exploring culture
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Exploring Culture
By:Amirhamid Forough Ameri
ahfameri@gmail.com
Feb. 2016
Exploring Culture
As teachers we have two responsibilities:
1. To familiarize students with their new target culture and language
2. To be aware of the impact culture has on our students’ daily lives
Tips for Exploring Culture
1. Have students articulate their own definition of culture2. Raise culture to a conscious level3. Point out the hidden aspects of culture4. Show how cultures may value the same thing differently5. Help students understand how culture works6. Build awareness about stress caused by cultural adjustment
Tips for Exploring Culture
1. Have students articulate their own definition of culture Students have different ways of explaining what culture means to
them. It is helpful to have students describe what they think culture is. What the research saysCulture is a dynamic concept, an ever-changing phenomenon.The following disciplines have contributed to our understanding of
culture: anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, and communication.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Three features of culture: Its historical dimension Its interdependency of components Its complex nature Three interrelated components of culture:Products or artifactsPractices or actionsPerspectives or meanings.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Robert Kohls (1996) offers this comprehensive definition: Culture = an integrated system of learned behavior patterns that are characteristics of the members of any given society. Culture refers to the total way of life of particular groups of people including everything they think, say, do, and make. Culture is learned and transmitted from generation to generation.
There is no firm agreement on a definition of culture.
Tips for Exploring Culture
What the teacher can do Help students by talking about how we have come to define
culture and how it is related to our own lives Help them to become bicultural as well as bilingual Use class activities that encourage them to articulate their own
ideas
Tips for Exploring Culture
2. Raise culture to a conscious level Often students are not conscious of how culture affects their
daily lives. Errors in appropriate cultural behavior can often pass
without comment. What the research says Atkinson (1999):
Culture had not been adequately addressed by TESOL profession in the 15-year period leading up to his study.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Damen (1987), a pragmatic ethnographer, sets forth six observable characteristics of culture:CHARACTERISTIC INTERPRETATIONCulture is learned Culture can be taught
Cultures and cultural patterns change Adapt to a culture, not just learn about it
Culture is a universal fact of human life No human group exists without culture. Cultural patterns are closely aligned to human needs.
Culture offers blueprints for living and values and beliefs to support it
Values and beliefs are linked strongly.
Language and culture are related and interactive Culture is conveyed through language
Culture functions as a filter between its possessor and the environment
Intercultural communicators need to be able to go beyond their own filters
Tips for Exploring Culture
What the teacher can do Introduce Damen’s characteristics of culture Use them as discussion topics Teachers can share their own stories about experiencing new
cultures
Tips for Exploring Culture
3. Point out the hidden aspects of culture Many aspects of culture are hidden below the surface, not visible. A teacher can bring these hidden features to the surface. What the research says Peterson (2004): Big C culture: classic or grand themes visible tip of an
iceberg or invisibleLittle c culture: minor or common themes invisible bottom
of an iceberg or visible
Tips for Exploring Culture
Tips for Exploring Culture
Big C visible culture:
LiteratureClassical musicArchitectureHistorical figures Geography
Big C invisible culture:
Core valuesAttitudesSociety’s normsLegal foundationsAssumptionsCognitive processes
Tips for Exploring Culture
Little c visible culture:
GesturesBody postureUse of spaceClothing stylesFoodHobbies
Little c invisible culture:
Popular issuesOpinionsPreferences or tastesTrivia and facts
Intercultural Competence: skills, knowledge, attitudes, and cultural
awareness we need to interact successfully with sb from another culture.
Tips for Exploring Culture
4. Show how cultures may value the same thing differently Many of us believe the behavior of our own family provides the
definition of NORMAL behavior. We assume our own cultures’ values are the norm and other ways of
doing things are strange.Example:Teacher: what do you think about the economic problems in Japan?Makoto: it’s not my place to suggest causes.Paul: they’re the result of poor advice.
Unspoken ideas about attitudes towards authority
and of being critical of superiors.
Tips for Exploring Culture
What the research sayso Beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes are fundamental elements
of any culture which affect people’s behavior.
Beliefs:Convictions of the truth of sth;
Specific statements people hold as true;
They vary inter and intra-culturally.
e.g.Religious belief in
the power of prayer.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Norms: Principles of appropriate
behavior which guide proper behavior in terms of what
members should and should not do.
e.g.
One’s work ethic.The importance of
group membership.
Values: Our feelings about the worth, usefulness, or importance of sth;
Our standards about what is right or wrong.
e.g.
Showing respect by bowing to
elders; avoiding plagiarism.
Mores: morally binding behavior
distinguishing right from wrong
Taboos: banned actions
Tips for Exploring Culture
Attitudes: Mental stances we take regarding a fact.
Feelings we show toward sthe.g.
People’s instant dislike of others who ‘’look like
foreigners’’
Attribution: How we interpret the behavior of others with
our own cultural lens. Our Beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes are
used to explain what we ‘’see’’.
e.g.
