It could be argued that an integral part of learning a foreign language is acquiring some familiarity with the culture associated with it. For teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL), the question is, “How can we incorporate cultural knowledge and understanding within the context of our English language classes?” Simply having an acquaintance with the grammar, syntax, phonetics, and some of the social conventions associated with English will not give learners real insights into the nuances of the daily lives of the people whose language they hope to speak. Increasingly, language teachers are recognizing the need to incorporate sociocultural factors into their classrooms (Palmer and Sharifian 2007); however, there is a lack of consensus on how to introduce cultural elements into the lessons. One challenge a teacher faces is what approach to take. Many EFL teachers have had no formal training in incorporating cultural elements, and there is no universally accepted set of criteria that instructors can use as a guide (Byrnes 2008). One approach, though, would be to adapt Michael Paige’s (in Cohen et al. 2003, 53) dimensions of culture learning model. Paige groups culture learning into categories: • the self as cultural • the elements of culture • intercultural phenomena (culture-general learning) • particular cultures (culture-specific learning) • acquiring strategies for culture learning By exploring these dimensions, teachers can help students connect to the target culture, raise their awareness of cultural differences, and improve their “intercultural communicative competence” (Byram 1997).
Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 65 citations exist upstream.
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.