Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
–
Зарубежная
лингвистика
и
лингводидактика
–
Foreign
Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Journal home page:
https://inscience.uz/index.php/foreign-linguistics
Intercultural teaching and learning in EFL classrooms
Shoira YUSUPOVA
1
, Nilufar FAYZIEVA
2
, Shohista Anvarova
3
National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received April 2024
Received in revised form
10 May 2024
Accepted 25 May 2024
Available online
25 June 2024
The main purpose of this article is to consider the use of an
intercultural approach to the development of communicative
skills in English as a foreign language. Intercultural language
education has significantly changed teaching approaches and
influenced various aspects of English language learning around
the world. The article discusses the skills required for effective
communication in EFL learning. The intercultural component
plays an important role in communication. Students need not
only to become familiar with cultural information related to the
target language but also to develop intercultural awareness and
sensitivity, which is essential for anyone interacting across
cultures.
2181-3701
/©
2024 in Science LLC.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47689/2181-3701-vol2-iss1
This is an open-access article under the Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ru
Keywords:
intercultural,
skill,
teach,
EFL,
culture,
learner,
communication,
experiential learning,
ethnographic,
comparative,
approach,
activity,
language
Ingliz tilini xorijiy til sifatida o‘qitish
(EFL)da
madaniyatlararo ta’lim berish va olish
ANNOTATSIYA
Kalit so‘zlar
:
madaniyatlararo,
mahorat,
o‘qitish,
EFL,
madaniyat,
Ushbu maqolaning asosiy maqsadi chet tili sifatida
ingliz tilida kommunikativ ko‘nikmalarni rivojlantirishda
madaniyatlararo yondashuvdan foydalanishni ko‘rib chiqishdir.
Ko‘rinishidan, madaniyatlararo til ta’limi butun dunyo bo‘ylab
zamonaviy o‘qitish kun tartibini qayta belgilab qo‘ygan va ingliz
1
PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, English Linguistics Department National University of Uzbekistan named
after Mirzo Ulugbek, Tashkent. E-mail: shoira_yusupova@mail.ru
2
PhD in Philology, Senior Teacher, English Linguistics Department, National University of Uzbekistan named after
Mirzo Ulugbek, Tashkent. E-mail: lily_angel94@mail.ru
3
Teacher, Foreign Language and Literature Department National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo
Ulugbek, Tashkent. E-mail: shohista9609@gmail.com
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
–
Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
–
1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
190
o‘quvchi, muloqot,
tajribaviy o‘rganish,
etnografik,
qiyosiy,
yondashuv,
faoliyat,
til.
tilining turli turlariga ta’sir qilgan. Biz ingliz tilini o‘rganishda
kundalik muloqotda muhim bo‘lgan ko‘nikmalarni muhokama
qilmoqchimiz. Muloqotda madaniyatlararo komponent ayniqsa
muhimdir. Biroq, talabalar nafaqat maqsadli til bilan bog‘liq
madaniy ma’lumotlarga duch kelishlari, balki madaniyatlararo
xabardorlik va sezgirlik darajasiga ega bo‘lishlari va
rivojlantirishlari kerak. Garchi ular madaniyatlar chorrahasida
muloqot qiladigan har qanday odamdan talab qilinsa ham.
Межкультурное преподавание и обучение в классах
EFL
АННОТАЦИЯ
Ключевые слова:
межкультурный,
навык,
преподавание,
EFL,
культура,
обучающийся,
коммуникация,
опытное обучение,
этнографический,
сравнительный,
подход,
деятельность,
язык
Основная цель данной статьи –
рассмотреть применение
межкультурного подхода в развитии коммуникативных
навыков
английского
языка
как
иностранного.
Межкультурное языковое образование существенно
изменило подходы к преподаванию и повлияло на
различные аспекты изучения английского языка во всём
мире. В статье обсуждаются навыки, необходимые для
эффективного общения в процессе обучения EFL.
