How to present the target language heads up english esl. For this reason, foreign language teaching materials which make use of targetlanguage culture elements to present the systemic data are likely to interfere with. If you are considering using tall tales to enrich the experience of the target language and culture in your esl efl classrooms, this pack is for you. Robinson1985, cited in ariffin, 2009 suggests the use of reading materials emphasizing the target language culture to help. Culture, however, is not a static whole as it affects many aspects of life in a community. As most language learning contexts are limited to the classroom environment and communication opportunities with members of the target language community.
This is more the case for those learners who are planning on moving to the target language culture for educational, professional, or personal reasons. Many texts addressing cultural content are limited to offering overt, tourist culture or teaching abstract and irrelevant facts which are often presented with bias and consequently do. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or. Keeping it in the target language university of nebraska.
It is, however, beyond this document to discuss how culture or cultural segments affect and shape teachers beliefs and, vice versa, how ones. Codeswitching can be an effective teaching strategy when it is used deliberately to further the students tl proficiency by using l1 as a reference point and to help construct knowledge in the tl coste, 1997. The use of targetlanguage cultural contents in efl teaching yichun liu. Discuss the creation of a learning community dedicated to promoting more culture and literacyenriched language teaching practices. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials article pdf available. This assignment includes four different culture choice boards for the spanish classroom. If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the faq by clicking the link above. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials elt journal.
A critical analysis of cultural content in efl materials 8 with members of specific target cultures. Pecos bill tall tales by a teachable year teachers pay. On the other hand, the use of target culture is believed to be able to solve the problem teachers face when using homelanguage culture. Sociocultural factors and teaching a foreign language. The importance of incorporating the target culture in english. In addition, the use of authentic materials at the intercultural level is argued to not. What materials and strategies do efl teachers use to promote intercultural. Even longtime masters of the craft concede that target language instruction demands careful planning of lessons and materials, along with highenergy execution. Here youll find classroom materials suitable for a wide range of subjects and grade levels, thousands of lesson plans, teaching activities, ondemand video assets, and interactive games and simulations. Culture choice board for foreign language classroom by target. For her, the best one is international target language materials, which supposedly covers a variety of knowledge from different cultures all over the world using the target language mckay, pp. These materials and methods, as mckay 2003 makes clear both have differing and important impacts of language acquisition.
Brown 2001, 116 says that it is useful to consider the. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials free download as pdf file. Introduction the dialectical connection between language and culture has always been a concern of l2 teachers and educators. English learning websites and digital resources from the. Many texts addressing cultural content are limited to offering overt, tourist culture or teaching abstract and irrelevant facts which are often presented with bias and consequently do little more than reinforce stereotypes.
Kilickaya authentic materials and cultural content in efl. The purpose of this study was to understand the role of teaching materials in an efl classroom and to identify the students reactions towards their implementation. Evaluation of english teaching and learning materials in. A critical analysis of cultural content in efl materials core. Second language learners divergence from target language. The tesol guidelines for developing efl professional. Doc cultural content and illustrations in elt materials for. Since learning about a culture is not accepting it and the role of the culture in the materials is just to create learner interest towards the target language, there should be a variety of culture in the materials, not a specific one.
Similar to the current situation in most, if not all, efl contexts, in turkey, too, target language culture is often omitted in the textbooks. What do we mean by culture in the efl classroom and why do we need it. Teaching methods and materials language and culture. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials researchgate. Selecting the english translation of modern japanese. The use of target language refers to all that learners say, read, hear, write, and view production and reception of language on the part of learners, educators, and materials. Elt materials, evaluation, cultural content, illustrations, multilingual. Language and culture in foreign language teaching chialin hsin newcastle university 1. Scribd is the worlds largest social reading and publishing site. The phenomenon of english is the the most spoken language in the world is undeniable. Whether culture of the target language is to be incorporated into.
Culture in teaching efl in saudi arabia from learners. In terms of teaching and learning, the result is that these connections matter for both populations of students, regardless of whether or not they speak the target language or how well they speak it. By douglass crouse american council on the teaching of. Theoretical views on culture culture involves deep culture, not only surface culture the efl field has generally focused on teaching elements of surface culture, that is, the easily observable hinkel, 2001 and static elements that represent a nation. English language learning ell websites and digital resources have been recognized as an important source of linguistic and cultural knowledge for english as a foreign language efl learners to explore. Method two provides added support, thereby making the target language clearer. Culture in teaching efl in saudi arabia from learners perspective this paper aims to study the attitude of saudi arabian undergraduate english students towards the american and british culture by studying their attitude to materials with relevant cultural contents in their textbooks. Therefore, teaching materials tm should include elements of culture. How we measure reads a read is counted each time someone.
