The cultural dimension in foreign language teaching: Four models

Abstract

Four general approaches to the teaching of cultural content in the foreign language class are described. Two of them, the audio‐visual and the communicative, are implicit approaches only in the sense that culture as such is not taught but is assumed rather to ‘come with’ the language. The civilisation module and the intercultural approach, on the other hand, treat cultural learning as an educational objective in its own right, distinct from language acquisition. The competence aimed at, and the definition of culture, differs from method to method. In some approaches culture is presented as being homogeneous within a society and as having universal validity for all societies. In others it is presented as incorporating intra‐ and inter‐cultural variations. The first approach insists on cultural similarities and on collective identification, whereas the second focuses on the diversity of positions within a culture and across cultures. Only the intercultural approach includes non‐observable, subjective phenomena in its definition of culture, which is reduced to observable phenomena in other approaches. When culture is defined as a system of symbols, the interpretation of meaning becomes one of the primary tasks of cultural education. To apprehend meaning, learners have to overcome a series of obstacles mainly due to the influences of pre‐existing perceptual structures acquired with C1. These perceptual ‘filters’ can be a source of misunderstandings. Therefore, understanding a foreign culture calls for the setting up of mutual interaction between native and target cultures.

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