Souheila DJEKOUNE, MAA
University of Oran 2
Abstract:
This changing time of globalisation has increased the urge for cross-cultural communication. Such growing and extending need leads to the growth in the Foreign Language (FL) teaching profession. However, it is noticed that culture teaching has been neglected in Foreign Language education, resulting in students’ lack of cultural knowledge.
Thus, based on the assumption that promoting interculturality in the Foreign Language teaching may provide students with insights into their academic achievement, and which may lead to positive attitudes and tolerance towards foreign cultures, this work tackles the issue of promoting interculturality in FL language teaching which may enhance the learners’ academic achievement.
This research is a trial to acknowledge the impact of interculturality in educational, professional and societal contexts and settings such as education, business, politics, media, healthcare and society.
The interculturality approach aims to raise learners’ intercultural and communicative competences so as they may use the target language as a means of interaction with other people of different cultures.
To achieve this objective, it is believed that the role of the Algerian university teachers and researchers, whose works touch different cultures or civilisations (i.e. whose concern is history, politics, literature or art), is to participate into the global and trans-cultural encounters in order to promote interculturality within FL context.
A lot of complications and difficulties may develop when integrating culture in English teaching context for instance. Therefore, the teachers, who are central in transmitting the target culture to the learners, have to create strategies to make their learners interested in studying the target culture and developing their academic achievements; then it is as important to establish communication channels that allow their enrichment as well as opening a door to the Other since the encounter between peoples and their cultures has become irreversible.
As a conclusion, encountering people of different cultural backgrounds has become an everyday experience thanks to the development of an integrated global economy, sophisticated communication and technologies, migration, traveling and education.
Keywords : Interculturality, Foreign Language context, tolerance, intercultural competences, academic achievement.
Introduction:
This changing time of globalization has increased the need for cross-cultural communication so that people have access to information all over the world. This growing and extending need leads to the growth in the Foreign Language teaching profession. However, culture teaching has been neglected in Foreign Language education, resulting in students’ lack of cultural knowledge which is one of the significant problems that need careful consideration.
Thus, based on the assumption that promoting interculturality in the Foreign Language teaching may provide students with insights into their academic achievement, and which may foster positive attitudes and tolerance towards foreign cultures, this work tackles the issue of promoting interculturality in FL language teaching which may enhance their academic achievement.
To achieve this objective, it is believed that the role of the Algerian university teachers and researchers, whose works touch different cultures or civilisations (i.e. whose concern is history, politics, literature or art), may participate into the global and trans-cultural encounters in order to promote interculturality within FL context.
Objectives:
This research is a trial to acknowledge the impact of interculturality in educational, professional and societal contexts and settings such as education, business, politics, media, healthcare and society.
Thus, the FL learners will be aware of the following:
-The sense of interculturally conditioned behaviour
-The interaction of language and social variables
-Conventional behaviour in common situations
-Cultural connotations of words and phrases
-Evaluating statements about a society
-Researching another culture
-Attitudes towards other cultures.
Intercultural Approach
It is based on the notion that culture is better learned through comparison. The main scope of this approach is to raise learners intercultural and communicative competences. However, Risager (1998, p.246) considers this approach inadequate as it is „blind to the actual multicultural character of almost all existing countries or states language”.
Moreover, other views stated that learners should act as “intercultural speakers” that require them to acquire the competences which enable them to mediate/ interpret the values, beliefs and behaviors … of themselves and of others‘ (Byram et al., 2002: 10).
In this way, students develop an ability to be users of intercultural communication by using the target language as a means of interaction with other people of different cultures.
Overview of Interculturality within EFL Context
Intercultural competence has been defined by Fantini (2006:12) as “a complex of abilities needed to perform effectively and appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself”.
These complex abilities include affective, behavioural, and cognitive capacities such as openness, awareness, adaptive motivation, behavioural flexibility, respect and self-confidence.
Intercultural competence is one’s knowledge and ability to successfully deal with intercultural encounters.
The Role of FL Teachers in Promoting Interculturality
Tomalin and Stempelski (1993:p78) have their own vision of the promotion of interculturality. According to them culture teacher has to accomplish a set of duties:
Help students develop understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behavior.
Help students understand that social variables such as: age, sex, social class and place of residence influence the way people speak and behave.
Help students to become aware of conventional behavior in common situations in the target language.
Help students to increase the awareness of the cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target language.
Enhancing students’ ability to evaluate and refine generalizations about the target culture in terms of supporting evidence.
Enhancing students’ development of the necessary skills to locate and organize information about the target culture.
Stimulating students’ intellectual curiosity about the target culture and encouraging empathy towards its people.
Difficulties Faced when Introducing Foreign Cultures in the FL Classes.
A lot of complications may develop when introducing culture in English teaching classes. For instance:
– The lack of suitable materials to indulge the real cultural information appropriately
– Teacher’s limited competencies and cultural experiences
– The insufficient knowledge of that particular culture
– The limited time and restricted curriculum
Finally, one of the impediments of culture practice in ELT is the identity problem and the fear of controversy over teaching values and attitudes which have been globally recognized as hindrances to culture teaching in some communities
Solutions to Promote a Durable Interculturality and Reconciliation with the Other with regard to FL Programmes
Teachers, being aware or not, are central in transmitting the target culture to the students. Therefore, they have to create strategies to make their students interested in studying the target culture.
Exposing students to the target culture results in a number of benefits. First, intercultural insights and students’ knowledge about the target culture make them become successful bilinguals. In order to be able to communicate with foreigners, language learners are supposed to develop an intercultural communicative competence. This is what a target culture does:
-Learning culture using motivational tools that make students interested in the target language they are learning.
-Providing access into cultural aspect of culture (Exchange Programmes)
-Both teachers and students should recognize the essential role of the target culture in the teaching and learning process.
Conclusion
Globalisation is affecting every part of our life even the people we interact with, as the world, now, is full of webs of telecommunication networks, both personal and electronic.
Confirming the immense impact of globalisation on intercultural communication, the more successful individuals become in their careers the more they deal with a variety of people of different cultural and/or social backgrounds.
Moreover, encountering people of different cultural backgrounds has become an everyday experience for many reasons including the development of an integrated global economy, sophisticated communication and technologies, migration, traveling and education.
So, it is suggested to develop in the learners an intercultural awareness in the context of training in foreign languages in order to enrich their knowledge of the Other. In the Algerian teaching context, the teachers as well are compelled to try to understand, then establish communication channels that allow their enrichment as well as open a door to the Other since the encounter between peoples and their cultures has become irreversible.
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