Teaching Language In Relation To Culture

English today cannot be regarded as being only the property of a specific nation or national
culture, but rather a global lingua franca used for different purposes by speakers of different linguistic
and cultural backgrounds. So, English education means much more than just the study of a linguistic
system​[AD1] ,​ It has become a subject for learning ​[AD2] a​ bout the world’s peoples, countries, and
problems. Accordingly, this complex relationship of culture and language should be taken into
consideration when placing the importance of culture inside EFL classrooms regarding the cultural
content that is being presented.

Due to the intertwined relationship between language and culture, foreign language teaching
is considered as foreign culture teaching, and foreign language teachers are foreign culture teachers.
The role of the language teacher has been described as that of a “professional mediator”. ​[AD3] ​First,
presenting a lesson where culture is integrated in language teaching is through increasing learners’
motivation towards exploring the target culture aspects related to a language. This motivation is
established by reminding learners of the ​[AD4] ​long-term benefits of learning a foreign language along
with its culture. Similarly important, such lessons must be subject to the degree ​[AD5] o​ f learners’
cultural identity in the sense that when dealing with beginners who are supposed to be in the process
of shaping ideas about​[AD6] ​, and continuously discovering their home culture, the teacher should ​[AD7]
focus on the target culture aspects that are most visible or what Lee and Peterson call the “big C”
culture; for example: food, music, art, literature..etc.

In contrast, ​[AD8] h​ igher levels of education call upon dealing with deeper culture features
because the learners’ home identity is strengthened. Such features are referred to as the “little c”
which are the most important part of culture including values, norms and beliefs. Second​[AD9] ​, the
foreign culture might ​[AD10] p​ rovide the mirror to learners in which they can see their own culture
reflected. Therefore, culture learning is seen as a comparative process where the teacher encourages
learners to be ​[AD11] ​aware of their own culture and contrast it with the target culture. In doing so, the
learner acquires the ability to relativize his own cultural beliefs, values, and practices, to understand
those of others which emphasizes the saying that “cultures can only be learnt relative to one another,
and that particular behavior can only be understood within a cultural context” (Bennett 2009). By
comparing systematically, the contrastive qualities of the two culture systems, the teacher and learners
can predict where the trouble spot can be and thus facilitate language learning as well as developing
cultural awareness and intercultural competence. The latter embraces the set of skills for successful
cross-cultural communication such as tolerance, empathy, openness, sensitivity, avoiding prejudging
and stereotyping…. etc. In addition, as English is used mostly as a mean of intercultural
communication, teaching pragmatics in language classrooms has become increasingly important.
Pragmatics is a crucial part of communicative competence, and, also one’s intercultural competence.
The benefits driven from this step are to avoid pragmatic failure and communication breakdowns
through enabling learners to understand meanings beyond their semantic dimension by interpreting
real life communications both linguistically and socio-culturally. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of
culture brings a number of challenges and concerns for teachers trying to choose relevant teaching
materials and activities. While textbooks often depict culture as static, the digital media, authentic
products, and texts provide a more dynamic environment through direct access to the most current
practices and perspectives. The teachers’ major task is to bring both language and culture in their
social reality in order to ensure that students do not possess irrelevant or outdated knowledge
about the target language and its culture. Above all, it is logically accepted that what teachers can
teach in the classroom is inevitably only a partial picture of the language and its culture. By
acknowledging that limitation in the teaching process, teachers are less likely to interfere by
developing stereotypical views on the cultures they present to learners.​[AD12]

If language learners are expected to achieve any degree of real competency in any language, the
creation and enforcement of an integrated language policy that reflects the need of ​[AD13] ​learners to be
educated about both target culture and language is required. For educators, a recognition that a
relationship between language and culture does exist leads to consider how this understanding can
apply to language education and language policy. It all starts with how teachers perceive the
incorporation of culture in language teaching. Some scholars consider the teaching of culture as a fifth
skill for language learners while others perceive it not only as a skill but as something that is always
in the background, right from day one. Additionally, teachers are required to possess the ability to
experience and analyze both the home and target cultures through constantly educating themselves
about the big C and little c aspects of each culture. Teachers cannot teach and cannot increase
awareness of something they do not know themselves. Moreover, it is important to mention that most
language teachers never receive any formal input or education as to know how to teach culture as
being an integrated system within language teaching. Therefore, policy makers should organize
training sessions and workshops for language teachers to lessen the burden put on them and thus help
them gain some of the benefits of integrated teaching. Furthermore, a policy that supports native
culture representation must incorporate culture related lessons, tasks, and classroom practices in the
course books besides providing teachers with the required authentic materials in order to successfully
transmit the picture to learners. Over and above, if the desired outcome from integrated teaching is to
produce socially competent language users, the testing practices must change to reflect the need for
linguistic and cultural competence. Consequently, dramatic change in the attitudes of learners towards
what to focus on during the learning process will be manifested and effectively directed. Lastly, the
success of any policy requires the collaboration of all responsible parts, a reasonable interval of time
to evaluate the degree of its effectiveness and a continual review.

Integrating culture in language teaching is not an easy task due to the fact that it is affected by
several factors. An evaluative view over the Algerian educational system in teaching English as a
foreign language assumes a large gap between language teaching and culture teaching. Among the
factors restricting culture integration is that learners cannot appreciate the importance of learning the
cultural aspects of the language because they rarely have opportunities to contact with the target
culture speakers and experience the difficulties and thus the need to acquire such knowledge. Next,
learning about the target culture is seen, in some cases, as a threat to the native values especially if
misplaced and the importance of linguistically relevant information is neglected. To elaborate more,
policy makers and teachers consider the possibility that learners may lose their native identity and
negatively acculturate with the target culture especially at the level of values and beliefs. Therefore,
the learner would get totally immersed in the target culture as result of perceiving the target culture as
superior to his own culture. In addition to that, one of the reasons that is related to the previously
mentioned one is the nature and sensitivity of some cultural aspects of the foreign language which
greatly contradict the cultural beliefs of the Algerian society especially at the level of religion.
Cultural conflict is seen to be avoided from the beginning as to preserve one’s own culture and
belonging. Furthermore, teachers are unwilling to teach culture because they feel that they do not
know enough about the other culture and that their role would be restricted only to impart facts.
Besides that, some teachers maintain low awareness and negative orientations towards integrating
culture along with teaching language in the sense that they prejudge the content based on their
personal views and socio-cultural backgrounds. Such interference leads directly to stereotyping and
transmitting wrong idea to learners which in fact contradicts with the goals of the competency-based
approach that aims at enabling learners to tackle cognitively and pragmatically challenging situations
both in schools and in real life situations. Moreover, overcrowded curriculum creates the feeling that
little time is available to offer culture related lessons and simulation activities. Accordingly, instead of
teaching language and its culture in a serial isolated fashion, they should teach them jointly. Finally,
the profits resulting from teaching language along with its culture are unquestionable, hence, any
hurdles facing this process are to be minimized and regulated.
 Language and culture are two inseparable systems; language is part of culture and a medium
through which cultural aspects are reflected. Learning to communicate in an additional language
requires developing an awareness of the ways in which culture interrelates with language whenever it
is used. The necessity to integrate culture in the process of foreign language learning calls upon the
collaboration of educators, scholars, policy makers and the overall educational stream to produce
learners who are linguistically, pragmatically, and culturally competent language users.

[AD1]​Does it mean so ?

[AD2]​Opening a quote but the closure isn’t found

[AD3]​Again not a quote. If you need to highlight a concept or a description, you can just mark
‘’professional mediator’’

[AD4]​Avoid such adjectives