Mckay identifies three types of cultural materials. One way to remedy the two aforementioned issues is that the teachers using this series can think of other substitute exercises to solve the problem. If teachers are able to spend more time experiencing and understanding target language. How to present the target language heads up english. Impact of the target culture on foreign language learning. Based on the researches in this field, a framework is developed for the. Kramsch 1998 describes language as a principal means. With regard to recent views of culture teaching in the foreign language classroom, culture does not need to be dealt independently of language because studying language directly brings about awareness of the target culture and peoples behavior in that target culture. On the other hand, the use of target culture is believed to be able to solve the problem teachers face when using home language culture. Cem alptekin, associate professor of applied linguistics at bogazici university istanbul, publishes internationally in the areas of second language learning and teaching, neurolinguistics, and contrastive rhetoric. But overuse of cultural material in the language classrooms will constitute problems not for students but also for the teachers and decrease the motivation. During most of our teaching careers we have been preparing students for trinity college london exams, from gese to ise and sew, and our candidates have always been very successful in the exams. The importance of teaching culture in the foreign language.
Sociocultural factors and teaching a foreign language by nader assadi aidinlou and davoud ansari kejal islamic azad university, ahar branch abstract teaching a new language to learners has several bases and considering the culture of the target language is one of them. May 15, 2015 the target language culturethe target languages culturethe target languages. The effect of using authentic materials in teaching rashid hamed al azri, majid hilal alrashdi abstract authentic materials are among the most important tools a teacher can and must use in class in order to make hisher teaching go smoothly and be effective in transmitting the. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials cem alptekin oxford. This means that a majority of teachers continue to believe that efl classrooms should enhance students understanding of their own cultural identity.
Teachers and undergraduate students attitudes toward. All of the participants think that the current textbook they use definitely includes examples mainly from the target language culture which may indispensably pose a risk of stereotyping. Efl instructors about integrating target culture in their classroom. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials elt journal oxford. Additionally, it is beyond this document to discuss how basic. A critical analysis of cultural content in efl materials. Integrating target language culture into teachinglearning efl. Teaching materials and the roles of eflesl teachers. Introduction this discussion deals with language and culture as foreign language fl curricular contents in an englishasaforeignlanguage efl situation. The uptodate information carried by authentic materials is invaluable for learners to develop an understanding of the target language culture. This requires the language patterns being put into practice in real life situations. Target language teachingenglish british council bbc.
Example in a ppp lesson, the teacher first presents the target language, learners practise it, and then there is a production stage where the target language is used in a freer activity. However, the native instructors presumptions cause intolerance and underestimation of the host culture. Authentic materials and cultural content in efl classrooms. Target language definition of target language by the. A range of factors have been attributed to this deviation, including transfer from the native language, insufficient knowledge of the target language and its communicative practices, lack of opportunities to in. Findings indicated that cultural responsiveness was considered to be constructed through time, and a necessity of orientation process was emphasized. The quantitative data were obtained through a questionnaire, and the.
Individual and focus group interviews were data sources for the study. An analysis of textbooks from a cultural point of view. Actfl recommends that learning take place through the target language for 90% or more of classroom time except in immersion program models where the target language. Principles and procedures of materials development for. To illustrate, the cultural content of an efl textbook for turkey, spotlight on. Moreover, the paper will address the difficulties and challenges in teaching cultural materials outside of the english speaking countries. Namely, a focus on the learners own culture, the target language culture of the. To illustrate, the cultural content of an efl textbook for turkey, spotlight on english by dede and emre 1988, is primarily turkish.