Межкультурный компонент играет важную роль в
коммуникации. Студенты должны не только ознакомиться
с культурной информацией, связанной с изучаемым
языком, но и развивать межкультурную осведомлённость и
чувствительность, что является обязательным для любого
человека, взаимодействующего на стыке культур.
INTRODUCTION
The Intercultural Approach to Teaching and Learning is a widely known fact
nowadays, it cannot be reduced to the direct teaching of linguistic skills like phonology,
morphology, vocabulary, and syntax. The contemporary models of communicative
competence show that there is much more to learning a language, and they include the
vital component of cultural learning a language, and cultural knowledge and awareness
(Bachman, 2001). In other words, to learn a language well usually requires knowing
something about the culture of that language. Communication that lacks appropriate is
the source cultural content often results in humorous incidents, or worse, is the source of
serious miscommunication and misunderstanding. According to Kramsch (1993, 1),
culture “is always in the background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good
language learners when they expect it one making evident the limitations of their
communicative competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around
them”. However when writing or talking about “teaching culture,” theoreticians and
practitioners often restrict themselves to the specific culture of the target language. In
English as a Second Language (ESL) contexts, where students live and are immersed in
the culture of the English speakers, this may be a satisfactory approach. But in English as
a Foreign Language (EFL) settings, this is a very narrow view. In an EFL class, students
are usually monolingual and they learn English while living in their own country
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
–
Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
–
1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
191
(Krieger, 2005). They have little access to the target culture and therefore a culture and a
limited ability to become culturally competent. Importantly, their aim for learning
English is not only to communicate with native speakers of English but also with non-
native speakers of English, which is why EFL learners are typically learners of English as
an International Language (EIL). By learning English, EFL students are enabling
themselves to become users of international, or rather intercultural, the target language
becomes a tool to be used in language.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
This view of language and linguistic development has tended to underrate culture.
Stern (1992,206) notes that, despite a sustained and consistent div of work, drawing
attention to the importance of culture in language teaching, “the cultural component has
remained difficult to accommodate in practice”. Cultural content was often stripped from
learning materials. Pulverness (1996, 7) says of English language teaching (ELT) in the
1970s: “English was seen as a means of communication which should not be bound to
culturally-specific conditions of use, but should be easily transferable to any cultural
setting. Authenticity was a key quality, but only in so far as it provided reliable models of
language in use. Content was important as a source of motivation, but it was seen as
equally important to avoid material which might be regarded as ‘culture bound’.
Throughout the1970s and much of the1980s, syllabus design and materials writing were
driven by needs analysis, and culture was subordinated to performance objectives”.
However, there have been some new approaches to integrate ‘culture’ into the
communicative curriculum. While acknowledging the obvious importance of language as
a means of communicating information, advocates of an intercultural approach also
emphasize its social functions; for example, the ways in which language is used by
speakers and writers to negotiate their place in social groups and hierarchies. And how
these negotiations take place differently from community to community. A language
course concerned with ‘culture’, broadens its chance to focus on improving the ‘four
skills’ of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, in order to help learners, acquire
cultural skills, such as strategies for the systematic observation of behavioral patterns.
Moreover, as learners come to a deeper understanding of how the target language is used
to achieve the explicit and implicit cultural goals of the foreign language community, they
should be prompted to reflect on how their own language and community function. The
intercultural learner ultimately serves as a mediator between different social groups that
use different languages and language varieties. The home culture as well as the target
culture may well come under scrutiny in such programs. In our view the following four
issues have to be dealt with in a cultural syllabus:
(a) the vastness of the culture concept;
(b)the problem of goal determination and the lack of accessible information;
(c)questions of syllabus design and the difficulty of according an appropriate place
to culture in a predominantly language-oriented approach;
(d) questions of teaching procedures and the difficulty of handling substantive
subject matter in a mainly skill-oriented program.
