1) The document discusses how classroom cultures are influenced by both micro and macro social contexts. It examines how national culture, institutional culture, and classroom culture can shape student behavior and influence the effectiveness of different teaching methodologies. 2) Two perspectives are presented on the role of national culture - that it can either inhibit collaborative learning ideals or that local cultural norms should take precedence over foreign teaching methods. The document advocates considering smaller cultural influences as well. 3) Non-pedagogical factors like student interactions, identities, coping strategies, and power dynamics also impact classroom cultures in ways unrelated to lesson content. Appropriate teaching methods require understanding these complex social influences.

1. Presented by Ola Sayed Ahmed.
Appropriate Methodology and Social
Context by Adrian Holliday.
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2. Approach
v
Classroom
Micro Context
v
FamilyFriends
Other
Teachers
Macro Context
Resources
L1 L2
Relationship
To study the micro context by looking at the macro
one.
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3. Classroom Cultures
Interest Groups
Student
Groups
Teacher
Groups
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4. The Learning Group Ideal
SLA research from a social psychology point of view aimed to
design collaborative methodologies for the classroom that
depend on:
o normal human work behavior.
o Features within cultures surrounding classroom interaction.
Learning Group Ideal
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5. The Learning Group Ideal
The notion of optimum interactional parameters within
which classroom language learning can take place.
It sets the conditions for process-oriented, task-based,
inductive, collaborative, communicative English Language
Teaching Methodologies.
But this notion is based on a micro study of student groups. It
doesn’t look at the macro social factors, so it does not
consider how classroom cultures in different social settings
might react differently to English Language teaching
methodologies.
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6. The National Cultural Argument
There is growing literature on the influence of cultural
differences on the learning behavior of overseas students
in :
 The context of their own countries.
 The context of countries where the target language is
spoken.
Within this literature there are two norms:
1. Learning group ideal as the norm.
2. Host culture as the norm.
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7. The National Cultural Argument
Learning group ideal as the norm Host culture as the norm
 The cultural backgrounds of the
students are seen as inhibiting the
practice of learning group ideal.
 ‘cultural profiling’: an attempt to
describe common characteristics of
students from one particular country
or region.
 Focus on religion. E.g. Koran’s
influence on the way students from
the Middle East approach learning,
or Buddhism in India.
 Typology as a model to describe
basic cultural differences between
West & East concerning ‘learning’
 The local national cultural norms influence
what happens in the classroom whereas
the learning group ideal is considered
intrusive. This intrusion is seen as cultural
imperialism.
 Shamim (a teacher and researcher in
University of Karachi) noticed the cultural
influences of her students’ opposition to
the introduction of English language
teaching practices such as group work.
 She looked for new ideas in teaching in
BANA-published literature and applied
them intelligently. She found that
problematic.
 Shamim’s point of view is one of an insider
while Coleman’s in Indonesia and Miller
and Emel’s in Pakistan are ones of
outsiders.
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8. The Need to Consider Smaller Cultures
 Students behavior is not only influenced by national or
regional influences but also by a variety of cultural
influences such as classroom and institution culture,
which is important to consider in the search for
appropriate methodologies.
 Although national culture can be a major influence,
professional- academic communities transcend national
cultural boundaries and are influenced and are influenced
by international education-related cultures.
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9. The Need to Consider Smaller Cultures
While conducting an ODA-USAID project(Official
Development Assistance-U.S Agency for International
Development) in Ain Shams University , observations
about the ways in which diverse variables can inhibit or
enable the practice of the learning group ideal.
 National cultural traits or lack of resources.
 Responsibility and motivation.
 Conservative attitudes to education.
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10. Classroom Culture
• Students appeared to
prefer close proximity.
This ability to share
place and an overall
gregariousness seemed
fundamental in the
ways in which students
coped with large classes
of between 60 and 450.
• Informal group
cooperation to cope
with crises of scarce
resources. E.g. arranging
seating and the
distribution of lecture
notes.
Institution Culture
• Space sharing was
also seen in the wider
institute culture. For
example, a seminar
took place in the
room of the head of
the department who
was conducting
business.
National culture
• Informal co-operation in
the face of crises was
seen frequently in the
national culture when
seated passengers on
crowded trams held the
bags of standing
passengers to whom
they were strangers.
National Cultural Traits or a Lack of Resources
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11. National Cultural Traits or a Lack of Resources
The close proxemics, gregariousness and connected informal
co-operation of students could thus be traced to wider cultural
traits seen both in the host institution and the wider society.
National Cultural Traits Economic Variables
The severe lack of resources in
terms of space, acoustics,
seating, books and materials
and distance from the teacher.
Morain(1986:73) refers to the ‘high
contact cultures’ of Arabs, Latin-
Americans, Greeks and Turks as distinct
from the ‘low contact cultures’ of
Americans and North Europeans.