Whenever teaching a new language has not been accompanied by teaching the. Students can pick and choose their activities based on the options provide. She states that language in relation with context of communication. In class, they regularly sent students to a city in a target culture for example, to spend a weekend in new york city through prepared taskbased activities using authentic materials. Nevertheless, what becomes evident from this study is that learners are in need of explicit pragmatic instruction when it comes to writing emails to authority figures. We are two masters qualified efl teachers and, between us, we have over thirty odd years of teaching experience under our belts. The tesol guidelines for developing efl standards 3 it is, however, beyond this document to discuss how culture or cultural segments affect and shape teachers beliefs and, vice versa, how ones teaching reflects those beliefs in different cultures. Timelines, pictures, and diagrams all fall into the category of visual aids.
The actual relationship between the two cannot be separated, because a language serves a particular culture and through the language the cultural values of a people are reflected. Pdf targetlanguage culture in efl materials researchgate. Utilising qualitative data collection methods, the responses and scholastic history of the student provide insights into his personal qualities and aptitudes as a nativelike speaker of english as proven by cepa scores and. To some extent the content serves as a window into learning about the target language culture. Two texts of culture grams that can be manipulated as learning. Third, the students practiced using the course books interactive cd, and submitted a pdf file with the exercises from each unit. The results show that the role of culture in teaching english as a foreign language is significant. Targetlanguage culture in efl materials cem alptekin. A sample of eighty n80 efl instructors working at state and private university language preparatory programs in turkey participated in this study. Regarding the analysis of the semistructured interviews, it was found that both teachers and students indicated that learning about the targetlanguage culture was important. Kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan jenjang pendidikan dasar dan menengah. An effective way for students to learn about the target language and culture is to send them.
Principles and procedures of materials development for language learning brian tomlinson this paper takes the position that language learning materials should ideally be driven by learning and teaching principles rather than developed ad hoc or in imitation of best selling coursebooks. For this reason, foreign language teaching materials which make use of target language culture elements to present the systemic data are likely to interfere with. An analysis of textbooks from a cultural point of view language and culture are interrelated. In the classroom efl materials tend to be written for learners either studying english in their own country or on a short course in an englishspeaking country. Developing cultural awareness in efl classrooms at secondary. The teacher talks about the target language, no matter the focus.
Introduce the sociocultural lesson plan model, which is centered on the integration of proficiency, literacy and culture oriented learning outcomes. Three basic types of materials can be used in language textbooks, according to cortazzi and jin 1999. With respect to the main obstacles facing teachers in developing cultural awareness in efl classrooms, the findings made it clear that shortage of time is a critical concern. Principles of materials development 1 make sure that the materials contain a lot of spoken and written texts which provide extensive download materialsdevelopmentinlanguageteaching or read materialsdevelopmentinlanguageteaching online books in pdf, epub and mobi format. In addition, he would provide a similar lecture if he were to teach grammar, a thematic set of vocabulary words, a skill such as how to skim or how to scan, and so on. She also claims that this is due to linguistic intricacies of the target language, especially lexical and semantic barriers, unfamiliarity with or remoteness of the cultural background lazar. Teaching email politeness in the eflesl classroom elt. The target language is the language learners are studying, and also the individual items of language that they want to learn, or the teacher wants them to learn. In this lesson, the students talk about their homes, they read a text about customs regarding covering windows, and then they talk about and write an article about how national customs affect home design.
In this download you can find a lesson to help students prepare for trinitys gese 7 exam and the national customs subject area. Although an explanation is often necessary, it also needs support. Integrating target language culture into teachinglearning efl an important aspect of learning a language is to learn the culture of the language. He may lecture for a minute or two as students listen and take notes. The teacher can draw a diagram or timeline on the board to highlight how to use the target language. The issue of imperialism appeared to be blown away and was replaced by a huge awareness of mastering the language for better prestige. The effect of using authentic materials in teaching. Other theorists such as prodromou 1988 and alptekin 1993 have focused on the use of the target language culture as a vehicle for teaching the language in textbooks and suggest that it.
Efl includes short summer courses in an englishspeaking country, such as the uk, canada or the us. Culture has been neglected or being treated as a supplementary topic in fl teaching. Language and culture in foreign language teaching university of. Authentic materials using authentic sources from the native speech community helps to engage students in. Systemic knowledge refers to the formal properties of langu.
Inclusion of target language culture in efl classrooms in. Efl students to travel and live in target language country. The use of targetlanguage cultural contents in efl teaching. The importance of incorporating the target culture in. Culture is relevant to information with regard to the targetforeign culture, including music, dance, human beings.