas the British Culture unit is for third-year students whose English proficiency is required at upper-intermediate level. The students may have different background knowledge as many of them come from the countryside or remote areas where they lack facilities for learning English. The intercultural communicative tasks should then be designed appropriately for each target group of students so that they can actively engage in the discussion of cultural issues in the units that require both their knowledge of home and target culture and skills of culture learning.

The two traditional EFL textbook units exemplified in this paper include the ones of families (Jones, 2002) in a Speaking course, and food and drinks (Thai & Duong, 1998) in a British Culture course. The underlying assumptions about culture of these units are first critically analyzed. A cultural component of each unit is then developed according to a set of standards for intercultural language learning to reflect an intercultural stance on language and culture. The development of the cultural components is based on learners’ construction of own knowledge through cultural exploration and an understanding of their own and the target culture’s values and beliefs. It incorporates a variety of interactive language tasks and activities in an integrated way to raise learners’ cultural awareness and engage them cognitively, behaviourally and affectively in culture learning. The overall structure of the proposed cultural components of the units can be found in the appendices.

• Families (Speaking unit)
  The unit is structured around two main activities which involve pair work, group work and individual work. The unit mainly focuses on the use of the target language to describe family relationships in the chart and the photos through a range of vocabulary and includes some activities for discussion about learners’ family life in their home country. However, the unit treats culture with a static view as it does not clearly recognize the relationship between language and culture. Learners are asked merely to describe the familial ties and lack opportunities to explore the target culture themselves and reflect on cultural similarities and differences between their own and the target culture. Learners need to be exposed to different family issues and develop an understanding of the family values in their own and the target culture.

• Food and drinks (British Culture unit)
  The unit is structured with a reading text about food and drinks in Britain, a list of questions for discussion after the reading text and cloze texts. A glossary of cultural terms related to the unit is provided at the back of the textbook. Overall, the unit does not reflect a dynamic view of culture. The cultural information provided in the unit is merely transmitted to learners in a static way through the reading text that may contain some stereotypical information and the exercises that only test learners’ comprehension about the cultural facts. It is necessary that learners be provided with opportunities to construct their own knowledge about the target culture and challenge the information they receive from the perspective of their own culture. Learners also need to explore the target culture themselves and reflect on the values of food and drinking norms in their own and the target culture in order to develop an understanding of the shared meanings of these values for culture learning.

One of the aims of IcLL is to make learners’ invisible culturally-shaped knowledge visible in culture learning so that they can explore their self. To do this, for example, learners can engage in group discussion activities about the differences in ideas that make up a family in their own family trees. This task can increase awareness of the diversity within learners’ own culture as well as their individual concepts of family (Tomalin & Stempleski, 1993).

Learners can also develop their cultural awareness through cultural connotations of vocabulary which may draw different pictures for people from different cultures. Teachers can ask learners to draw a spidergram about words associated with family or breakfast in order to know which words reflect the learners’ own culture or the target culture. For example, the word family produces a picture of an extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, etc) in Vietnamese culture, whereas it is a picture of a nuclear family (parents and children) in English-speaking cultures. An awareness of such cultural connotation can help learners avoid misconceptions about other cultures which may have different cultural connotations of vocabulary.

• Creating an authentic environment
  To arouse learners’ interest, motivation and curiosity for culture learning, teachers and learners can decorate their classrooms with cultural images of the target culture. For example, teachers and learners can bring photos of families from different cultures or posters and pictures of some typical types of British food and drinks to make a culture wallchart (Tomalin & Stempleski, 1993) in the classroom. This technique is known as the culture island (Hughes, 1986) which aims at “attracting student attention, eliciting questions and comments” (p. 168) for culture learning. Learners can also bring some authentic materials about family life in the target culture, or eating and drinking habits of English people to share with the whole class. Such activities will make the lessons more interesting and learners will feel more motivated in learning about the target culture.

