The Importance Of Teaching Culture In The Foreign Language Classroom.pdf

Citation : Thanasoulas, Dimitrios (2010): “The Importance of Teaching Culture In Foreign Language Classroom”,  Radical Pedagogy ICCAP. p.1-25

Culture regulates our lives at every turn. It is important to learn culture, in order to foster “empathy with the cultural norms of the target language community” and ‘an increased awareness of one’s own ‘cultural logic’ in relation to others’(Willems, 1992, cited in Byram, Morgan et al., 1994: 67). Teachers should teach this “cultural thing” to avoid misunderstanding among students with different background. So in conclusion, foreign language teachers should teach foreign culture.

Increasing students’ knowledge of the target of culture including people’s way of life, values, attitudes, and beliefs, and how these manifest themselves or are couched in linguistic categories and forms should be allowed in culture teaching. Students must be able to know how to behave, just like how their speech of act, their etiquette, connotation, and students also must know what appropriate and inappropriate behavior are. Students should also familiarize themselves with various forms of non-verbal communication, such as gesture and facial expressions, typical in the target culture, in order to avoid miscommunication and misinterpretation.