From Awareness to Experience in Dealing with the Cultural Issue

From Awareness to Experience in Dealing with the Cultural Issue

Introduction

The foreign language teacher is confronted with the complex task of developing the students’ communicative competence, implying a knowledge of the formal aspects of a language, its morphology, syntax and semantics, and of its socio-linguistic and textual variants and pragmatic uses, all of which are variably intertwined to suit the interactional purposes and expressive needs of the culture where they originate. Moreover, all the countries and nations using the same language do not necessarily spring from the same cultural environment; even the groups belonging to these nations do not necessarily share the same opinions, beliefs, traditions and habits; and even within each of these groups there are families and individuals that differ from the mainstream in not holding the same views on life.

What is the teacher supposed to teach, then? Is s/he expected to select one country as representative, for example, of the Anglo-Saxon world? Or is s/he supposed to give instances of different aspects of life in all the English-speaking countries? And then, whose culture? The majority of the population, which is ultimately the product of a generalisation, including nobody in particular and demanding the explanation of exceptions? Or the minority, which in the end turns out to be so atomised and circumscribed as to be of little use to the foreign student? And also, is the teacher required to give constantly updated information about the selected culture? And how can s/he achieve such constant revision and updating of his/her knowledge?

These are the questions I ask myself every year when planning the syllabus for my secondary students. What follows is the product of my – and a colleague’s - reflections and decisions in an attempt to turn this complex picture into practice, into feasible activities, which would allow me to develop an efficient and productive, if not exhaustive, knowledge that will enable my students to interact in different, unpredictable situations with speakers of another culture.

Defining interaction contexts

Before deciding what kind of culturally significant topics to explore with our students, it is necessary to analyse the features of the contexts in which they are likely to find themselves operating. Mono-cultural contexts, that is contexts in which the participants share the same cultural background, are characterised by the following elements:

A setting, that is the time and place where the interaction occurs, and which determines both the verbal and non verbal behaviour of its participants

The people involved in the interaction, who are characterised by age, gender, role and social status, all sharing, with various degrees of expertise, the knowledge of schemata, or codified patterns of behaviour to follow in given situations

The language used during the interaction, which is characterised by peculiar ways of representing and expressing reality

A purpose the people have for being there, for exchanging information or socialising

All these elements, forming a first level of situational context, are further embedded in a larger context that characterises not only the couple or group of people involved in the interaction, but encompasses their community or group, village or town, that has organised both its private and public life according to rules, conventions, rites, habits and so on.

Let us suppose for a moment that the interaction occurs in a school, in Italy at 8 o’clock in the morning. The people are students, teachers, secretaries and school caretakers, all reacting in different ways at the ringing of the bell that breaks the monotony of the morning. They have different, personal attitudes towards this event, but all of them know its meaning, that is, the beginning of the day’s classes, all of them know what they are expected to do and say after the sound of the bell. They also know the kind of language that is appropriate to that situation, and their utterances will be different in register, degree of formality and content if the interaction is between teacher and students, or teacher and headmaster, or teacher and caretaker, or headmaster and secretary, and so on. They are also aware that they have a precise purpose for being there, at that time of the day and the year, and they act accordingly. They do not need to ask for explanations of what they are expected to do there, unless, of course, they are novices, because all of them share more or less the same kind of knowledge of the features of this situation. They also unconsciously know that this setting is an expression of the small community, town or city they belong to and that has organised the life of their citizens in such a way as to allow their younger members to get an education and grow into mature, active, responsible adults.

This picture, however, is not yet enough to explain other levels of shared meanings that characterise the interactions in the situation. It is in fact evident that these people belong to a greater community, called nation or country, that is situated in a precise geographical area, with a particular territory, climate and borders, and is the result of a historical process that has shaped its present institutional arrangement, the values its people share, the religious beliefs they hold, the level of scientific and technological development it has reached, the artistic and literary production that has enriched its life.

As can be seen, the picture has become even more complex, and the original context is embedded in broader and broader layers that influence the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of the people in different ways and degrees; but communication between them is always possible, even if at diverse levels of understanding and in the presence of some failure, because, belonging to the same cultural group, they share the same language and the same kind of knowledge. The culture of a community thus turns out to be the product of a great many influences and diverse elements, filtered through each individual’s personal sensibility and representations of reality, and codified expressive means.

