Cultural Awareness

Cultural awareness is all about

recognizing and understanding that
we all have different values shaped
by our diverse cultural backgrounds
 Introduction

MARGINALIZATION or the
complete exclusion of
culturally specific content in
published teaching materials.
Cunningsworth (1984) stated the case against ‘the
culture-specific coursebook’ in
terms which clearly continue to resonate with major ELT
publishers:
A limitation of the culture-specific coursebook is that it
will only be of relevance to students who understand the
cultural background in which it is set .
Indeed, a strong portrayal of British life might well prove
to be an impediment rather than a help to the learner . . .
The [learner’s] time would be better spent learning the
language rather than the structuring of the social world in
which the learner is never likely to find himself. (1984, pp.
61–2
Materials need to provide more
than a token acknowledgement
of cultural identity and address
more thoroughly the kind of
cultural adjustments that
underlies the experience of
learning a foreign language
Included
Topics
The Fifth Skill
- The ability to perceive and
recognize cultural differences

- The ability to accept cultural

differences

- The ability to appreciate and

value cultural differences
Another country- they
Do things differentky
 Process of Acculturation

 Learning and using Foreign language

for the first time

 Strategies of defamilarization
 The culture of
Language
And the language of
Culture
The overacting aim of
the language syllabus
is to develop a
command of the
language as a
systematic set of
resources
Small is Beautiful
International
coursebook might
modified to take
in element of
cultural awareness
• Some of the text used by teacher
only focus on content of language
points.

• Crucial distinction between classess