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Table of contents

Table of contents...... 1

Introduction...... 2

1.Chapter One. Culture...... 3

1.1.General definition of culture...... 3

1.2.The definition of culture in terms of foreign language teaching and learning...4

1.3.The meaning of culture in language teaching...... 7

1.4.Different types and approaches to teaching culture...... 9

1.5.The best approaches to teaching culture to 7-9 years old primary learners....13

2.Chapter two. Authentic materials...... 22

2.1.Definition of authentic materials...... 22

2.2.Types of Authentic materials...... 24

2.3.The advantages of using authentic materials...... 27

2.4.Disadvantages of using authentic materials...... 29

2.5.Task-based language teaching...... 30

2.6.Authentic materials that are the best for primary learners at the age of 7-9...33

3.Chapter three. Designed tasks...... 36

3.1.The process of task designing...... 36

3.2.Comparison of the British or American culture with students’ own one.....36

3.3.Tasks using intercultural approach...... 44

3.4.Tasks using multicultural approach...... 46

3.5.Lessons with authentic materials...... 47

Conclusion...... 55

Polish summary...... 56

References...... 57

Introduction

The present thesis deals with teaching cultural aspects during English lessons by using authentic materials. It consists of Introduction, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Conclusions, Polish Summary, and References.

Chapter one focuses on culture. Thus, the definition of culture is given. Moreover, the culture in terms of foreign language teaching and learning is described. Furthermore, different types and approaches to teaching culture during English lessons are enumerated and widely described. In addition, the best approaches to teaching culture for students at the age of 7-9 are presented.

Chapter two is devoted to authentic materials. Therefore, the definition of authentic materials is provided. Moreover, different types of authentic materials are described. Furthermore, the best authentic materials for the learners at the age of 7-9 are proposed.

Chapter three deals with different tasks designed for the primary learners at the age of 7-9 are presented and described. Thus, the comparison of Polish, American, and British culture is presented. Moreover, activities based on intercultural approach are given. Additionally, the lessons of using culture during English lessons are described.

Finally, there are conclusions and Polish summary. Moreover, there is a full list of references used during the writing of the thesis.

1.Chapter One. Culture

1.1.General definition of culture

The word ‘culture’ comes from Latin cultura and at first meant cultivation. In its current meaning the term ‘culture’ appeared in Europe in the 18th – 19th century.
Probably, what may come to one’s mind while thinking about the definition of the term is that culture is characteristic to particular group of people, which means that this group of people share the same language, history, religion, inhabited territory, cuisine, traditions and social habits.

What also can come up to our minds is the definition of so-called capital-C Culture and here we consider arts, theatre, music and literature; or as we can read in Oxford Dictionary “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement”.

However, there are many ways to define culture, for example from the anthropological point of view this term is defined as “the way people live” (Chastain 1988:302), Trinovitch (1980:550) states that culture is “ an all-inclusive system which incorporates the biological and technical behaviour of human beings with their verbal and non-verbal systems of expressive behaviour starting from birth, and this “all-inclusive system” is acquired as the native culture. The process, which can be referred to as “socialization”, prepare the individual for the linguistically and non-linguistically accepted patterns of the society in which he lives.” We can all agree on the fact that culture is a vital part of our language, our present and our past.

According to The National Centre for Cultural Competence culture is an”integrated pattern of human behaviour that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviours of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations” (Goode, Sockalingam, Brown, & Jones, 2000). This definition says that language is not only a part of how we define culture, but it also reflects culture.

Dakowska (2005:106) says that “culture is a way of life of a given society permeates all areas of communication and provides contexts for the interpretation of meanings”.

Summing all these definitions up we realize that all these definitions have something in common and that is the fact that culture is a way of life (Brown, 1994:163). It is the background of our existence. It is the factor which makes a group of people to have something in common. It is kind of a model that shows the way of behaviour in community. It takes control on the way we behave in a group and makes us realize what the others expect of us, and what may happen if we live against their expectations. Hence, thanks to culture we know how far we can go as individuals and what are our responsibilities to the group.