But what happens when the participants belong to two or more different cultures? They bring with them layers and layers of unconscious knowledge typical of their communities, in some cases overlapping, in others differing so much that misunderstandings and failure to communicate are very likely to occur.

If a foreigner is inserted into the Italian school context described above, how will s/he interpret the ringing of the bell? And even if its meaning is known, is the time the one s/he expected? Does s/he know that the way to address a teacher is different from the way another student is addressed? And assuming that in his/her culture this distinction is made, does s/he know the best linguistic formulae to use? This is the kind of situation teachers have to prepare their students to cope with, bearing in mind that the language taught is not necessarily the linguistic native code of either of the participants and that the contexts are so varied and variable that they cannot be adequately predicted.

This situation is bound to become more and more typical of our societies, with the rapid growth in the personal, commercial and financial exchanges between cultures due to scientific and technological progress, to the development of means of transport and communication, and to the migration movements involving all the countries of the world in a close network of relationships.

Developing (inter)cultural competence

Confronted with the complexity of the FL teacher’s task, I needed to clarify what was meant by cultural – and intercultural - competence, as it could guide my choices in syllabus design matters. After some reading and fruitful discussion with a colleague, I - and she - came to the following definition, which seemed to be in harmony with our teaching principles and sounded simple enough to be turned into practice:

(Inter)cultural competence may be defined as:

1. the ability to understand the context
2. the ability to interact appropriately with the context, which implies
3. the ability to use strategies to manage the communication inside this context in a successful and appropriate way

In other words, when we meet a situation in which we are supposed to interact with people from other cultures, we need to be aware first of all of our tendency to interpret the verbal and non-verbal signs conveyed by the others in the light of the values, beliefs, life routines, social rites and conventions, habits etc. which characterise our native culture, our group. This unconscious, habitual practice frequently leads to erroneous interpretations, to misunderstandings, to false and stereotyped opinions of the people who bear witness to the other culture.

We also need to be aware that cultures are the result of a very intricate network of information, shared assumptions, philosophies, practical life arrangements and individualities which make it difficult to probe unless we can devote a long time and a great deal of effort into observation and study.

Finally, we need to remember that each individual bears with them their own personality traits, history, set of familiar and group relationships, all of which have contributed to their shaping and growth and to their uniqueness, but also that they have, in their turn, the power to shape and determine the context itself.

Developing the students’ (inter)cultural competence implies giving them the tools to investigate the context without overloading their memory with information they may never need, and developing suitable communicative strategies enabling them to cope with the many unpredictable types of situations they are likely to encounter.

Turning this definition into practice, we came to identify the following as teaching steps to take our students through:

1. Raising their awareness

of the peculiarities of their own culture of origin and of its dignity

of the fact that a language reflects the culture and is an expression of its voices and

of the tendency we exert to interpret reality and events according to our own cultural paradigms

1. Developing and attuning their understanding of contexts,

by increasing their knowledge of the world and

by activating strategies to deal with unfamiliar or unknown contexts

1. Developing the ability to interact appropriately and effectively in inter- or cross- cultural contexts, which means putting them in the situation of simulating encounters with people from other cultures.

Classroom implementation

In accordance with the above definition, we devised some activities to implement in class that were meant to cover all the issues highlighted and to allow us to reach suitable cultural objectives for our students by taking them through a process that went from awareness to experience.

In the definition of the goals and objectives of our teaching, we were assisted by the guidelines contained in the Common European Framework of Reference:

Intercultural skills and know-how […] include:

-the ability to bring the culture of origin and the foreign culture into relation with each other;

-cultural sensitivity and the ability to identify and use a variety of strategies for contact with those from other cultures;

-the capacity to fulfil the role of cultural intermediary between one’s own culture and the foreign culture and to deal effectively with intercultural misunderstanding and conflict situations[1]

What follows is the description of some activities we used in class to reach the overall, educational goals outlined above and the specific objectives for each activity.

Task 1

Objectives: to explore cultural assumptions; to raise the students’ awareness that

they interpret a situation according to their native cultural paradigms;

to raise awareness of cultural relativism

In this first activity the teacher shows two sets of pictures: in the first one four scenes are reproduced, and the students have to say which of them illustrates a Christmas event. Apart from the first image, which shows people in fancy dress, all the others could be representative of Christmas, even the one of the barbecue, if we speculate that it was taken in Australia.

