The document discusses the use of proverbs and sayings in language teaching to help students learn about different cultures. It notes that many proverbs are shared across cultures due to common human experiences. Using proverbs can help students reflect on cultural values and behaviors in their native and target cultures. The document provides examples of English sayings and their Spanish and Costa Rican counterparts to illustrate this cross-cultural sharing of proverbs. It concludes that analyzing proverbs provides opportunities for students to learn about each other and improve their language and thinking skills.

1. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross-Cultural Communication
Sayings, Proverbs, and the Teaching of Culture in ELT
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 143
Chiu and Hong (quoted by Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel 2010) have already noted that “Shared knowledge gives rise to shared meanings, which are carried in the shared physical environment (such as the spatial layout of a rural village, subsistence economy), social institutions (e.g., schools, family, the workplace), social practices (e.g., division of labor), the language, conversation scripts, and other media (e.g., religious scriptures, cultural icons, folklores, idioms).” All this shared unconscious collective knowledge is inherent to the way people satisfy their psychological and physical needs. It is through this shared knowledge that we get to understand how members of a community act the way they are. And this knowledge is also phrased in the use of sayings, proverbs, and the like.
What can be noted and used in language teaching is that many sayings are pervasive in many other cultures. As Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel (2010) have put it, “Because all people, regardless of their culture, share common experiences, many of the same proverbs appear throughout the world.” This common shared knowledge and

2. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross-Cultural Communication
experiences in the native and target culture can be used to really work on language teaching and learning. All these sayings, whether they are in both tongues and/or cultures, can be of great use to teach intercultural understanding and communication in a regular foreign language class.
As suggested by Prof. Marta Eugenia Rojas (2014, May 24, Personal Communication), -a Master’s Degree Program Instructor at Universidad Latina (San José, Costa Rica)-, proverbs and sayings are great ways to explore a foreign culture and their view to understand the world. Rojas continues by emphasizing the fact that these cultural statements fuse a culture’s present, past, and future, and through these culturally-held values, societies govern individuals’ needs to satisfy their psychological and physical needs. And because EFL students, e.g., also hold their values, they can venture into comparing their own behavior as opposed to what they can expect to find if they were immersed in the target language. Proverbs and sayings are a good start in having learners reflect about how native speakers behave and mull over the way that they behave in their mother culture.
As it has been noted, proverbs and sayings “offer an important set of values and beliefs for members of [a] culture” (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel 2010). And as the Russian Social State University (n.d.) has put it in a quite simple and straightforward way:
 Proverbs provide an opportunity for students to be knowledgeable experts as well as learners.
 Proverbs provide an opportunity for students to learn about each other and their shared values.
 Proverbs provide an opportunity for students to gain insight as they discuss their experiences and work out their understanding of proverb meanings.
 Proverbs provide an opportunity for students to use their home culture as a stepping stone into school culture.
 Proverbs provide an opportunity to improve thinking and writing as students both provide and receive information.

3. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross-Cultural Communication
Proverbs and sayings can indeed help learners become more competent in the target language and culture.
English Saying Spanish Counterpart Costa Rican Variation Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Un error no corrige otro.
Idem Too many cooks spoil the broth
Demasiadas cocineras estropean el caldo.
Demasiadas manos agréan el caldo / la sopa. Turnabout is fair play
Pagar con la misma moneda.
Idem Variety is the spice of life.
En la variedad está el gusto.
Idem Virtue is its own reward.
La virtud es su propia recompensa.
? Waste not, want not.
Quien no malgasta no pasa necesidades.
El que ahorra siempre tiene. What goes around comes around.
A todos los cerdos les llega su día.
A todo chancho gordo le llega su día. What goes up must come down.
Todo lo que sube debe de bajar.
Todo lo que sube tiene que bajar. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Lo que es bueno para el ganso es bueno para la gansa.
Lo que es bueno pal ganso es bueno pala gansa. When in Rome, do as the Romans.
A donde fueras, haz lo que vieres.
Idem. When it rains, it pours.
Siempre llueve sobre mojado.
Andarse por las ramas. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.
Cuando el gato no está, bailan los ratones.
Cuando el gato no está, los ratones hacen fiesta. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
La gente con arrestos, se crece ante las necesidades.
Cuando la cosa se pone fea, más ganas hay que ponerle.

4. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross-Cultural Communication
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Donde fuego hubo, cenizas quedan.
Idem. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Un error no corrige otro.
Idem. Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Demasiadas cocineras estropean el caldo.
Tantas cucharas en el caldo lo van a descomponer. Turnabout is fair play.
Que se lo hagan a uno, también es juego limpio.
Pagar con la misma moneda.
Samovar, L., Porter, R., & McDaniel, E. (2010). Communication between Cultures.
Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning
Russian Social State University. (n.d.). Proverbs in Language Teaching. Retrieved
on 2014, May 30 from http://www.rusnauka.com/7_NITSB_2013/Philologia/1_130648.doc.htm
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