Language and culture are inextricably linked, as language expresses, incorporates, and symbolizes a culture (KRAMSCH, 1998). Language is a social tool because it manifests social reality. Each linguistic community has specific cultural characteristics. These include the way people think, see, and perceive the reality around them. They also involve how they dress and relate to people, their family, their community, and the world.

Kramsch (1993) suggests that the notion of culture be studied in foreign language classes as a “fifth” skill. This should be done along with other language skills, like listening, speaking, reading, and writing. All of these should be integrated.

In this regard, democratic coexistence between cultures can allow them to be integrated without eradicating their diversity. Instead, it encourages the development of creative and vital potential. This potential results from the relationship between different actors and their respective contexts.

Through this perspective, the English language classroom becomes a space with a sense of morality. It also has a critical and political agenda. Teaching a foreign culture involves ideological issues. It requires teachers and their students to discuss, think on, and dialogue about the imposition of foreign values.

In this mean, Siqueira (2013) suggests adopting a critical intercultural ILF pedagogy to develop students’ intercultural communicative competence, as follows:

Source culture materials/activities (student’s mother tongue culture)

Target culture materials/activities (native-speaker’s culture)

International target culture materials/activities (other countries’ cultures)

Moreover, Cobertt (2010) argues that the integration of these five skills produces a set of competencies that awaken students and teachers to intercultural linguistic awareness, namely: a) constructing the notion of ‘self’ and ‘other’; b) interacting and building a sense of community; c) responding politically to the process of globalization; d) relating the behavior of others to their attitudes and beliefs; e) sympathizing with, respecting and valuing the beliefs of others.

Finally, based on the above ideas about culture in language learning, we believe that the English language classroom makes it possible to construct a plausible vision of language, culture and teaching, in line with some of the main assumptions for teaching and learning a modern foreign language recommended by the Curriculum Guidelines for Modern Foreign Language Teaching (PARANÁ, 2008, p. 56), namely ‘to be aware of the role of languages in society (and) to recognize and understand linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as its benefits for the cultural development of the country’.

References:

COBERTT, J. Intercultural Language Activities. Cambridge Handbooks for Teachers. Cambridge: CUP, 2010.

KRAMSCH, C. Language and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

PARANÁ. Diretrizes Curriculares da Educação Básica: Língua Estrangeira Moderna. Secretaria de Estado da Educação. Superintendência de Educação. Departamento de Educação Básica. Curitiba: SEED, 2008.

SIQUEIRA, D. S. P. POR UM ENSINO INTERCULTURAL DE INGLÊS COMO LÍNGUA FRANCA. Revista Estudos Linguísticos e Literários. Nº 48, jul-dez 2013, Salvador: pp. 5-39.