MEITT: English language teaching training via culture

1. MEITT: English language teaching training via culture Anna Niżegorodcew English Department Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

2. Outline Institute of Foreign Languages, Vilnius University 13th July 2010 TUESDAY 11:00-12:30 • Examples of diploma projects linking ELT and the target culture • Teaching English as a language of international communication (ELF) and culture (whose culture?) – some thoughts • Using English to familiarize speakers of other languages with one’s own and other cultures: examples from everyday life ( Texts and tasks from ”Mirrors and windows”)

3. Outline Institute of Foreign Languages, Vilnius University 14th July 2010 Wednesday 11:00-12:30 Using English to familiarize speakers of other languages with one’s own and other cultures: examples from literature a) Czesław Miłosz’s poetry b) Yuri Andrukhovych’s prose Summing up - English language teaching training via culture

4. Teaching English as a language of international communication (lingua franca - ELF) and culture (whose culture?) – some thoughts Two motives in dissociating English from the target culture: The actual mobility of large numbers of people The impact of minorities and immigrants

5. A tentative conclusion We should teach ELF users’ culture. L1 (and L2, L3 etc.) culture can be understood through ELF in a similar way translations are understood.

6. Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching culture • European teachers are generally positively disposed towards teaching culture. • However, they claim that they do not have enough time to do it in class. • If they teach culture, it is exclusively the target language culture. • Teachers focus both on everyday life styles and on high culture.

7. Using English to familiarize speakers of other languages with one’s own and other cultures: examples from everyday life • ( Texts and tasks from ”Mirrors and windows”) • a) Approaches of different cultures to time (pp.13-14: ”Going round the bend in Greece”) • b) Approaches to eating and drinking in different cultures (pp.20-21: ”What time is lunch?”) • c) Conversation topics in different cultures (pp.29-30) • d) Different approaches to education (pp.71-73 ”Taking a test in Hungary”)

8. Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (born30June 1911 in Szetejnie Lithuania; died 14 August 2004 in Kraków, Poland) – Polishpoet, novelist , essayist , historian of literature, translator, in the years 1951- 1989 in exile, to 1960 in France, then in the United States, in Poland to 1980 encased in censorship; the Nobel Prize in Literature(1980), Professor, University of California at Berkeleyand Harvard University, in 1993 he returned to Poland and lived in Kraków; Knight of the Order of White Eagle, buried in the Crypt of Merit „Na Skałce” in Kraków.

9. Yuri Andrukhovych Yuri Andrukhovych (born in 1960 in the city of Stanislavnow called Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine). One of the best contemporary Ukrainian authors. He writes prose, poetry, plays, and essays, and translates literary works. In 2001, he received the Herder Prize and the Antonovych Prize in literature. His works have been translated into many languages, among them English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Russian.

10. Summing up - English language teaching training via culture English language is in the process of dissociation from its target culture (British and/or American), and is encompassing different cultures, through its use by multicultural non-native ELF speakers. ELF can be used to familiarize speakers of other languages with one’s own culture. In this function ELF mediates between different cultures and English language teachers should be aware of their roles as cultural mediators.

11. Thank you!