Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language, Second Edition: A Teacher Self-Development and Methodology Guide

7. Culture and the Language Teacher

We speak of cultural adjustment, but the fact is it’s not to culture that we adjust but to behavior. Culture, a system of beliefs and values shared by a particular group of people, is an abstraction which can be appreciated intellectually, but it is behavior, the principal manifestation and most significant consequence of culture, that we actually experience. —Storti 1989, 14 7 Culture and the Language Teacher • What is a reasonable working definition of culture? • What cultural adjustment process do most expatriates experience? • What are the benefits of adjusting to another culture? • What cultural concepts can EFL/ESL teachers teach students? • What problems do some EFL/ESL teachers have related to culture and language teaching and learning? What Is a Reasonable Working Definition of Culture? Although there are many ways to define culture, here it refers to the common values and beliefs of a people and the behaviors that reflect them. At the risk of overgeneralizing, it is possible to talk about common beliefs and values and about how they can differ from culture to culture, as well as the behaviors associated with them. To illustrate how values and beliefs can vary, let’s look at the 119 way people make use of time in two different cultures: mainstream North America and Saudi Arabia. Time, for the average American, is very important. Americans are constantly setting deadlines based on time and will end conversations before they may be finished by looking at their watches and saying, “Oh! Excuse me! I have to go or I’ll be late.” American English is filled with references to time. Time is something to be on, spent, gained, kept, filled, killed, saved, used, wasted, lost, and planned. In contrast, Arabs see time as “flowing from the past to the present to the future, and they flow with it.”1 Social events and appointments do not always have fixed beginnings or endings. If a time for an appointment has been set, under many circumstances, it is acceptable to be late, especially if the person is engaged in a conversation . It would be rude to leave in the middle of it, since maintaining friendships and engaging in human interaction are more highly valued than being on time. The value assigned to equality among people is another way to illustrate different values and behaviors across cultures. For Americans , equality is a highly cherished value. Americans say all people are created equal and that all people have an equal opportunity to succeed in life. These are foundations on which the country was founded. As such, an American ideal is to treat people as equals, regardless of their status. For example, although a custodian and professor at a university may not likely be close friends, they would engage in friendly chat in elevators and hallways, and neither would act in ways to make the other feel personally inferior or superior.2 Unlike Americans, the majority of the world sees equality quite differently. Rank, status, and authority are considered far more important. For example, in Thai society there exists the possibility of social mobility (a Thai peasant can end up being prime minister, for instance). However, while in a particular status or class, Thais, including those in the lowest status, tend to accept this condition as part of their fate.3 Within this system, Thais value well-defined social behaviors that specify the status of each person. For example, in the presence of a professor, a student would not engage in a friendly chat unless addressed, and he or she would be expected to behave in specific ways that show that the professor has a higher status . One way to reflect the other person’s higher status is to show kreang jai, defined as “a mingling of reverence, respect, deference, homage, and fear.”4 The Thai student would also keep his or her head slightly lower than the professor’s while passing him or her. 120 TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN OR SECOND LANGUAGE A final example of how values and behaviors across cultures can differ concerns the value associated with avoiding conflict and maintaining harmony. While some Americans value direct confrontation to solve conflicts, people from Asian countries generally value avoiding confrontations. They have developed subtle, indirect ways to resolve conflict. For example, if a person in Japanese society is upset with someone, he or she will likely not confront the other person directly but will...