1.2.The definition of culture in terms of foreign language teaching and learning

When focusing on culture in terms of teaching and learning foreign language, this point of view on culture is the most essential for this paper, many scholars agreed that language without cultural relevance is nearly useless. According to Brown (1994: 170) “language is the most visible and available expression of the culture”. What is more, Tang (1999) assumes that culture is language and language is culture. In his opinion when one wants to speak a language well, he or she needs to think in that language. Language and culture are inseparably joined. That is why many scholars started to call culture the “fifth skill”, next to reading, speaking, listening and writing, which these four are four main skills thought while teaching foreign language.

Duranti (1997: 28-29) specifies what exactly means “being a part of culture”. In his opinion, to be part of a culture means to share the propositional knowledge and the rules of inference necessary to understand whether certain propositions are true (given certain premises). To the propositional knowledge, one might add the procedural knowledge to carry out taskssuch as cooking, weaving, farming, fishing, giving a formal speech, answering the phone, asking for a favor, writing a letter for a job application”.

Additionally, Buttjes (1990), Ochs and Schieffelin (1984), Poyatos (1985), and Peters and Boggs (1986) state that “language and culture are from the start inseparably connected” (Lessard-Clouston, 1997). Thus, the language should be learned in particular social situations[1]:

  1. every society orchestrates the ways in which children participate in
  2. particular situations, and this, in turn, affects the form, the function and
  3. the content of children’s utterances;
  4. caregivers’ primary concern is not with grammatical input, but with the
  5. transmission of sociocultural knowledge;
  6. the native learner, in addition to language, acquires also the
  7. paralinguistic patterns and the kinesics of his or her culture.

Furthermore, Duranti (1997: 24) defined culture as “something learned, transmitted, passed down from one generation to the next, through human actions, often in the form of face-to-face interaction, and, of course, through linguistic communication”.

However, on the other hand there are meaningful voices which points out that culture can be seen as “mere information conveyed by the language, not as a feature of language itself” (Kramsch 1993). Kramsch also says that we cannot consider culture as the fifth skill, because it is something additional, but still of great importance. Furthermore, Kramsch (1993:1) highlights from the very beginning that culture is in the background “ready to unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them”.

Anyhow, one should not forget that good knowledge of a foreign language is not enough; for example one can speak Chinese very well, but knows very little about the country where this language is spoken. Especially during business meetings or travels abroad we can realise how big problems and unpleasant blunders such lack of knowledge about culture can cause. Zofia Chlopek in her article says “communication that lacks appropriate cultural content often results in humorous incidents, or worse, is the source of serious miscommunication and misunderstanding”. Probably one could not agree more.

The content of culture should, according to Goodenough (1981: 62) include:

  • The ways in which people have organized their experience of the real world so as to give it structure as a phenomenal world of forms, their percepts and concepts.
  • The ways in which people have organized their experience of their phenomenal world so as to give it structure as a system of cause and effect relationships, that is, the propositions and beliefs by which they explain events and accomplish their purposes.
  • The ways in which people have organized their experiences so as to structure their world in hierarchies of preferences, namely, their value or sentiment systems.
  • The ways in which people have organized their experience of their past efforts to accomplish recurring purposes into operational procedures for accomplishing these purposes in the future, that is, a set of “grammatical” principles of action and a series of recipes for accomplishing particular ends.

According to Tomalin & Stempleski (1993: 7-8), the teaching of culture has the seven goals:

  1. To help students to develop an understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behaviours.
  2. To help students to develop an understanding that social variables such as age, sex, social class, and place of residence influence the ways in which people speak and behave.
  3. To help students to become more aware of conventional behaviour in common situations in the target culture.
  4. To help students to increase their awareness of the cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target language.
  5. To help students to develop the ability to evaluate and refine generalizations about the target culture, in terms of supporting evidence.
  6. To help students to develop the necessary skills to locate and organize information about the target culture.
  7. To stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity about the target culture, and to encourage empathy towards its people.