• Watching videos
  Video is used as a means of expanding learners’ ability to observe the cultural behaviours of people of the target culture. With a critical eye, learners can increase their awareness of observable features of the target culture for reflections and language production. For example, a video clip about a British family having dinner with some guests can help learners identify British people’s cultural norms in table manners, self-reflect on those in their own culture and discuss cultural similarities and differences (Table 1). Similarly, watching a video clip about the tradition of tea breaks in British Culture can help learners notice how people of the target culture behave socially in the afternoon tea. By observing cultural behaviours of people from the target culture, learners will “become aware of the ways in which their own cultural background influences their own behaviour, and develop a tolerance for behaviour patterns that are different from their own” (Tomalin & Stempleski, 1993, p. 82).

Table 1: Cultural norms in table manners for dinner in Britain and Vietnam

• Ethnographic interviews
  Learners can conduct ethnographic interviews with native English speakers to interpret and construct their own model of cultural learning through the exploration of family values or eating and drinking norms in the target culture. This can be done outside the classroom or with native English speakers invited to the class. Learners are then asked to present an oral report about what they have known about the target culture from their interviews. Ethnographic interviews are used because of a variety of cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes they offer. As Bateman (2004) argues, learners engaging in ethnographic interviews enhance not only their attitudes towards the speakers and the target culture, but also their communication competence with people from other cultures and awareness of the influence of their own culture in their lives.

• Cultural simulations
  Another very efficient way for culture learning is that teachers can create cultural simulations for learners to explore the target culture in the classroom. In recent years, many volunteer native English speakers from the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada or the UK come to teach English in universities in Vietnam. They are treated as faculty members although they may teach only for a short time at the university. Taking this good opportunity, learners can participate in an afternoon tea organized by the teacher for socializing with some native English speakers invited to the classroom. Students in the class can be divided into small groups to facilitate the activity of socializing. They can bring tea, sugar, milk, cookies or cakes that British people usually have for the afternoon tea. This kind of cultural simulation will encourage learners to explore the target culture and develop their understanding about cultural norms of interaction with native speakers of English. Consequently, they will have a better understanding of the target culture.

• Dealing with cultural stereotypes
  Learners can engage in tasks of cultural exploration to identify any cultural stereotypes that may exist. For instance, learners can present their ideas about British food through the posters/pictures they bring to class. They will reflect on what they may think in cultural stereotypes. This task can help them to reflect on the bad reputation of British food as a stereotype. Another stereotypical representation dealing with a family issue about living with one’s parents until marriage can be modified. In Vietnam, many people still live with their parents after marriage. Learners can thus discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living with parents when they are grownup or when they are daughters-in-law or sons-in-law. Tomalin and Stempleski (1993) state that some stereotypes are harmful as “they don’t allow for individuality, they encourage negative judgment, and lead to misunderstanding” (p. 127).

When comparing cultures, learners need to have an understanding of their own culture first as no one can be sure to know enough about his/her own culture. This is an important starting point for learners to gradually decentre from their own culture (Byram, 1989; Kramsch, 1993) before being able to actively engage in comparing, contrasting and reflecting on the cultural values in the target culture. The tertiary English curriculum provides Vietnamese learners of English with theories of culture and approaches to culture in general and Vietnamese culture in their mother tongue right at the beginning of the first year so that they can have knowledge of their own culture and an understanding of their invisible culturally-shaped behaviours in communication. This is regarded as a foundation for learning the target language culture.

In the Speaking unit, for instance, learners can participate in group discussions and reflections on cultural similarities and differences in family values between English-speaking cultures and their home culture (Table 2). Culture always changes and students should be aware of this so that they can have a better understanding of their own and the target culture. For example, families in Vietnam are undergoing substantial changes, especially in big cities where the cultural values of the West and the East may be intertwined. According to McLeod and Nguyen (2001), the fast-paced market economy and the ever increasing intrusion of the modern industrial world have affected the Vietnamese family dramatically, which makes its customs and values such as filial piety, obedience or loyalty suffer. Consequently, the priority has been given to the Western nuclear family model (i.e. husband and wife, parents and children) and the multigenerational and patriarchal aspects of the Vietnamese family become less prevalent. Such comparison and reflection can develop learners’ critical thinking, increase their consciousness of cultural similarities and differences in values and attitudes and become more aware of the assumptions of English-speaking cultures and their own culturally-shaped assumptions (Tomalin & Stempleski, 1993). Once learners can develop an understanding of the shared meanings of values in their home and the target culture, they can reduce their ethnocentrism and develop respect and empathy towards people of the target culture. Each culture has different values and none of the values in one culture is better than the others in another culture.

