for ELT 603 (credit to the sources of information which are not included in the presentation)

1. PIDGINIZATION
- a language that is
essentially based on
acculturation or contact
with the target culture.

2. ATTITUDES
Second language learners
can benefit from positive
attitudes and that
negative attitudes may
lead to decreased
motivation.

3. Culture in the Classroom
Teachers who follow an
experiential model (Robinson-Stuart
& Nocon 1996) of culture learning in
the classroom can help students turn
an experience into one of increased
cultural and self awareness.

4. In teaching an “alien”
language, we need to be
sensitive to the fragility of
the students by using
techniques that promote
cultural understanding.

5. Donahue and Parsons
(1982) examined the use
of role play in an ESL
classrooms as a means of
helping students to
overcome cultural fatigue.

6. Four Conceptual
Categories
1.Individualism as a
characteristic of
culture that opposes
collectivism.

7. Differences in
teacher/student and
student/student
interaction related to
individualism versus
collectivism dimension
(Hofstede 1986: 312)

8. Collectivist
Societies
Individualist
Societies
* Positive
association in
society with
whatever is rooted
in tradition;
* Positive
association in
society with
whatever is “new”;
* The young should
learn; adults cannot
accept student role;
* One is never too
old to learn;
“permanent
education”;

9. * Students
expect to learn
how to do;
* Students
expect to learn
how to learn;
* Individual
students will
only speak up in
small groups;
* Individual
students will
only speak up in
large groups;

10. * Large class split
into smaller,
cohesive
subgroups based
on particularist
criteria (e.g.
Ethnic
affiliation);
* Subgroupings in
class vary from
one situation to
the next based on
universalist
criteria (eg. task
at hand);

11. * Formal
harmony in
learning
situations
should be
maintained at
all times;
Confrontations
in learning
situations can
be salutary;
conflicts can be
brought into the
open;

12. * Neither the
teacher nor
any student
should ever be
made to lose
face;
* Face-
consciousness
is weak;

13. * Education is a
way of gaining
prestige in one’s
social
environment and
of joining a
higher status
group;
* Education is a
way of improving
one’s economic
worth and self-
respect based on
ability and
competence;

14. * Diploma
certificates
are
important
and
displayed
on walls;
* Diploma
certificates
have little
symbolic
value;

15. * Acquiring
certificates even
though
[dubious]
means is
important than
acquiring
competence;
* Acquiring
competence is
important than
acquiring
certificates;

16. * Teachers are
expected to give
preferential
treatment to some
students (e.g.,
based on ethnic
affiliation or on
recommendation
by an influential
person)
* Teachers are
expected to be
strictly impartial

17. 2. Power Distance as a
characteristic of culture
defines the extent to
which the less powerful
persons in a society
accept inequality in
power and consider at as
normal.

18. 3. Uncertainty Avoidance as a
characteristic of culture
defines the extent to which
people within a culture are
made nervous by situations
they perceive as
unstructured, unclear, or
unpredictable.

19. 4. Masculinity as a
characteristic of
culture opposes
femininity.

20. Language, Thought and
Culture
Cognitive development and
linguistic development go
hand in hand, interacting
with and shaping the other.

21. Words shape our lives.
* Weasel words tend to
glorify very ordinary
products into those that are
“unsurpassed,” “ultimate,”
“supercharged,” and the
“right choice”.

22. * Euphemisms abound in
American culture where certain
thoughts are taboo or certain words
connote something less than
desirable.
Examples:
: garbagemen =“sanitary
engineers”
: toilet = “rest rooms”
: slums = “substandard dwellings”

23. * Verbal labels can
shape the events we
store for later recall.

25. * Culture is an
integral part of the
interaction between
language and
thought.

26. The act of learning to think
in another language may
require a considerable degree
of mastery of that language,
but a second language learner
does not have to learn to
think.