The second set shows two people, a man and a girl, whose probable social background and standard of living the students have to guess. From experience, most students tend to assign the man a higher standard of living because he is nearer their own concept of well-being. The girl, however, seems to belong to an Asian or South American country and is normally considered poor. They do not take into consideration the fact that her dress may suggest a fairly good standard of living if compared to poor people’s clothing in developing countries.

Task 2

Objectives:to explore the meaning of words; to raise awareness of cultural

relativism

In this activity, students are asked to read the following letter and to discuss the questions accompanying it:

We’re very happy about your arrival. The area where we live is quite pleasant and there are a lot of things that you can do. You can go on an excursion, or a walk or a ride on a bicycle or on horseback. Also, the lake is well equipped for water sports. The weather in this period is fairly good, it’s/he warm and it doesn’t rain much.

If you need any other information, please write to Marion. She’ll be happy to tell you what she and her friends are organising for your stay here.

See you soon.

1. Which of the following things will you take with you?

-anorak- sweater- jeans

-T-shirt- bathing suit- umbrella

1. What temperature do you expect to find?

- 8-15°C- 15-22 °C- 22-30° C

3. What water temperature do you expect to find?

- very hot- hot- warm- cold- freezing cold

1. What do you expect the weather to be like most of the time?

1. Which of the following activities do you expect to be doing?

- horse-riding- biking- swimming- water-skiing

- walking- canoeing- fishing[2]

This activity aims at drawing the students’ attention to the discrepancy in meaning between words in two languages, in this case the Italian caldo and the English equivalents warm-hot, which do not refer to exactly the same degrees of temperature. From a very small (and unscientific) survey, we found out that when Italian people say today is hot, they usually refer to temperatures from 30° to 40°C while British people have in mind lower temperatures, ranging from 24° to 28°C. This interpretation may have consequences on the choice, for example, of clothes to pack when travelling. An Italian person, who is told by a British correspondent that it is hot in Brighton in summer, may decide to bring light, cotton clothes, discovering later on that s/he needs at least a sweatshirt, if not a woollen sweater.

Task 3

Objectives: to explore cultural assumptions; to raise the students’ awareness of

their unconscious habit of interpreting a situation according to their own cultural paradigms; to develop interaction strategies

Students are invited to read the following scenario, then to discuss the questions accompanying it:

It’s Saturday evening. You’ve been invited to your new foreign friend’s house at 8 o’clock.

What do you expect to happen?

You get there at 8 and there are already a lot of people. They’re talking, listening to music and playing games. As you expected to have dinner at your friend’s, you start worrying when at 9.00 no food has been served yet.

How do you feel?

What do you decide to do?

What will you do next time to avoid a similar misunderstanding?

Reactions to this situation range from admitting embarrassment but doing nothing to reveal it, to deciding to leave the party and have dinner somewhere else, from asking –more or less politely – for some food, to leaving the house very disappointed, nervous if not angry with the host. This happens before it is pointed out that maybe it was their own fault if they found themselves in that unpleasant situation. It was, in fact, their task to clarify if it was going to be a dinner party or an after-dinner party. What they generally tend to do is to superimpose their Italian habit of having dinner at 8.00 or 9.00 in the evening to the English context.

This discovery is followed by a simulation in which they re-enact the moment they were first invited and are made aware of the need to clarify the context if they are not familiar with it.

This kind of activity, leading students from awareness to experience, is the first step towards the development of strategies, in this case the one we called “suspension of your interpretation of the situation to gather further information about it”.

Task 5

Objectives: to raise the students’ awareness of their unconscious habit of

interpreting a situation according to their own cultural paradigms; to

explore prejudices; to develop interaction strategies

Students are invited to read the following scenario, then to discuss the questions accompanying it:

Imagine you are staying with an English family and that for dinner you are given a dish you have never tasted before.

1. How would you behave?

You taste it.

You comment on it with a disgusted expression on your face.

You politely ask what it is made of.

You very politely refuse to taste it.

1. Give reasons for your answer.

After they have answered these points, the teacher asks the students to say what consequences each reaction has, in an attempt to find the best one. From the discussion it should emerge that the first reaction is not the best one because the dish may contain some ingredients they do not like or they are even allergic to; the second one is impolite and betrays a very prejudiced attitude towards the foreign culture; the fourth one is more polite but may deprive them of a very pleasant experience, because the dish could turn out to be in tune with their tastes. The best one is the third reaction because it allows them to make an informed choice, which does not necessarily mean that they will taste or even like the food given, but that they have not refused it a priori.