1.3.The meaning of culture in language teaching

Studying foreign language consists of several components like grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, but what is more, also some changes in attitude towards our own or another culture. For many scholars gaining knowledge about culture is certainly an integral part of foreign language learning. Admittedly, there are a lot of teachers whose goal is to make teaching culture a very significant part of foreign language teaching curriculum.

Krasner (1999) states that linguistic proficiency is not enough for a student to be proficient in that language. What, foreign language learners, should be aware of are; appropriate ways to address people, express appreciation, asking, and agree or disagree with people. They should bear in mind that behaviours or intonation patterns that are used in their own society, do not necessarily have to be appropriate in foreign communities. One need to be aware of fact that to communicate well, the usage of language must be connected with culturally suitable actions.

The main misunderstanding which often occurs when it comes to teaching culture in foreign language classroom, as Kramsch (1993:1) says, is conviction that language is only a code and once learned – mainly by mastering grammatical rules and some aspect of context when they are used – “one language is essentially (albeit not easily) translatable into another”.

This belief occurred to be influential in promoting different approaches to teaching foreign language – sociolinguistic, pragmatic and communicative – this surely have enhance the learning of language a social aspect, however, the language still occurs to be perceived without trying to identify and gain insights into the very fabric of society and culture that charge language in many diverse ways. Such a perception on language can only cause problems and lead to cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Moreover, Lessard-Clouston (1997) points out that culture in learning teaching means that “students will indeed need to develop knowledge of and about the L2 or FL culture, but this receptive aspect of cultural competence is not sufficient. Learners will also need to master some skills in culturally appropriate communication and behaviour for the target culture (…). Cultural awareness is necessary if students are to develop an understanding of the dynamic nature of the target culture, as well as their own culture”.

Furthermore, Lessard-Clouston (1997) finds four descriptors for meanings of culture by Adaskou, Britten and Fahsi (1990: 3-4). They are the most helpful for a foreign language teachers and they include:

  1. the aesthetic aspect, which includes the arts (cinema, literature, music and media),
  2. the sociological aspect, which refers to the organization and nature of family, interpersonal relations, customs, material conditions, etc.,
  3. the semantic sense, which encompasses the whole conceptualization system which conditions perceptions and thought processes,
  4. the pragmatic or sociolinguistic sense, which refers to the background knowledge, social and paralinguistic skills and language code which are necessary for successful communication.

In addition, Lessard-Clouston (1997) presents us the meaning of culture by Robinson (1988:11) providing a description that culture is a dynamic “system of symbols and meanings” where “past experience influences meaning, which in turn affects future experience, which in turn affects subsequent meaning, and so on”.

1.4.Different types and approaches to teaching culture

According to Risager (1998: 243), there are four different approaches to teaching culture:

1.The foreign-culture approach, which has been losing ground since the 1980s – it is shaped upon the concept of a single culture. Moreover, it focuses on the target culture. However, it does not take students’ native culture into consideration or it does not compare the two cultures. The main aim is to develop the target language’s communicative competence and cultural understanding. This approach was criticized mainly because it does not focus on the relationship between the two cultures.

2.The intercultural approach, which has replaced the foreign-culture approach, and is the dominant one today – it is shaped upon the concept of comparison between the target culture and students’ own culture. However, the main focus is on the target culture. The main aim of this approach is to develop students’ understanding of intercultural and communicative competences and to enable the students to act as mediators between the two cultures. According to Rigaser (1998: 246), this approach is not appropriate since it is “blind to the actual multicultural character of almost all existing countries or states”. She suggests that the teachers should use the multicultural approach.

3.The multicultural approach, which has made its appearance since the 1980s, but still is in marginal position – it is shaped upon the idea that in every country a number of sub-cultures exist with one culture. This approach focuses on the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the target country. Moreover, it focuses on students’ own culture. Furthermore, the comparison between the target culture and students’ own culture is very important. According to Risager (1998: 246), “a balanced and anti-racist view of cultures should be involved”. In addition, this approach focuses on the principle that cultures are not monolithic.