According to Stern, the first two of these issues hindered the prolife ration of
cultural syllabuses, certainly up until the early1990s. If culture is indeed ‘the whole way
of life’, or ‘the dynamic belief
-
system of a community’, then it is certainly difficult to know
how these vast concepts can be approached, particularly in language classrooms where
communication is already constrained.
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
–
Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
–
1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
192
However, from the various literary, media and cultural studies, we can adapt
techniques of observation and description, as well as the analysis and evaluation of texts
and social practices, in order to teach learners with ways of making sense of target
cultures. The definition of the aim of the communicative curriculum, and a skills-based
orientation towards intercultural exploration, go some way towards addressing Stern’s
remaining anxieties. We do not have to prepackage the vast and changing target culture
for learners if developing appropriate tools for intercultural exploration becomes one of
the central goals of language education.
DISCUSSIONS
The intercultural dimension in language teaching is concerned with: (1) helping
learners to understand how intercultural interactions take place, (2) how social identities
become part of all interaction, (3) how their perceptions of other people and other
people’s perceptions of them influence the success of communication, (4) how they can
find out for themselves more about the people they are communicating with. Therefore,
it needs to be postulated that intercultural training in language education requires the
application of three different approaches:
experiential learning, ethnographic approach
and comparative approach.
According to Kohonen et al. (2001) experiential learning is an educational
orientation which focuses on integrating theoretical as well as practical elements of
learning and emphasizing the significance of experience for learning. The approach is
well-known in different settings of informal learning, such as
work and study assignments,
clinical experience, international
exchange and volunteer programs and so on. However,
the principles and practices can be used both in formal and in informal learning.
Experiential learning methods include a rich variety of interactive practices whereby the
participants have opportunities to learn from their own and each other’s experiences,
being actively and personally engaged in the process. To develop communicative skills in
learning English, the following activities may be appropriate:
role plays, drama activities,
games and simulations, personal stories and case studies, discussions, and reflection in
cooperative groups.
They include a rich variety of interactive practices whereby the
participants have opportunities to learn from their own and each other’s experiences,
being actively and personally engaged in the process.
As we know the ethnographic approach focuses on observation and description of
behaviors among representatives of a particular culture. From the point of view of
foreign language teaching the most interesting aspect to be investigated refers to human
communication. Corbett (2003) points out: “a communicated meaning is constantly
negotiated and constructed by the participants of an interaction embedded within a
context”. In this case, a student or a learner who is showing ethnographic skills can talk
about their own experiences. They should observe cultural phenomena; be participant-
observers in their own and the other’s culture. Also, in order to obtain information about
culture they may ask question, search for the most useful sources of information, take
notes during field trips. After all, gathering information they analyze, present, evaluate
and distinguish qualitative from quantitative data, restrain from assessing the other’s
culture.
The linguists of the comparative approach, Zawadzka (2004) and Pulverness
(1999) notice that learning about the other’s culture provokes drawing similarities and
differences to our own culture. Thus, we tend to understand and compare new
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
–
Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
–
1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
193
phenomena with the application of categories employed by our language and culture
community. The comparative approach should be applied in teaching only with the
presence of a teacher made responsible for preserving an objective view at the new
phenomena so as not to change the newly-learnt reality. But, comparing two cultures
does not always lead to the increase of intercultural awareness. That’s why we should
follow Byram and Zarate’s (1997) opinion about intercultural awareness, they claim that
“only critical cultural awareness achieved through the critical analysis of cultural
phenomena and their deconstruction contributes to general education and development
among learners”. A constant comparative analysis remains undoubtedly a crucial element
of action conducted by intercultural mediators. The comparative approach in teaching
culture helps: to make learners reflect on how their own language, linguistic and cultural
identity are perceived by others; to analyze stereotypes and distinguish individual traits;
to discuss tolerance, acculturation and maintaining one’s identity; to distance from one’s
own cultural norms; to shape one’s curiosity and critical attitude instead of developing
prejudices.
