INTERCULTURALITY IN THE PROCESS OF TEACHING

ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Natalia GROSU,
Catedra Filologie Engleză

Această lucrare se axează pe o abordare interculturală în predarea

limbii engleze ca limbă străină în instituţii superioare şi consecinţele
acesteia pentru studenţi şi pentru formarea cadrelor didactice. Cercetarea
în curs vizează două concepte teoretice: competenţa de comunicare
interculturală şi vorbitor intercultural. Predarea culturii ar trebui să fie
bazată pe conceptul de aplicare a metodei de comparaţie şi contrast şi
susţinerea principiului de interculturalitate. Aceasta înseamnă că studenţii
trebuie să aibă acces atît la cultura naţională, cît şi la alte culturi existente
pentru a ajunge la o mai bună înţelegere a culturii lor proprii.

In the last decades, we are witnessing a new emphasis on

intercultural studies in the process of teaching foreign languages
because it exposes students to become more aware of the value of
language competence and cross-cultural understanding. In this
context, our intention is to give a brief but valuable presentation of
the intercultural approach in the process of teaching English as a
foreign language in higher education in Moldova and also some
problems teachers and students face.
A primary focus of this article is that implementing the
intercultural approach is a challenging task for university language
lecturers because language teachers should be intercultural by nature
and very often develop their intercultural knowledge alongside their
students. Therefore, the EFL teacher’s task is to help students get to
know and understand different cultures because this knowledge and
understanding are indispensable for a successful cross-cultural
communication.
The intercultural is defined as the wide range of activities
designed to establish a relation between different cultures, its
objective being to ensure that the groups and individuals belonging
to some cultures which co-exist in the same society or in a
geopolitical assembly establish connections based on equity and
mutual respect [1].
In an intercultural approach, it is a central objective of
language education to promote the favourable development of the
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learner’s whole personality and sense of identity in response to the
enriching experience of otherness in language and culture. It must be
left to teachers and the learners themselves to reintegrate the many
parts into a healthily developing whole [2]. According to Claire
Kramsch, professor in applied linguistics, in international research
the norm of the native speaker is now being questioned and replaced
by a new ideal: the intercultural speaker. This implies a foreign
language learner, who acts as a mediator between two cultures,
interprets and understands other perspectives as well as questions
what is taken for granted in the own society. [3]
The present article has a pedagogical purpose which can
significantly contribute to the undeniable need to educate students to
be more informed, curious, critical, and eager to open themselves to
the vast and inexhaustible variety of English speaking societies. The
language teaching profession’s interest in cross-cultural
communication has increased in the 21st century. Most importantly,
the activities that a teacher applies with cultural studies lessons can
easily conform to the student-centered and interactive tenets of
Communicative Language Teaching.
In contrast to cultural orientation, an intercultural orientation
to teaching languages seeks the transformation of students’ identities
in the act of learning. This is achieved on the part of students through
a constant referencing of the language being learned with their own
language and culture. They learn to constantly move between their
linguistic and cultural world and that of the users of the target
language. In this process, they come to understand culture not only
as information about diverse people and their practices but also, and
most importantly, as the contextual framework that people use to
exchange meaning in communication with others and through which
they understand their social world [4].
More recent developments, in the foreign language teaching
area, have brought out new theories about intercultural
communicative competence connected to foreign language teaching
and learning which have announced a revolution of thinking with
deep implications on the teachers’ “old” systems of teaching. As
teaching is subordinated to learning and assuming the role of
participant in the learning process, a modern EFL teacher is to
incorporate the intercultural approach in a tactful, skillful, and
conscious way.
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 For many theoreticians and practitioners teaching a foreign
language and intercultural studies is likely to mean teaching a great deal
about a foreign civilization and culture at the same time. However, by
learning English as a foreign language students enable themselves to
become users of intercultural communication, thus the target language
becomes a tool to be used in interaction with people from all over the
world where communication in English takes place in fields as science,
technology, business, art, entertainment, and tourism [7].
Most universities deliver all the content through a “cultural”
prism, teaching students about the new foreign culture. In some
respects, this is necessary but if students are to acquire language
quickly and most importantly “deeply”, then the university lecturers
have to teach through two most important doorways: students have
their ego and their culture world.
The valuing of cultural diversity and intercultural education in
the process of teaching English as a foreign language should be a
high priority in University curriculum because students from
Moldova, for instance, learn to live in an increasingly interdependent
world, where due to English they won’t only expeditiously
communicate but also develop independence from the teacher to use
a foreign language and express their beliefs, values, and world views.
Nowadays, Moldovan students learn English while living in
their own country as well as while going abroad. In the last decade,
due to special programs, students from the Republic of Moldova are
encouraged to study abroad and get an in-depth understanding about
the fascinating intercultural: an awareness of how much culture
affects language acquisition and behavior; the discernment not to
interpret the behavior of others through the eyes of their own culture;
to insight into their own culture the tools to "unlock" cultural
puzzles. The modern technology also allows our students to research
certain cultural aspects and share their experience, in terms of culture
and content, and to participate in cooperative learning process in
virtual reality with other students of different cultures.
It is obvious that in order to function successfully in a
culturally diverse environment, English learners need to develop
intercultural communicative competence. Teaching culture as
pragmatics thus necessarily implicates cross-cultural learning, as the
learner has to move beyond a single national identity and into a
global community and hence into a hybrid identity as a possible
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global actor and learn how to manage constructing an identity in two
cultures. The Culture standard targets more than language, as it refers
to gaining “knowledge and understanding of other cultures” [9].
The contemporary models of communicative competence show
that there is much more to learning a language, and they include the vital
component of cultural knowledge and awareness. Thus, in addition to
developing students’ language skills, intercultural studies also develop
cultural awareness and encourage critical thinking. For example,
Bredella has demonstrated for many years that the study of literature is
one of the modes of achieving intercultural sensitivity and competence,
not only literary critical competence [5].
It is clear the fact that to acquire a foreign language
completely, it is essential to know not only knowledge of grammar,
phonology, morphology and lexis but also many features and
characteristics of the culture, it requires communicating
interculturally as well, which probably leads to encountering factors
of cultural differences and features that exist in every language.
It can be assumed that, in the teaching and learning process, a
language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of language. As
can be seen, “culture” is a very broad concept that embraces all
aspects of human life, so as to get to know a given culture means to
gain extensive knowledge. Of its several meanings, two are of major
importance to teachers: Culture as everything in human life,
Hearthstone or the "little-c" culture, also called culture BBV: Beliefs,
Behavior, and Values. Olympian or the "big-C" culture also called
culture MLA: great Music, Literature, and Art of a country.
University lectures usually teach the big-C within the course
of “Culture and Civilization of the UK and the USA” in universities
from Moldova. The big-C, part of a given culture, is usually easy to
study. It increasingly incorporates information about such matters as
the geographical position, history, economy, politics, religion, social
institutions, educational system, literature, art, painting, theatre,