4.The transcultural approach, which is just beginning to appear as a result of internationalization – it is shaped upon mass communication, World Wide Web, globalization, and the phenomena that modern world cultures are intricately interwoven. The foreign language is perceived as an international language. Thus, the foreign language should not be linked to any specific culture. However, Byram (1997: 55) claims that “although it is possible to introduce topics which are of universal significance in all cultures, such an approach leaves learners without topics which are characteristic of a particular country, that is the ones which ‘characterize its uniqueness for the language learner’”.

Moreover, Stern (1992: 223-232) presents eight approaches to teaching culture. They are:

  1. Creating an authentic classroom environment (techniques include, for example, displays and exhibitions of realia),
  2. Providing cultural information ( for example, cultural aside, culture capsule and culture cluster),
  3. Cultural problem solving (for example, culture assimilator),
  4. Behavioral and affective aspects (for example drama and mini-drama),
  5. Cognitive approaches (for example student research),
  6. The role of literature and humanities (for example, literary reading and watching films),
  7. Real-life exposure to the target culture (for example, visits to the class by native speakers, pen-pals and visits to other countries),
  8. Making use of cultural community resources (for example, when a foreign language learning takes place in the target-language community, the everyday environment can be used as a resource).

Furthermore, Galloway (1985) presents “Facts Approaches” to teaching culture. They result from poor preparation of teachers for teaching culture. They are:

1.“The Frankenstein Approach”: A taco from here, a flamenco dancer from here,
a Gacho from here, a bullfight from there.

2.“The 4-F Approach”: folk dances, festivals, fairs and food.

3.“The Tour Guide Approach”: monuments, rivers, cities, etc.

4.“The ‘By-The-Way’ Approach”: sporadic lectures or bits of behavior selected indiscriminately to emphasize sharp differences.

Thus, Lessard-Clouston (1997) claims that planning for culture teaching is very important: “Just as we are intentional in terms of what grammatical structures we teach and how, we must also be systematic about our culture teaching” (Lessard-Clouston, 1997: 24).

The planning can be possible thanks to Moran’s chart that is called “A framework for learning/teaching culture” (Moran, 1992).

Table 1. presents Moran’s framework for learning / teaching culture.

Aspect A: Knowing about
(getting information) / Aspect B: Knowing how
(developing behaviours)
Nature of content: getting information
- what is the capital of the US?
- sports in American life.
Learning objectives:demonstrate a
mastery of the information.
Techniques/activities: cultural readings;
films/videotapes; recordings; realia
(cultural artifacts); personal anecdotes.
Teacher role:informant / Nature of content: skills
- buying tickets to a sports event,
- cheering for your team at a football
game,
Learning objectives: demonstrate an
ability (a fluency, an expertise,
confidence)
Techniques/activities: dialogs, role
plays, simulations, field experiences.
Teacher role: coach or model.
Aspect C: Knowing why
(discovering explanations) / Aspect D: Knowing oneself
(personalizing knowledge)
Nature of content:values and
assumptions
- why are sports so important to
Americans?
- are you making an observation or an
interpretation?
- how does this compare with your
culture?
Learning objectives:critical thinking
- demonstrate an ability: to infer; to
generalize; to suspend judgment,
- curiosity; tolerance; sensitivity;
empathy.
Techniques/activities:
- learners interpret and make explanations
based on above activities,
- comparisons with their own culture,
- ethnography,
- reflective writing.
Teacher role:co-researcher or guide / Nature of content: self-awareness
- what importance do sports have in
YOUR life?
Learning objectives: by
behavior/statements demonstrate
understanding of ones' feelings, values,
opinions, attitudes, and act upon them.
Techniques/activities:
- learners examine and make statements
about themselves,
- reflective writing,
- feedback on above activities.
Teacher role: counselor or guide.

Table 1. Moran’s framework for learning / teaching culture.