By highlighting the role of the comparative approach in intercultural training,
Kramsch (1998) recommends various tasks, which require accepting worldviews
different than one’s own. Similarly, analyzing things from a different perspective allows
learners to compare those aspects of their culture, which they are unaware of. To fulfill
the expectations of the comparative approach, they need to engage their knowledge and
experience indispensable for making comparisons. As a result, students will be able to
strengthen their cultural identity (Bandura, 2007,78). This, in many instances, can be
achieved through open communication with the representatives of other cultures.
As it mentioned above
simulation games, case studies, critical incidents, role-plays
and culture assimilators
belong to the group of techniques used by language teachers to
help their students acquire intercultural skills in more active and authentic ways. Their
value consists in enabling the students to experience, although in the classroom, the
challenges, opportunities, and rewards of intercultural communication as they engage
their participants intellectually, emotionally, and non-verbally in the interactions. Since
the methods differ in their impact on the development of intercultural communicative
competence, they should be combined together and carefully tailored to their
participants’ actual knowledge, skills and needs.
Simulation games have proven to be an extremely valuable method for foreign
language learning as they prepare learners for successful participation in intercultural
communication. They encourage thinking and creativity and help students develop and
practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively non-threatening setting and
create the motivation and involvement necessary for learning to occur as well.
The following activities have been designed for culturally homogenous classes.
However, many of them can be adapted for multicultural settings. In any cultural setting,
the teacher must begin with the student’s own cultural background and the cultures that
students have direct contact with and then expand from that point until all world
cultures have been covered.
These activities have been used with adults at an intermediate level of English
proficiency. Teachers of learners who are less proficient and/or younger may have to
make appropriate adjustments before applying these ideas. For example, (1) use
introductory activities which pre-teach relevant vocabulary or structures and introduce
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
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Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
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1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
194
key concepts, (2) simplify texts or design activities in such a way that students can cope
with a more difficult text, and adapt activities in agreement with the student’s stage of
cognitive development. It is essential that intercultural training begin as early as
possible; we must not postpone it until our learners are at an advanced language level.
Other possible adaptations will depend on learner characteristics such as readiness to
cooperate with peers and willingness to take autonomous actions. Three general
activities that can be used to implement the intercultural approach in an EFL classroom
are described below.
This phase aims to help students look at their native culture at the conscious level
and perceive it from an objective point of view. The students’ own culture, which has
always been taken for granted and is as natural as breathing. They may come up with
ideas such as: (1) instead of shaking hands with people, you might jump three times, and
(2) nodding the head could mean “no” instead of “yes.” Then, each group prepares a
sketch showing the new manifestations and the others must guess what they stand for.
Creative students will have no problems with this exercise and some of their ideas may
be true of other cultures! Several activities, including those described below, can be used
at this stage.
Activity 1.
The teacher writes the word CULTURE in the middle of the board and
encourages students to brainstorm the different associations they have with the term. All
ideas are written down, followed by an in-class discussion of the different cultural
dimensions. The teacher should add aspects that learners have not thought about. Next,
students work in groups and categorize the different aspects of culture in the form of a
mind map, ideally on big sheets of paper. Each group then presents their own mind map
to the whole class. For homework, students are asked to observe their own environment
carefully and to take note of various aspects of their native culture.
Activity 2.
Students work in groups and compare their observations and then try to
step back and look at the collected data critically and reflectively from an objective point
of view, as if through the eyes of a representative of another culture (the teacher should
make sure that groups deal with many different cultural manifestations). This is followed
by a whole-class discussion during which all teams report on what they have found out.
Activity 3.