sculpture, film, music, science, technology, media, and sport.
As a rule, many of the cultural aspects are easy to grasp and
learn but still there are many dimensions which are hidden from the
eye. [7] Communication that lacks appropriate cultural content often
results in amusing situations or it can be the source of
miscommunication and misunderstanding. This happens because
these aspects of culture are not unspoken rules created by the
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community. [7] According to Kramsch C. these cultural rules are full
of meaning and “allow people to anticipate events, they often acquire
a moral rigidity and righteousness that engender stereotypes and
even prejudices.” [3] As a matter of fact, stereotypes are extremely
tenacious, in so far, as people from different cultures have their own
schemata through which they conceptualize and understand the
world, and to step into another culture would mean to deny
something within their own being. In order to provide a different
perspective on a foreign culture, teachers should use comparison,
with a view to identifying common ground or even lacunae within or
between cultures [6].
Before venturing into unknown cultures, students should first
become familiar with what it means to be part of a culture, their
native culture. By exploring their own culture, by discussing their
values, expectations, traditions, customs, and rituals they
unconsciously take part in, they are ready to reflect upon the values,
expectations, and traditions of other cultures mastering a higher
degree of intellectual objectivity. For instance, young beginners or
intermediate students should be given the opportunity to enjoy
certain activities that are part of their own tradition, such as national
sports, social festivities, or songs, before setting about exploring
those of the target culture.
Intercultural topics that show how people from different
backgrounds communicate and interact are becoming more and more
prominent in the language. Let us consider a vivid example of such
misunderstanding which very often leads to form a distorted idea
about another culture. An American or a British might get surprised
if a Moldovan person, on hearing the traditional greetings “How are
you?” started complaining about health. The Moldovan, of course,
would wonder why the other one got surprised. Or, being in the United
States, a Moldovan could refuse food as a sign of modesty, and the host
would not offer the second time as it is usually practiced in Moldova.
The above examples clearly illustrate that the knowledge of
the small-c culture of a certain society is of great relevance for a
successful cross-cultural communication. All this information is
inevitably of great help to the student in order to become more fully
aware of differing ways of behaviour, and reduces the risks of culture
shock, foreigner stereotyping, and intolerance. [8]
Intercultural teaching is remaining insubstantial and sporadic
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in most foreign language classrooms. By doing this research, a
central concern is to find problems and possibilities for teaching
English as a foreign language with an intercultural approach and
present some ideas to broaden students’ multicultural knowledge.
In the following paragraphs we will try to explore some
problems foreign language teachers usually face in the process of
teaching English as a foreign language. The first problem is that the
curriculum is too overcrowded. There is much information to be
taught but very few hours to lecture. The study of culture involves
time that many university teachers feel they cannot spare in an
already overcrowded curriculum.
The reality is that current methods, whether old or new, and
present modes of organizing curricula give insufficient time for
foreign languages, quite clearly it will never solve the problem. Even
if we agree that culture is part of all forms of EFL learning, we
persist in our conviction that legitimate forms of interculturality
occurs most of all through direct experience with native speakers of a
language in a land they inhabit.
Indeed, we expect study abroad to be the primary instrument
through which learners gain experience with and appreciation of
other cultures. What goes on in EFL classrooms regarding culture is
largely viewed as preparation for the truly authentic cultural
experiences that come with travel abroad.
The second problem is that teachers are afraid to teach culture
because they fear that they don’t know enough about it. In fact, even
if the teachers’ own knowledge is not so deep and vast, their proper
role is to help students attain the skills that are necessary to make sense
out of the information they themselves discover in their study of the
target culture. Moreover, university lecturers from Moldova benefit
from Peace Corps Volunteers who would often be invited as guest
speakers and who would talk about their experiences of their country.
Another problem teachers encounter is dealing with students’
negative attitudes because when cultural phenomena differ from
what they expect, students often react negatively, characterizing the
target culture as “strange”. As students are introduced to a foreign
culture, they need to learn to expect differences, and eventually to
understand and appreciate their logic and meaning. We could affirm
that any assumptions of cross-cultural similarity should be made with
much caution and in order to help students construct a new frame of
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reference based on the target culture. One possible solution would be
to help them begin with an understanding of their own culture as we
have mentioned above, and then, with teacher’s guidance, explore
the target culture through authentic texts and materials.
For example, in the research we conducted in 2011in a
university-level English classroom in Cahul state university “B. P.
Haşdeu”, students were asked to analyze and interpret a range of
cultural encounters related to American experiences of World War II
and they simultaneously constructed cultural narratives through first-
person historical fiction based on one person’s experience of the war.
This kind of extended writing project required students to draw on
the rich intercultural they were immersed in through their in-class
activities and related coursework in order to construct a cultural
world for the characters they invented. In creating their characters’
stories, students had to draw on broader cultural lenses, and they had
to inhabit another person and see the world through new eyes.
The fact that some students made decisions for their characters
by speculating what they would have done themselves suggests that
narrative writing, even if it is fiction, can lead students not only to
understand other perspectives and experiences but also truly to
identify with them. This kind of reflection through language and
culture study is what potentially makes language learning so
transformational on the individual and the cultural level.
As a rule, the intercultural component frequently comprises a
generalized body of knowledge about the target country and its
people, ranging from literature and arts to various aspects of
everyday life. Although this body of knowledge was intended to
enrich students’ understanding of the target language, it remained
external and separate from the students’ own language and culture. It
was not intended that students would engage with this cultural
knowledge in such a way that their own identities, values, and life-
worlds would be challenged and transformed. [9]
One more problem for foreign language teachers of English is
not having been adequately trained in the teaching of cultures and,
therefore, do not have strategies and clear goals that help them create
a viable framework for organizing instruction around cultural
themes. It would be advisable for university lecturers who teach
Civilization and Culture course to have visited the target countries to
feel more confident in different intercultural aspects that he or she is
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going to teach. According to Singhal, language teachers ought to
receive both experiential and academic training, with the aim of
becoming “mediators in culture teaching”. At any rate, culture
teaching should aim to foster empathy with the cultural norms of the
target language community and an increased awareness of one’s own
“cultural logic” in relation to others [6].
To sum up, we should reiterate that the list of problems
foreign language teachers face in teaching intercultural studies is not
complete because the goals of yesterday are not the goals of today
and tomorrow. On a practical note, developing a renewed
understanding of language within an intercultural orientation is
complex for at least two reasons. First, in languages education, the
relationship among language, culture, and learning is always
dynamic. Second, developing a renewed understanding will enable
students to understand better another culture and have mastery of
their own values and cultural behaviors after seeing them through the
mirror of another culture. Furthermore, cultural, aesthetic, and
narrative encounters encourage students to act and think
interculturally and place themselves at a critical distance from both
the foreign and their own culture.