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12. Responsibility and Motivation
The teacher in the University of Ain Shams didn’t monitor his students, he
asked them to read for preparation, he didn’t tried to motivate the
students to attend and they attended despite boredom. This shows the
Students’ ability to take responsibility of their own learning and
motivation
Students didn’t expect close monitoring by the teacher supposedly
because:
 They see the role of the teacher as the fount of knowledge (Koranic
attitude to education)
 It’s the culture of large classes which is found in developed countries
such as Japan where there is no lack of resources.(International
education ideology)
Thus, students gregariousness and responsibility for learning were
partially influenced by factors that transcend the host national
culture.
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13. Conservative Attitudes to education
Students showed uneasiness or remained unconvinced by the
innovative methods and practices of teaching such as
discovery-oriented activities (having to think not to reiterate),
problem-solving, silent reading or brainstorming.
Preference of didactic instruction
 This could be associated with national Koranic culture.
 Or the common international view of education in which the
learning group ideal tries to connect target skills with those
outside the classroom in real life, whereas the more formal
attitude sees classroom skills as quite separate from real-life
skills.
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14. Conservative Attitudes to education
Students were so exam anxious that they wanted to learn superficial
knowledge for the examination. They had problem adapting to the
learning group ideal’s inductive approach in grammar lessons which
they found fun but inappropriate. They adapted more easily with
inductive approach when the lecturer was an MA holder. They insisted
on calling all their teachers ‘doctor’.
Preference of deductive methodology
 This could be an influence of the professional-academic culture of
the teachers and the norms of the host institution culture which is
exam-oriented and interested in teaching language theory more
than language skills.
 This might also be the influence of an international educational
ideology. Because this preference of deductive methodology is also
reported with regard to French students.
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15. The Problem of Appropriacy
 Dudley-Evans and Swales refer to a further ‘cultural’ problem of
discourse style with regard to Middle Eastern students. Arabic
and English have different rhetorical and organizational forms.
 We will try to see this problem form a discourse culture point of
view which correspond to a discourse community.
 In a multi-national Diploma TEFL class with 50% British
students, all parties seemed to have difficulty mastering the
academic discourse of English Language Education required by
their assignment. (argue their opinions and support it by
formalized references from their own experience or from
literature). Despite that features of academic writing are not a
product of national cultural differences.
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16. The Problem of Appropriacy
 Students from many parts of the
world find the British way
different from what they expect,
but they find it different in many
similar ways.
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• British students from other
academic discourse communities
such as literature, found it
distasteful that their writing should
be devoid of artistic expression.
It is where the student come from which determines ,alongside individual
motivational factors, the way in which the new culture is approached. The student’s
national culture will play a significant role but it doesn’t tell the whole story. E.g.
German & Indonesian students come from widely different national cultures but had
been influenced by professional-academic cultures that might have something in
common
The divide in English Language education is a BANA-
TESEP rather than East-West.

17. Non- pedagogic Factors
They are factors that have nothing to do with the
learning process per se, but affect the way in which
student groups behave. They are related to social
relationships within the classroom and their relation
with forces of role, power and status in the wider
society.
 Transaction and Interaction
 Coping Strategies
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18. Transaction and Interaction
Groups in the classroom culture may have covert,
interactional agendas other than the transactional
participation in lessons. i.e. student group and
individual groups within the student body can have
identities and agendas which are independent from
the agenda of the lesson.
“They will develop their own group dynamic and
this will be controlled by their own norms and
expectations” (Ibid:87)
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19. Transaction and Interaction
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Resources
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20. Transaction and Interaction
Within the host institution: each student will take on a
multiplicity of roles as he/she moves
 from one classroom group for one subject to another.
 Through informal groups(out-of-class groups) of eating,
clubs, playing and waiting in the corridors.
Within one particular classroom culture: students will be
members of one group with one culture for one type of
activity, and another for another activity.
 Each pair and group organized by the teacher will have its
own culture.
 Informal groups within the classroom with non-pedagogic
functions such as playing, sending messages, etc.
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21. Transaction and Interaction
A gap or conflict between the transactional and
interactional functions could be seen in secondary
schools and tertiary education in countries where
education is available for all. Because presence in
classroom doesn’t necessarily correlate with the
individual student’s motivation towards transactional
ends. E.g. students may attend for a variety of
reasons such as secondary school scores, family
preference, etc.
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22. Coping Strategies
 Coping with classroom and host institutional condition is
one of non-pedagogical student interaction. (Egyptian
undergraduates).
 American high school students cope with:
 Having to live in a crowd
 Constantly having their words and deeds evaluated by
others
 The sharp difference in authority between teachers and
students.
Coping strategies can be considered universals in lives of
educational institutes
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23. Coping Strategies
There are political and racist factors in coping. E.g. black
South American education where students and teachers
collude in preserving their dignity.
Interactional styles serve social rather than academic
purposes. E.g. chorusing gives the pupils opportunities to
participate in ways that reduce the possibility of the loss
of the face associated with providing incorrect responses.
Educational Oppression: oppressive distribution of social
power and knowledge where the teacher dominated the
lesson by nominating one student at a time and giving the
false impression of dynamism.
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