In some cultures people get a job
as they’re qualified; in
others, as they’re related to the
boss.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Ethnocentrism: Our tendency to consider our own cultural
practices superior to those of others, usually unconsciously
e.g.
Americans that regard themselves
as better businessmen than Latin Americans
Enculturation: The act of learning a primary
culture and becoming socialized into it as a lifelong
process.
Acculturation: The learning of a
supplementary culture when we deliberately learn about a 2nd culture as we are living in
the new culture, without abandoning our native cultural
identity.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Enculturation:A young immigrant who has lived most of his life in the US
calls himself an American and identifies with the American culture, yet his home life still includes beliefs from his native country.
Acculturation:A woman from the US who lives and works abroad for a
number of years continues to self-identify with her home country, though she is fluent in the 2nd language and enjoys its culture.
Tips for Exploring Culture
What the teacher can do:Help students see that Beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes are
part of every culture andthat different cultures value the same things, though it is not
always evident.Help students understand why others view the world in a
different way.
Tips for Exploring Culture
5. Help students understand how culture works Hofstede et al. (2002) categorize five dimensions of a culture:
Dimension ContinuumIdentity Collectivism IndividualismHierarchy Large power distance Small power distance
Social gender role
Feminine Masculine
Truth value Strong uncertainty avoidance Weak uncertainty avoidance
Virtue Long term orientation Short term orientation
Tips for Exploring Culture 1. Identity
Collectivism
Group rightsGroup-oriented needsDependence as a way to
promote cooperation within the group
We identity
IndividualismIndividual identityIndividual rightsIndividual needsIndividual goalsI identity
Tips for Exploring Culture 2. Hierarchy
Power distance: the degree of acceptance of the unequal distribution of power by the less powerful members of a culture.
In cultures with a small power distance, people value an equal distribution of power, equal rights, and the idea that rewards or punishments should be granted based on how a task is executed.
In cultures with a large power distance, people accept an unequal distribution of power, a chain of commands regarding one’s rights, unbalanced role relations, and the idea that rewards or punishments should be determined by factors such as age, rank, status… .
Tips for Exploring Culture3. Social gender role
It includes the question of roles for females and males. Traditional gender roles:
Social gender role: the degree to which a society reinforces the traditional male and female roles.
Men WomenForcefulTough
Materialistic
HumbleSensitive
Worried about the quality of life
Tips for Exploring Culture4. Truth value
Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which members of a culture feel threatened by situations that are uncertain or unknown to them.
If uncertainty avoidance is strong, the individual feels a powerful threat and tries hard to stay away from that.
Weak uncertainty avoidance cultures promote risk taking, whereas strong uncertainty avoidance cultures favor rules and laws.
Tips for Exploring Culture5. Virtue
Long-term orientation
Such societies stress social order respect hierarchy believe in collective face-saving practice long-term planning are centered on thrift focus on long-term outcomes
Short-term orientation Such societies emphasize personal survival respect personal dignity believe in individual face-
saving practice short-term planning are centered on spending focus on short-term outcomes
Tips for Exploring Culture
What the teacher can do: Teachers can introduce the concept of critical incident.
A critical incident offers students a brief story in which
some type of cultural miscommunication takes place. They read and discuss the incident trying to understand why the miscommunication
took place and how it could be resolved.
Tips for Exploring Culture
6. Build awareness about stress caused by cultural adjustment When students spend time in another culture, their adjustment to
the new culture can cause feelings of stress. Barna (1988) highlights potential stumbling blocks hindering
effective intercultural communication: Assumption of similarity
When people from different cultures first meet and each person wears similar clothes and speaks the same language, we feel a sense of confidence. Only by assuming that subtle differences do exist can our interpretation be adjusted.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Language difference
Misinterpreting nonverbal communication
• Components of language: vocab, grammar, idioms, slang, dialects,…• Sociocultural aspects of language also include cultural competence, or knowing
what to say, how to say it, when and where to say it, and why it is being said.• Sometimes we think we understand what is being said when in fact we do not.
• Gestures, postures, …, which are easily observable, are often misunderstood.• Time and spatial relationships, which are more subtle, are more prone to
misinterpretation.
Tips for Exploring Culture
Preconceptions and stereotypes
Immediate evaluation
• Rather than attempting to understand the thoughts and feelings of others, many of us all too quickly move to approve or disapprove of the actions and assertions of other people, which hinders open-mindedness.
• Stereotypes: overgeneralized beliefs that provide conceptual bases from which to ‘make sense’ out of what goes on around us. They are firmly rooted as either myths or truths in our culture.
Tips for Exploring Culture
High anxiety or ‘internal noise’:
What the teacher can do: Making students aware of these stumbling blocks Help them begin to develop empathy towards people who
are different from them.
• Anxiety is a basic part of the other stumbling blocks. • Being positive prepares us to meet these challenges energetically.
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