Culture and foreign language teaching

I’ve been reading articles about cross-cultural communication these days and there are some typical words I’ve come across that I want to comment on.

My background is multi-cultural. My father was a Slovene born close to the Italian border who could also speak Italian, Serbo-Croat, Hungarian and a bit of German. My mother is Hungarian and she learnt Serbo-Croat and Slovene, and since she has access to satellite TV channels, she loves watching Italian, French and Spanish channels about art and culture although she doesn’t speak the languages.

I was born in a region where over 20 languages were spoken (Vojvodina). In earlier times, people there used to send their kids for a summer holiday to the neighbouring villages where a different language was spoken so that kids could learn a new language and meet a different culture. Cultures thus coexisted in tolerance to the benefits of the whole society. It’s no longer like that in those parts, unfortunately. When my family and friends gather though, you can still hear a number of languages spoken: Slovene, Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, German, Italian, English and even Spanish. It feels great to be part of a group of people who interact with such eagerness even if they cannot speak the mother tongue of the other.

I still recall the stories my father used to tell me about his childhood. He went to school when Slovene was not allowed to be spoken in public places, and Slovene kids were allowed to speak only Italian at school. The pain in his voice when speaking about those times and the anger at one of his teachers who looked down on the Slovene language and culture are still vivid in my memory. Don’t misunderstand me, my father liked the Italian culture - history, music and literature - regardless of the circumstances he had to grow up in. He just loved and respected his own culture enough to know that no culture is superior to other cultures and therefore you should never look down on a culture just because it is different.

The point I am trying to make is connected with teaching foreign languages. In the times of my father’s youth (early 20th century) culture was obviously taught together with language. His teachers didn’t use a “modern approach” to foreign language teaching and they didn’t discuss “intercultural communication competence”. However, they still managed to help their students learn a foreign language and to understand and appreciate the culture of the people who spoke it. Language and culture go hand in hand - they obviously always have. And then I came across these words:

"Recent tendencies in language education show that language learning is becoming largely determined in cultural terms. Therefore learners are assigned a variety of new roles - for example - ‘cultural mediators’, ‘border crossers’, ‘negotiators of meaning’, ’intercultural speakers’. All these names imply that language learning has changed its orientation and priorities." (Rose)

I really don’t think language learning has changed its orientation at all: we still learn a foreign language to be able to communicate with people who speak it, just like in ancient times. What has changed is the names dominant ideologies assign to learners in order to show socially acceptable and rewarded practices. And typically words such as these are used to describe foreign language teachers:

"For too long, we have been concentrating on structures and forms and producing materials that may help our students to have perfect diphthongs or a flawless command of the third conditional while leaving out anything approaching real, valid, meaningful content. Major ELT publishers have produced materials so carefully caculated not to offend anyone that they far too often end up being vacuous if not completely meaningless. If our students are to have any hope of using their language skills to genuinely comprehend and communicate in the global village, intercultural awareness is crucial." (Tsvetkova and Karastateva)

Are these people aware of how demeaning their generalizations are?

Obviously I agree that teaching a foreign language involves teaching a culture as well. But it makes me furious to see that people look down on foreign language teachers and their practices in class just to justify their own positions and sell an old idea as new. Or to place themselves in “the forefront of modern FLT development”. Or to get EU funds for another meaningless project.

Culture is far more complex than these articles tend to present, and far more precious for those who appreciate it. One would expect critical thinking of a greater range from those who tread the paths of intercultural communication competence. If nothing else, they could at least drop this demeaning attitude toward foreign language teachers and their practices!