References :
1. Leclercq, Jean-Michel. Figures de l’interculturel dans
l’éducation. - Council of Europe. Strasbourg. 2002. P.9. (Our
translation).
2. CERF. Common European Framework of Reference for
Language: Learning, teaching, assessment.
Strasbourg/Cambridge: Council of Europe/ Cambridge
University Press. 2001.
3. Kramsch, C. Foreign languages between knowledge and
power. Applied Linguistics, 2005.p. 545-567.
4. Scarino, A. The Modern Language Journal 94. Perspectives.
Assessing Intercultural Capability in Learning Languages: A
Renewed Understanding of Language, Culture, Learning,
and the Nature of Assessment.// - 2010. p. 324.
5. Bredella, L. Towards a pedagogy of intercultural
understanding. Amerikastudien, 1992. p. 559–594.
6. Byram, M.Teaching and assessing intercultural
communicative competence. Cleavedon,UK: Multilingual
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 Matters; 1993.p.67.
7. Chlopek, Z. The Intercultural Approach to EFL Teaching and
Learning.// English Teaching Forum.Vol.46, N.4, 2008, p.11.
8. Crystal, D. How Language Works. How Babies Babble,
Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die. New
York: Penguin. 2005 p.441.
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Culture: The Standards as a Model for Teaching Culture.
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