Why Is It so Difficult to Teach Language as Culture?

Byram, Katra; Kramsch, Claire

doi:10.1111/j.1756-1183.2008.00005.x

Cited by 83 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Abrams, 2002;Belz, 2002Belz, , 2005Ware, 2005), research on teachers and their teaching of IC has been rather scarce (Doğançay-Aktuna, 2005;Byram & Kramsch, 2008;Kohler, 2015;Sercu, 2006;Sercu et al, 2005). Of this research, only few studies have been conducted on FL teachers other than English (FLOTE).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Perspective of Foreign Language Graduate Student Instructors

Ghanem¹

2017

ij-sotl

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Cultural awareness and intercultural competence (IC) of students in foreign language (FL) instruction have been widely examined (e.g. Byram, 1997;Belz, 2002). The importance of the FL teacher in aiding students' IC development is less extensively researched, however. Author (2014), Kohler (2015), Sercu et al. (2005) and Sercu (2006) are a few exceptions. The purpose of this study is to shed light on graduate student instructors' (GSIs) perspective of understanding IC and its incorporation into FL courses. Eight GSIs of German at a large US university participated in this qualitative study, which addresses the struggles that these instructors encounter when attempting to understand and teach IC. Findings show that the GSIs do not fully comprehend the term of IC and hence have difficulty including IC in the classroom. This has implications for teacher training and professional development.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Perspective of Foreign Language Graduate Student Instructors

Ghanem¹

2017

ij-sotl

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“…In research on foreign language pedagogy, the teaching of culture has been a prominent topic (Allen, 2004;Byram, 2014;House, 2008;Kramsch, 2014). Among the issues addressed by the researchers have been the meaning and significance of teaching culture in the context of foreign language education (Byram, 1997(Byram, , 2014Byram & Kramsch, 2008;Chaput, 1997;House, 2008) and the appropriateness of the cultural component contents for students' learning needs (Lacasa & Lacasa, 1983;Lusky, 1981). This section demonstrates how a good knowledge of language learners' representations of a TL country can help language educators to address these pedagogical challenges.…”

Section: Pedagogical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this modus operandi has proved to be difficult to overcome. Reasons for this may include a lack of confidence or even reluctance on the part of language teachers to address deeper aspects of the TL culture (Byram & Kramsch, 2008). Besides, foreign language courses at schools and universities place emphasis on preparing students for exams which aim to measure the learners' linguistic competence but not their cultural awareness and aptitude.…”

Section: The Teaching Of Culture In the Foreign Language Classroommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Having a good knowledge of language learners' representations of a TL country could help language educators to develop the cultural component of a language program that would address educational needs of their students (Allen, 2004;Byram & Kramsch, 2008). Making empirically-informed decisions while developing the culture segment of language curriculum is in line with progressive forms of pedagogy that are rooted in a constructivist principle of linking the students' existing knowledge to their new learning experiences (see Allen, 2004 for a review of literature).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language learners representations of Spanish-speaking countries: How can they inform language pedagogy?

Nikitina

2017

Rev. signos

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A number of studies have focused on language learners' images of Spain and Spanishspeaking countries, however, none of these investigations was conducted in an Asian educational context. The current study has addressed this gap in research literature. It investigated not only representations but also salience and favourability of students' images of the target language countries, which has not been done in earlier studies. The respondents were 31 beginner learners of Spanish. Firstly, they were asked to write images that they have about Spain; secondly, they were asked to write the names of Spanish-speaking countries that they know and provide several images for each of these countries. In addition, the students were asked to assign a favourability rating to each of the images in their lists. The findings revealed that the language learners' images of Spain were multifarious and had a richer structure compared to the representations of Latin American countries. Despite this difference, students had predominantly positive attitudes toward Spanish-speaking countries. The article concludes by discussiong how language learners' representations of a target language country can inform language pedagogy and offers some practical suggestions. ResumenMuchos estudios anteriores se han centrado en las imágenes que tienen los estudiantes de lenguaje (español) sobre España y los países de habla hispana, pero ninguna ha sido conducida en un contexto educativo asiático. El presente estudio intenta llenar este vacío en la literatura existente. Se investigó no solo las representaciones, sino también la relevancia y las preferencias de las imágenes de los estudiantes acerca de los países de la lengua meta, lo que no ha sido abordado en los estudios anteriores. Los encuestados eran 31 alumnos aprendices de español. En primer lugar, se les pidió que escribieran las imágenes que tenían acerca de España; en segundo lugar, se les solicitó que escribieran los nombres de los países de habla hispana que conocieran y que dieran varias imágenes sobre cada uno de estos países. Además, se les solicitó asignar una calificación de favoritismo o preferencia a cada una de las imágenes en sus listas. Los hallazgos revelaron que las imágenes de los estudiantes de lengua sobre España eran múltiples y tenían una estructura más rica en comparación con las representaciones que ellos tenían sobre los países latinoamericanos. A pesar de esta diferencia, los estudiantes manifestaron actitudes predominantemente positivas hacia los países de habla hispana. El artículo concluye con una discusión sobre cómo las representaciones que tienen los estudiantes del idioma sobre el país del idioma de destino pueden informar sobre una pedagogía de la lengua y ofrecer sugerencias prácticas.Palabras Clave: Pedagogía de las lenguas extranjeras, representaciones, estereotipos, países de habla hispana, lingüística aplicada.

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“…The importance of exploring language learners' stereotypes about a target language country is widely acknowledged (Byram & Kramsch, 2008;Schultz & Haerle, 1995;Storme & Derakhshani, 2002). Moreover, scholars and educators realize that language learners' images and beliefs about a target language country and culture do influence the outcome of the language learning process (Castellotti & Moore, 2002;Gardner & Lambert, 1972).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A longitudinal study of language learners’ images about Russia

Nikitina

2016

Journal of Language and Cultural Education

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Several studies in the field of applied linguistics have explored images held by language learners about a target language country. However, for the most part, these studies focused on learners of modern European languages, such as German, Spanish and French and they were conducted in Western educational contexts. Besides, none of the previous investigations attempted to conduct a systematic classification of the language learners' images. The present longitudinal study addressed these gaps in the research literature. It explored images about Russia held by Malaysian learners of the Russian language in a large university in East Malaysia. This article reports the findings of three questionnaire surveys conducted in 2004, 2007 and 2010. It was found that the images about Russia held by the participants were diverse and clustered around eight countryrelated aspects. Content of some categories of images was stable and changed little over time. Other categories were more fluid and more prone to change. The paper concludes with a discussion of pedagogical implications that can be derived from the findings.

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Why Is It so Difficult to Teach Language as Culture?

Cited by 83 publications

References 2 publications

Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Perspective of Foreign Language Graduate Student Instructors

Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Perspective of Foreign Language Graduate Student Instructors

Language learners representations of Spanish-speaking countries: How can they inform language pedagogy?

A longitudinal study of language learners’ images about Russia

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Why Is It so Difficult to Teach Language as Culture?

Cited by 83 publications

References 2 publications

Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Perspective of Foreign Language Graduate Student Instructors

Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Perspective of Foreign Language Graduate Student Instructors

Language learners representations of Spanish-speaking countries: How can they inform language pedagogy?

A longitudinal study of language learners’ images about Russia

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Language learners representations of Spanish-speaking countries: How can they inform language pedagogy?