EDUC 9705: Reflective Response 1

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SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE: Liddicoat, A.(2002). Static and Dynamic Views of Culture and
Intercultural Language Acquisition (p. 4-11), Babel, Volume 36, No.3- Autumn 2002.
Culture is the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings, transmitted from one generation to another. Speaking or expressing ourselves is a cultural act having the potential to be misinterpreted in intercultural situations.
Although included in language teaching, culture has no consistent definition. Our assumption about culture affects the way we teach and learn about it. It is challenging to identify an approach to culture teaching within languages to achieve educational goals.
Static culture views cultural knowledge as facts or artefacts. Cultural lesson is like providing pieces of information about the ways of life of a particular group, associated with some project work or assesment of the learning, with no consideration of long-term usefulness, where the cultural component is often detached to the language itself and does not affect the learner as a user of the language.
Dynamic approach says, cultural knowledge is about actions and understanding and involves engaging with variable linguistic and non-linguistic practices to gain insights. Thus, cultural knowledge requires a language classroom for effective understanding.
In Intercultural Language Teaching (ILT), dynamic study of culture involves four activities:
1. learning about own and other cultures.
2. Comparing them.
3. Exploring them.
4. Finding one's own "third place" between cultures.

Choiti Roy (2140759)

EDUC 9705: Reflective Response 1

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ILT approaches to teach culture within a language program with five principals:
1. Culture is integrated as a fifth macro skill which learners pick up by themselves when interacting with foreign cultures.
2. Language is fundamental to cultural identity and so culture has to be taught from the very beginning of language learning. Else learners will fill the cultural gap with assumptions which might have to be unlearnt later.
3. Instead of aiming for a native speaker norm, language learning should take up a Bilingual norm where bilinguals are able to navigate between languages and cultures and create identities that work in both contexts.
4. Everything, about Culture being very complex and variable, cannot be taught. Learners should be taught ways of finding out more about culture by experiencing, analysing and developing awareness.
5. Intercultural Explorations and