Students are asked to discuss in groups the following question: “Which
aspects of my own culture may seem weird to a foreigner?” Then, they read or listen to
descriptions of their native culture given by representatives of other cultures, which can
be printed out from the Internet or recorded from a TV program. Considering aspects of
their own culture as seen through someone else’s eyes provides a totally new
perspective. What has always been obvious and often subconscious may be perceived
differently for the first time and sometimes noticed for the first time! For example, Uzbek
Men will always shake hands with other men. Even if you are not introduced to everyone,
a simple handshake substitutes for a formal introduction. A woman visitor may not
receive a handshake unless she extends her hand. For the woman traveler, do not feel
offended that you do not receive the same attention as the males in your group. As odd as
it may seem to us in the West, it is only out of respect that you are not included in the
hand-shaking ritual. Uzbek Women will often greet you with a big hug, and definitely
with a handshake. Reading such kind of information, students may realize that in
different cultures a handshake may have different levels of formality. Thus, such
information serves a double purpose: informing about some people’s habits and
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
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Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
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1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
195
informing about other people’s misunderstanding of those habits. As a follow
-up to this
activity, learners can design a webpage for tourists traveling to their native country. This
may be done using computers, and each group’s webpage can be then placed on the
institute’s website. However, designs on paper can be much fun as well.
Activity 4.
If feasible, representatives of another culture who have lived in the
students’ own country for some time are invited into the classroom. Students (who
should have some questions prepared) ask the guests about what they find strange,
amusing, annoying, or shocking about the students’ culture. Writing a report or an
interview may be a follow-up activity.
RESULTS
A follow-up discussion should concentrate on the strategies students used to deal
with the conflicts. Although learners do not use much English in this activity, it may help
them understand the nature of real cross-cultural communicative situations. Few
language teachers will argue with an approach to teaching and learning that promotes
mutual respect. However, their maiming anxieties are significant ones: that culture is a
vague concept and that ethnography and cultural studies are complex disciplines that
add unnecessary burdens to the teacher’s already considerable workload. For some
teachers, of course, the vagueness of the concept of culture is liberating. The variety of
classroom practices developed in the name of ‘cultural learning’ bears witness to the fact
that many teachers and learners find intercultural exploration stimulating and creative
precisely because it is broadly conceived. For those teachers who demand a more focused
curriculum, Byram’s saviors fear careful, consistent and, above all, practical guide to the
construction of an intercultural curriculum. It is nevertheless true that some of the
academic disciplines that contribute to intercultural exploration
–
for example,
ethnography, visual literacy and cultural studies
–
are often dauntingly theoretical and
abstract. They become much more accessible, and their application to teaching and
learning becomes clearer. Moreover, the classroom activities adopted in an intercultural
approach do not very often stray from those activities familiar from much
‘communicative’ teaching and learning: role
-plays, simulations, project work, debates and
questionnaires, with attendant reading, listening and viewing tasks.
CONCLUSION
Implementing the intercultural approach is a challenging, demanding task for the
language teacher, who must possess at least some intercultural knowledge and very often
keep developing it alongside his or her students. What must not be overlooked is that
intercultural education leads, to a certain extent, to the acceptance of values, beliefs, and
behavior that may conflict with one’s own. So, as some linguists mentioned the language
teacher is tampering with the fundamentals of human identity in guiding the learner to
new perspectives and new identities. Therefore, the EFL teacher must implement the
intercultural approach in a tactful, skillful, and conscious way. Systematic intercultural
training is a pre-condition for educating a new generation of young people who will not
only tolerate, but also understand, accept, and respect people from different world
cultures, will communicate with them successfully, and will learn from them through that
communication. First of all, learners acquire observational skills that will stand them in
good stead when they encounter unfamiliar cultures first-hand. Their ethnographic
observations can be linked to ways of managing intercultural clashes, and the fostering of
mediation skills. However, perhaps the most useful application of ethnography in EFL
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
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Зарубежная лингвистика
и лингводидактика
–
Foreign Linguistics and Linguodidactics
Special Issue
–
1 (2024) / ISSN 2181-3701
196
classroom is to the systematic observation of how people from different cultures -
whether national cultures, professional cultures, ethnic cultures, or others
–
communicate. By training learners to pay attention to the significance of the ways people
from different cultural backgrounds choose to communicate, we can equip them to be
independent, practical and more efficient language learners.
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