Table 2: Cultural differences in family values between English-speaking countries and Vietnam

Learners can also develop their cultural awareness for culture learning through personal experiences. Tomlinson and Masuhara (2004) argue that cultural awareness is gained through experiencing the culture, either directly through visiting a culture or indirectly through films, music or literature. Therefore, learners can be encouraged to stimulate discussions about the family values or eating and drinking norms of the target culture by sharing their own experiences.

Learners can engage in problem-solving activities as a way to mediate between cultures. These problem-solving activities involve cultural dilemmas that can increase learners’ awareness and sensitivity to cultural differences and encourage them to participate in discussions about the potential outcomes of their suggested solutions. For example, students can discuss dilemmas about parents’ decision on career choice or eating norms. In the latter situation, it is a good manner to come 15 minutes late when you’re invited to a dinner in Britain, whereas you should come on time in Vietnam especially for a formal dinner, or even earlier to help the host/hostess set the table in case of an informal one. British people usually bring a dessert or a bottle of wine to the dinner, whereas it is not the custom in Vietnam. In such situations, groups of learners can take turns to perform their roleplays in front of the class. Other groups then discuss what kinds of misunderstanding that may have occurred between people of different cultures and propose their own solutions to the problems involved. These cultural dilemmas encourage learners to mediate between their home and the target culture to reach an intercultural position, or a ‘third place’, where their points of view can be recognized, mediated and accepted (Liddicoat et al., 2003). From such situations, learners can establish an understanding of cultural differences between their home and the target culture, develop an ability to look at themselves from the other’s perspective and adapt their own behaviours to the specific context. Consequently, learners can develop their tolerance and empathy towards the behaviours of people from other cultures and intercultural misunderstanding can be solved.

The development of the cultural components in English language classes in Vietnam may be influenced by a number of constraints, namely the teacher’s cultural knowledge, the availability of native English speakers, time allowance for culture teaching in each lesson or even the system of education itself. The Vietnamese 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. 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. Nevertheless, many Vietnamese universities have made their efforts to attract native English speakers to come and teach English at their institutions through international relations or volunteer organizations in the world. 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. Finally, the whole system of education or the subsystem of education within a particular institution is the most important incentive to make changes. Although Vietnamese education still has strong emphasis on examinations, the needs for change in foreign language education have been raised. The country needs to move towards an intercultural education in order to meet its goals for the new era of international integration.

Future research can look into the assessment of students’ acquisition of cultural knowledge, skills and attitudes towards culture learning in the proposed cultural components as it is not the focus of this paper. Potential ways of assessment may include pre-tests and post-tests, interviews or portfolios to measure students’ development of intercultural communicative competence and the effect of intercultural language learning on their EFL learning.

Living in today’s multicultural world, language learners need to develop not only their linguistic competence but also their intercultural communicative competence to overcome both linguistic and cultural barriers they may encounter in interaction with people from other cultures. Given the importance of intercultural communicative competence in intercultural communication, this paper has critically analyzed two traditional EFL textbook units used in a Vietnamese university and developed a dynamic and lifelike cultural component for each unit based on a set of standards for intercultural language learning. The developed cultural components engage learners in cognitive, behavioural and affective aspects of culture learning through a variety of interactive tasks and activities in which they develop their cultural knowledge, skills and attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with people from other cultures. The proposed cultural components are expected to provide much benefit to learners as they can help them become both linguistically and interculturally competent learners.

A shift from a traditional to intercultural stance in EFL classrooms will contribute to teachers’ professional development for a long-term plan for language teaching. It enhances their 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.